[Box Backup] [OT ] - Products that connect many disk to a server?

[Ben Bennett]

I too am a big fan of linux software RAID.  I like the ability to poke
through the different levels of things from the OS.  I've used it to
save off one of the sub-disks in a failed RAID (remotely) to restore
when a good disk was swapped in.  (Shoestring budget didn't have
enough money for a spare IDE port in the box).  Also it gets you away
from the vendor-specific superblocks which ties you to hardware.

With the recent upgrades (background scans, bitmap for partial
recovery, RAID-5 and 6 resizing, etc.) the linux md stuff has become
really impressive.

Anyway... I have a bunch of PATA and SATA inside my large case.  And I
have a cheap eSATA 1-drive enclosure that performs well.  I've been
keeping my eye on these for when I need more space:
 - SATA Enclosures: http://www.cooldrives.com/sataenclosures.html
 - SATA Port Multipliers: http://www.cooldrives.com/cosapomubrso.html
 - Multilane SATA: http://www.cooldrives.com/multilane-adapter-kit.html 

	    	      -ben


On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 11:11:51PM +0000, Jamie Neil wrote:
> Tobias Balle-Petersen wrote:
>> What I really want to do is to attach a bunch of disks (8+) and run 
>> software-raid on my Debian server.
>
> I run software raid on most of my Debian servers. The only disadvantages 
> that I'm aware of are:
>
> 1) Not hotswap (although I've been told that it is possible given the right 
> hardware).
>
> 2) No battery backed write-back cache.
>
>> Any suggestions or comments on the subject from other bb-users?
>
> The system we were considering was a Chenbro RM215:
>
> http://www.chenbro.com/corporatesite/products_detail.php?serno=47
>
> Which holds up to 8 3.5" SATA drives in 2U, and a Tyan Tomcat S2925 
> mainboard:
>
> http://www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=169
>
> which has 6 onboard SATA ports and takes ECC memory.
>
> With 8*500GB drives (RAID5 with hot spare), an extra SATA controller, CPU 
> and memory, it comes to about £1000, which is 30p/GB.
>
> We're also considering the Dell PowerEdge 1900. It doesn't have caddies, 
> and it's much bigger (5U), but it's well engineered, can take up to 8 3.5" 
> SATA drives, and a base system with 2 (throwaway) drives will only set you 
> back £600, so once you add a bunch of third party drives it comes out to 
> about the same price. Space used to be an issue for us, but now it's much 
> more about power - it's hard to completely fill up a rack on a normal power 
> feed.
>
> -- 
> Jamie Neil | <jamie@versado.net> | 0870 7777 454
> Versado I.T. Services Ltd. | http://versado.net/ | 0845 450 1254
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