Backup Server - White Box vs. HP/Dell?

H

hutchingsp

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 24, 2006
Messages
150
I'm planning out what to replace our backup server with in a couple of months time.

We do D2D2T with deduplication, so the basic requirement is a dual Xeon machine with 16-32gb of RAM and around 20-30tb of usable "bulk" space for backup data and around 500gb of screaming fast space for the dedupe database.

I'm thinking nearline SAS or even enterprise SATA for the bulk space, and I'm fairly sure even a single SSD is going to give enough IOPS for the dedupe database (the database backs up at intervals so it's not a huge deal if this fails).

I guess the dilemma is the usual one of support/compatibility but I'm debating whether to go with the likes of HP/Dell and just buy a Proliant/Poweredge and stuff it with disks, or whether to look at whitebox options as I think I stand to be able to customise a system much more.

Appreciate any thoughts.
 
If this is for business - I'd never look for whiteboxes - risk of of loosing data is not worth the risk of loosing the job...
I'd checkout Data Domain (now Part of EMC) products as they are experts in data dedup.
 
Thanks. I just need "dumb" storage as our backup software does the dedupe, so adding a DD (or similar) would just be a very expensive way of doing what we can already do.

I share similar concerns about it being for business use. That said, HP and Dell don't make it easy/cheap if all you want to do is stuff in a couple of SSD's and 24 SATA drives.
 
Give management both prices, whitebox vs higher ticket solutions. Then after documenting the pros and cons to management, let them make the decision of which way to go. If they trust your technical expertise you'll have nothing to worry about when either solution fails.

You may want to elaborate if you need to RAID the disks or if they can be standalone disks, physical footprint of the device, an OS choice, direct attach to something existing or iSCSI, CIFS, NFS, whatever, bandwidth needed into the box.
 
For the bulk disks I need multiple physical RAID sets, ideally around 4tb usable per RAID set, which will then be carved into 2x2tb volumes and presented to the OS as mount paths. There will also be a tape library which will be SAS attached.

Other than that, so long as it's rackmount that's about it. Oh, and Windows 2008 R2.
 
I bet for the price of an HP/Dell device you could build 2 whiteboxes. Then even "if" one fails you still have a backup.
 
Disks are usually the kicker. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those who expects to be able to stick a $50 home drive into a server and then complains when it fails after 2 months, but when you look at the price of Seagate Constellation ES drives and compare them to what HP and Dell charge for the same capacity, you do start to wonder where that money's going.
 
We went through this name brand vs. white box debate at work so many times I've lost count. It wasn't until I pulled drives out of a name brand server and showed some stubborn coworkers that the part numbers on their beloved "supported" drives was the exact same as the white box drives purchased from any number of reputable sources. For the price you pay in 4 hour responses across a number of systems you can stock spares and have immediate response. Now for one off systems or specialized hardware, rapid response times make sense.
 
We just virtualized our backup server. Using Arcserve backup with a jbod passed through to the VM for storage. The jobd is split into 2 arrays, one for the index, and the other for the data.

We build all of our servers at work. All SM chassis with SM motherboards. We have a few Dell and HP servers left, but we are replacing them with whitebox servers. We save a lot of money building our servers, we have never had an issue with SM hardware.

For example I just built our offsite backup server with the following specs.
SM chassis: SC846E1-R900B
SM mobo: H8DG6-F
CPU: 2x 12 core AMD opteron 6168 1.9ghz
64GB ram
24x 3TB drives.
Adaptec 5405z raic card
That server cost less than $10k, HP and Dell can not compare on price.
 
Check to see if there are any system builders in your area, they can provide the same support as the big brands but at much lower prices.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top