Building iSCSI storage... someone help me out here...

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mattfinch

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Okay, so I currently have two Iomega StorCenter IX2-200 all formatted as iSCSI volumes.

Between them a total of 4 1TB SATA drives. They serve as the storage repositories for my XenServers.

Now, I would like to move these drives to a rack mount solution with a little more redundancy, but don't have a huge budget for this and I'm not really sure what to do. I thought about buying a normal server with some SATA bays on the front and using something like FreeNAS or open filer to do it, but I suppose it would be far simpler just to buy an existing storage solution.

Essentially I'm asking for ideas to fill this specification:

8-12 SATA 3.5" hot swap bays on the front (I'll be adding more drives later.)
2-4 Gigabit NIC's - 2 is good, 4 would be preferable.
Redundant power supplies - This is a must, it will be my only storage array for the servers and it's a real pain when they go offline.
Rackmount - 2-3U
All storage presentable as iSCSI

Preferable, although not required would be the ability to expand arrays live by adding more disks...

So, what do people think, I'm open to different ideas about how to go about this too.
 
mattfinch said:
Can't really go over £500...
Click to expand...

You will have to go used, and still will be tough.
The things that's going to kill you is
*8-12 hotswap bays
*redundant power supplies

that's going to move you into a pricier bracket unless you happen to find a cheap pull on ebay.

For instance
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/supermicro-2u-chassis-sc825tq-r700lpb-(-black-)

8 drive hotswap server case w/ redundant power supplies - £504.52 Inc VAT
you still need motherboard, processor, memory, HBA/Raid card (assuming this isn't including drives)
 
That's what I've been finding, I was expecting to buy used really... just wondered if anybody had any suggestions as to what manufacturers to go for when looking through ebay...

I was thinking about looking at 8 bay QNAP enclosures, anybody any experience with these?
 
That budget seems unreasonable for what you're after.

If you're a Microsoft shop, they've released a free iSCSI target for Windows 2008 that has been working pretty good for us so far.
 
A used HP DL180 G6 might be an option for you. There are some on eBay for your price.
 
ChrisBenn said:
You will have to go used, and still will be tough.
The things that's going to kill you is
*8-12 hotswap bays
*redundant power supplies

that's going to move you into a pricier bracket unless you happen to find a cheap pull on ebay.

For instance
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/supermicro-2u-chassis-sc825tq-r700lpb-(-black-)

8 drive hotswap server case w/ redundant power supplies - £504.52 Inc VAT
you still need motherboard, processor, memory, HBA/Raid card (assuming this isn't including drives)
Click to expand...

thats the case im looking at buying to build a new faster and more drive bay unit for my iscsi. Currently im using a Qnap 410U works awesome, but the future holds more data and more valuable stuff..

That supermicro case is awesome, its about 580$ canadian, just drop in drives & motherboard cpu ram & controller..
 
If buying a Supermicro case and using a Supermicro motherboard you can shed that DVD drive expense from the budget and you'll probably never use because their ip/kvm feature mounts ISO images over the network.

I have this case http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/3U/936/SC936A-R1200.cfm and even though they officially claim the X9SCM-F isn't compatible, it dropped right in. My only obstacle was fan headers off the motherboard for all fans and that was easily solved with one Y splitter.
 
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