Archive for the 'Data Storage' Category

A guide to network attached Storage Devices for Backup

Published on 02/03/2010 in Data Storage and NAS. 0 Comments

The New York Times has put together a guide helping you find the best NAS storage servers for your need:

“… [a] NAS provides a central hard drive on which you can store, share and back up all files from multiple computers in the household. The NAS drive connects via an Ethernet cable to a wireless home-network router, which enables laptops and other devices equipped with Wi-Fi networking to use the drive wirelessly.

Unlike an external hard drive, an NAS device has a processor and uses its own operating system for storing and sharing photos, music, video and personal files.

…

Makers of NAS devices say home users primarily use the drives for data backup; centralized storage and file sharing among multiple computers; and remote access to photos, video, music and other files.

Most NAS drives enable families to create one consolidated library of photos, videos and digital music that can be streamed to high-definition TVs and other networked devices in the home. To do so, you will need a digital media adapter or a game console like the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 that connects to the TV.

NAS drives also have software that can be set to automatically back up every computer on the network. The software enables you to select files, folders and drives to back up, as well as designate the time and day of the week for automatic backups. You will need to install the software on each computer on the network.

A more sophisticated NAS device contains two hard drives and automatically maintains identical copies of data on each drive to help ensure foolproof data storage. The beauty of this setup, known as mirroring or RAID 1, is that if one hard drive fails, the information will be safe on the other one.”

For the shopping tips: A Guide to Network-Attached Storage Devices for Backup

FreeNAS installation – setting up Unison (video)

Published on 02/03/2010 in Data Storage and FreeNAS. 0 Comments Tags: .

Pox and Ragble explain how to use Unison to sync a Mac computer to a FreeNAS box.

Unison is a file-synchronization tool for Unix and Windows. It allows two replicas of a collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts (or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then brought up to date by propagating the changes in each replica to the other.

Unison shares a number of features with tools such as configuration management packages (CVS, PRCS, Subversion, BitKeeper, etc.), distributed filesystems (Coda, etc.), uni-directional mirroring utilities (rsync, etc.), and other synchronizers (Intellisync, Reconcile, etc)…. More


YouTube Direkt

FreeNAS installation – setting up rsync (video)

Published on 02/03/2010 in Data Storage and FreeNAS. 0 Comments

Pox and Ragble explain how to use rsync for mirroring data stored the FreeNAS Box. rsync is an open source utility that provides fast incremental file transfer.


YouTube Direkt

Step-by-step how to make a FreeNAS Box (video)

Published on 02/03/2010 in Data Storage and FreeNAS. 0 Comments

Pox and Ragble give an in depth guide for making your own Network Attached Storage device with FreeNAS.


YouTube Direkt

Build a Home Media Server with unRAID

Published on 01/03/2010 in Data Storage, RAID and unRAID. 0 Comments

Ben Long has written a post on PC World website on his experience with Lime Technology’s unRAID. It’s not so much about how to build a home media server with unRAID, but more an account of his (positive) experience:

“One benefit of digital media distribution is that you can store all of your music, movies, TV shows, and videos as data on hard drives rather than as stacks on shelves. But with higher-quality files and larger collections, that can still add up to a lot of storage.

Finding the right storage solution for your needs can be tricky, as you try to balance performance with expandability. Throw in the need for backup and network-wide access and things can get quite complicated. I was very surprised then, to discover Lime Technology’s unRAID, a DIY storage system that provides a very powerful, flexible storage option at a very low price.”

The rest of the article talks about:

  • The need for storage
  • Building an unRAID
  • Hard drives
  • Installing the Software
  • Why unRAID?
  • Using the unRAID

Why does Ben like unRAID?

“The unRAID offers a lot of great features. First, like a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive/Independent Disks) it combines multiple drives into a single volume. And, like several RAID formats, it has built-in redundancy. By incorporating a dedicated parity disk, anything you copy to the unRAID can be restored should a single drive fail.

Unlike many RAID configurations, though, you don’t have to expand the unRAID with pairs of drives. You can add another drive, of any size, to the array at any time. So, if you run out of storage, all you have to do is add another drive to the system, and that drive’s space will automatically be added to the total pool of storage.  [...]

Like the Drobo (and unlike most RAID configurations) if a drive in the unRAID fails, you can take it out and replace it with a new drive. The unRAID system will automatically fill the new drive with the contents of the old drive. Thanks to this redundancy, the unRAID system can survive a failure of a single drive. What’s also nice is that the data is not “striped” in any way–each drive simply has directories of files, so even if multiple drives fail, you can still retrieve your data from the surviving drives.  [...]

Finally, the unRAID system is extremely affordable. I had to buy a case, power supply, motherboard, and CPU, but I already had several drives. I simply took the drives out of all of my external enclosures, and some of the extra drives out of my tower, and put them in the unRAID box.

So, with the unRAID, I have a single device that, using current drive technology, can be expanded up to 38 terabytes, and allows for expansion one drive at a time, without losing any data, and without having to rebuild the entire system. All of that data is backed up, and the system can survive a single drive crash with no loss of data. Also, unlike a mirrored RAID 1 setup, half my storage is not used for backup. If I put in 10TB worth of data drives, then I have 10TB worth of usable storage.  [...] (continues)

Build your own Home Media Server with unRAID (pcmag.com)

iXsystems iX-N4236 Orion II Server Series

Published on 23/02/2010 in Data Storage and ZFS. 0 Comments

The Orion II Storage Server & JBOD Storage Expansion Deliver Unparalleled Storage Density With Redundant Cooling and Powerful Intel® Technologies

iXsystems have released the iX-N4236 Orion II Storage Server which is designed to handle storage-intensive tasks while remaining at an optimal temperature and drawing less power than other servers in its class. The Orion II’s powerful complement of features and light energy footprint create an ideal environment for ZFS implementations, virtualization, and high-capacity storage.

iX-N4236 is a high performance, high quality, ultra dense, 4U rackmount server designed to maximize your rack-space, while saving energy, and your overall storage budget. The iX-N4236 features a highly efficient (92% Gold Level) power supply, 36 hot swap drive bays and amazing redundant cooling. Performance is handled by two Intel(r) Xeon(r) 5500 Series CPU’s, and up to 144GB of DDR3 ECC Registered 1333MHz memory.

The Orion II Server sports dual, intelligent Intel® Xeon® 5500 series quad-core processors, making it a powerful, efficient storage platform. Each Xeon® processor saves power by automatically putting the CPU into the lowest available power state during periods of light utilization. Intel® TurboBoost Technology raises performance on individual cores based on the needs of specific applications, ensuring efficient allocation of resources and increasing overall system performance. This intelligent power management, coupled with ultra-high efficiency power supplies and optional low-power hard drives and RAM, make the Orion II servers top of their class in storage capacity, compute power, and density per watt.

Continue reading ‘iXsystems iX-N4236 Orion II Server Series’

How to avoid paying the high price of Cheap Storage

Published on 23/02/2010 in Data Storage. 0 Comments

Unbelievably inexpensive networked storage options have emerged, but it’s a case of ‘False Economics 101.’

PCMag has  a post advising how to avoid the pitfalls of cheap storage:

The proliferation of huge, cache-laden SATA disks in the consumer market has led to an ever-expanding array of very inexpensive networked storage products for business. More often than not, these devices offer both NAS and iSCSI SAN functions that, until recently, were found only in enterprise-class storage products — at a fraction of the cost. Are these ultracheap alternatives right for you? That depends on who you are and what you do.

A huge range of performance variables separate true enterprise-class storage products from their inexpensive pretenders. The most glaring is transactional performance. Most low-cost storage devices are based on a small number of very large SATA disks rather than larger numbers of SATA or higher-speed SAS/FC disks. These types of configurations will yield extremely anemic transactional performance, which would generally make them poor choices for hosting a busy database or mail server.

What if that’s not what you want, though? If you’re a small business without a whole lot of transactional disk performance needs or a big business that just needs a very large, low-cost parking lot for some big data, are these low-end storage devices a good option?

Carry on reading the article:  What does “Enterprise Class” storage really mean?

So be careful when you venture into the land of low-cost storage. Take a hard look at what your storage will be used for — and how it’s going to get fixed when it breaks — before you congratulate yourself for saving a dump truck full of money. Sometimes, the dump truck you know is better than the one you never saw coming until it ran you over.

High-availability storage with GlusterFS on Ubuntu

Published on 15/01/2010 in Data Storage and File Systems. 0 Comments

This tutorial shows how to set up a high-availability storage with two storage servers (Ubuntu 9.10) that use GlusterFS.

Each storage server will be a mirror of the other storage server, and files will be replicated automatically across both storage servers. The client system (Ubuntu 9.10 as well) will be able to access the storage as if it was a local filesystem.

GlusterFS is a clustered file-system capable of scaling to several peta-bytes. It aggregates various storage bricks over Infiniband RDMA or TCP/IP interconnect into one large parallel network file system. Storage bricks can be made of any commodity hardware such as x86_64 servers with SATA-II RAID and Infiniband HBA.

About Glusterfs: Gluster Storage Platform is an open source clustered storage solution. The software is a powerful and flexible solution that simplifies the task of managing unstructured file data whether you have a few terabytes of storage or multiple petabytes. Gluster Storage Platform integrates the file system, an operating system layer, and a web-based management interface and installer.

NAS, SAN, DAS or iSCSI? Which one to choose?

Published on 15/01/2010 in Data Storage. 0 Comments

Choosing the right Storage Technology for Your Organization

IT Professionals has a post with some background information on the most common storage technologies that are currently available: NAS, SAN, DAN and iSCSI. If you’re running a small/medium seized business this may help you decide which one is best for you:

Although the need for storage is evident, it is not always clear which solution is right for your organization. There are a variety of options available, the most prevalent being direct-attached storage (DAS), network-attached storage (NAS) and storage area networks (SAN). Choosing the right storage solution can be as personal and individual a decision as buying a home. There is no one right answer for everyone. Instead, it is important to focus on the specific needs and long-term business goals of your organization. Several key criteria to consider include:

  • Capacity – the amount and type of data (file level or block level) that needs to be stored and shared
  • Performance – I/O and throughput requirements
  • Scalability – Long-term data growth
  • Availability and Reliability – how mission-critical are your applications?
  • Data protection – Backup and recovery requirements
  • IT staff and resources available
  • Budget concerns

While one type of storage media is usually sufficient for smaller companies, large enterprises will often have a mixed storage environment, implementing different mediums for specific departments, workgroups and remote offices. In this paper, we will provide an overview of DAS, NAS and SAN to help you determine which solution, or combination of solutions, will best help you achieve your business goals.

Read the article explaining the differences and uses of:

  • DAS: Ideal for Local Data Sharing Requirements
  • NAS: File-Level Data Sharing Across the Enterprise
  • SANs: High Availability for Block-Level Data Transfer

IBM: Manage Data Like Cash

Published on 19/12/2009 in Data Storage. 0 Comments

IBM today released a report tracking the effective use of business analytics at successful businesses. The report, “Breaking away with business analytics and optimization,” said that all businesses can differentiate their performance by analyzing data better and by delivering insight to decision makers at all levels of an organization.

Those with a successful strategy “achieve both top and bottom line impact — especially important in the current economy,” the report said.

“Business school graduates understand how to manage cash but don’t understand how to manage information,” added Ambuj Goyal, general manager for business analytics and process optimization at IBM (NYSE: IBM) in response to a question from InternetNews.com.

More