so I've got one machine I'm using as just file storage right now and I'm thinking of "retiring" another soon into the same sort of role, but I want to establish a single accessible file system with some level of redundancy since right now if a drive crashes I'm just screwed.

any suggestions, recommendations, experiences?

10/3/2007 1:51:54 AM

open filer


fat 32


RAID 1

10/3/2007 8:31:06 AM

You can cluster with OpenFiler too.

Although I'd just set up 2 of them independent of each other and map the network drives to another box, then use some 3rd party software to mirror the data between to two filers. Probably would be much easier and theoretically you could create a DR type solution instead of just clustering (because I imagine you aren't pushing enough operations to demand a clustered solution from a performance standpoint). You could use the nicer of the two boxes as the primary and then keep the second as a backup only.

And as GraniteBalls said, depending on how many disks you have, configure them in RAID 1 or 5 on each machine.

10/3/2007 10:11:58 AM

raid 5 ftw

10/3/2007 11:33:15 AM

what's the deal with openfiler? i saw it mentioned in another thread too. i looked at it briefly but couldn't figure out what's so great about it

10/3/2007 11:35:19 AM

file servers are perfect for :message_topic.aspx?topic=118820

10/3/2007 11:35:55 AM

^^ It's essentially a free OS that you can use on some old equipment that will give you a system with features people normally pay thousands of $$ for. Obviously your hardware may be a constraint and you need to know a little about configuring this kind of stuff, but in essence you can create a very bad ass storage system for next to nothing.

10/3/2007 4:36:19 PM

I've got access to the Datacenter and Enterprise Editions of Server 2003 via MSDNAA, and being more generally windows minded, are these a pain in the ass to set up and administer?

10/16/2007 2:29:56 AM

not really

i tried it out before i set up an ubuntu server with samba (i have to use *nix at school and needed some practice on administering a *nix server)

it expects a domain when you set it up...you dont have to use an AD if you dont want

10/16/2007 10:41:23 AM