Hi, I''m looking at using Linux as a NAS / SAN device, and would like some input from other''s who have done this before? How would it compare to commercial SAN devices, Thecus N8800SAS (http://www.thecus.com/products_over.php?cid=11&pid=177&set_language=english) or something similar to these? I would probably use hardware RAID 10, and could go with either SAS / SATA, and then probably offer iSCSI, Samba. NFS & rsync. In terms of servers hardware, well either Tyan / SuperMicro / Intel / Dell would be fine as well. But, my question is rather from a linux point of view, how would Linux compare to dedicated NAS devices, in terms of the OS managing the device? -- Kind Regards Rudi Ahlers CEO, SoftDux Hosting Web: http://www.SoftDux.com Office: 087 805 9573 Cell: 082 554 7532 _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Rudi,> From: Rudi Ahlers <Rudi@SoftDux.com> > > Hi, > > I''m looking at using Linux as a NAS / SAN device, and would like some > input from others who have done this before?For a different approach, you might look at NBD (ref: http://nbd.sourceforge.net/). That''s really more of a pretend SAN, in that it''s serving up virtual block devices over your network that the local machines can use as they sees fit (ext3, NTFS, raw database partition, ...), rather than offering network services (i.e. SMB, FTP, etc.). I haven''t tried it, but I see that OpenSUSE has included it in at least some of their recent distros, and they don''t usually include stuff in the base distro unless it''s pretty solid. Have fun. -Brian _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Many NAS boxes are just embedded linux appliances. I''m using a thecus 4100pro that''s just a busybox based minimalist distro that maps the disks to the NAS APIs. If you build your own it will probably cost more, use more power and be faster than the low end embedded linux NAS systems as they tend to be a bit underpowered. -Bruce On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 4:58 PM, Brian P. Martin <Brian@martinconsulting.com> wrote:> Rudi, > > > From: Rudi Ahlers <Rudi@SoftDux.com> > > > > Hi, > > > > I''m looking at using Linux as a NAS / SAN device, and would like some > > input from others who have done this before? > > For a different approach, you might look at NBD (ref: > http://nbd.sourceforge.net/). That''s really more of a pretend SAN, in > that > it''s serving up virtual block devices over your network that the local > machines can use as they sees fit (ext3, NTFS, raw database partition, > ...), > rather than offering network services (i.e. SMB, FTP, etc.). I haven''t > tried it, but I see that OpenSUSE has included it in at least some of their > recent distros, and they don''t usually include stuff in the base distro > unless it''s pretty solid. > > Have fun. > > -Brian > > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users >_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users