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Need to get a new server, I think.

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  • Business Computing
Last response: in Business Computing
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January 9, 2014 6:53:26 AM

Hey all,

I manage a small business network, with a domain controller, a file server, and an RDX 8 station backup system with 1tb drives, and just under 30 workstations. The problem is the file server, it is a Dell 1900, Raid 5, 3 400gig sas drives, dual processors, dual power supplies, dual NIC outlets, all in all a decent machine. Problem is we outgrew the bootable partition. We have a quote from a company that wants me to move away from the SAS drives and switch to Raid1. We are currently backing up about 500gig nightly and that number will grow. Is there any advantage to SATA over SAS other than size? Or Raid1 over Raid5? The Raid is only for in case of a hard drive failure. We are also planning on reconfiguring the Dell as a mirror backup machine. Is this a good idea?

Thanks,
Tim

More about : server

January 9, 2014 5:34:29 PM

Here's the question: Do you need the SAS performance? The main advantage of SAS drives is going to be throughput capabilities, but if you are just pulling small files and not anything crazy like huge HD video files or massive database files, then I think that SATA drives would offer you plenty of performance. A couple decent SATA 6 Gbps hard drives on a decent RAID 1 hardware RAID controller is going to be able to get about 150 MB/s of throughput which is greater than what a single gigabit ethernet port is going to accomodate anyways.

So, really I'd say that yes making the switch to SATA is going to save you money and be more cost effective. Put in two 2 TB SATA enterprise drives in RAID 1 and you have more capacity, less number of drives to possibly fail, and allowing for more future expandability.
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January 9, 2014 5:38:42 PM

choucove said:
Here's the question: Do you need the SAS performance? The main advantage of SAS drives is going to be throughput capabilities, but if you are just pulling small files and not anything crazy like huge HD video files or massive database files, then I think that SATA drives would offer you plenty of performance. A couple decent SATA 6 Gbps hard drives on a decent RAID 1 hardware RAID controller is going to be able to get about 150 MB/s of throughput which is greater than what a single gigabit ethernet port is going to accomodate anyways.

So, really I'd say that yes making the switch to SATA is going to save you money and be more cost effective. Put in two 2 TB SATA enterprise drives in RAID 1 and you have more capacity, less number of drives to possibly fail, and allowing for more future expandability.


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January 9, 2014 5:51:01 PM

Actually I do need every bit of performance I can muster. We deal in mass amounts of raw data that does not compress. Most of our files are prints and oversized tifs. I am not needing to host our site or our e-mail at this time, so my DC is just overkill. What I am trying to do is bring in massive amounts of raw data and still supply the needs of the users. I was told that the NAS would be proprietary and costly to support. At this point, the SAS is stronger looking and more cost effective. I could only find SAS at 650gb. Dell is quoting them at
2 tb.
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January 10, 2014 6:17:45 AM

It is true that getting the right SAS drives (10k or 15k rpm) drives will net you greater throughput, but it requires a lot more than just the hard drives to actually support that. Your main limiting factor is actually your network interface. If you only have a single gigabit connection you are using on your server for traffic, then that is only going to offer in reality about 110 MB/s of throughput total, which is less than a standard 7,200 RPM SATA hard drive. So even with SATA drives you are getting greater throughput at the hard drive then what you can get across the network.

My father owns a digital sign fabrication and design business, and their server hosts out files to about ten users and designers daily. They currently have data stored on an HP ML350p G8 server with the operating system and virtual machines running on two 450 GB 15k SAS drives, but all of the actual shared data is located on two 3 TB SATA hard drives in RAID 1. It offers more performance than they can really utilize.

If you want to go with high speed SAS drives for the throughput, you will also have to do some fancy stuff with your network to actually benefit from this. For example, you will need to start looking into using multiple ethernet ports combined in Link Aggregation (LACP) which also requires a switch that supports LACP, or start investing in 10 GbE ethernet technology which is thousands upon thousands of dollars.

I would agree not to go with a proprietary NAS for what you are needing to do. Use an actual Windows server. You will get better performance, flexibility, and ability to upgrade than with a closed-system NAS.
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