We are an innovation company that is looking to create a fast, simple, and easy to use network. We are not IT people, and we don’t want to be. That’s why is so important to us that our network can be managed with ease, performs as fast as possible, and be low maintenance.
We need help establishing our storage architecture (which servers do we need? which software? which brand? which configuration? which drives?) in a way that will fit our current needs, be future proof, and is as close to worry-free as possible.
Goals:
Storage Needs:
Considerations:
Concerns:
I am attaching the way we see our storage needs in terms of tiers, showing how the relationship of size x speed x cost is. I am adding also a storage flow that shows how we believe the flow of our data needs to be.
Here is the solution that was initially proposed to us, by another consultants:
Tier 0 - Flash Storage (For VMs)
Tier 1 - Business Storage
Tier 3 - Backup Storage
Tier 4 - Archive Storage
What do you think about this configuration? Shoot holes in it! Anything that is bad that we are being suggested? Anything that we should be aware of?
What your configuration would be? What is your recommended storage solution? Drives? Servers?
Please share some insights, ideas, recommendations, advice, examples, anything - so frustrated and willing to pay for help.
We need help establishing our storage architecture (which servers do we need? which software? which brand? which configuration? which drives?) in a way that will fit our current needs, be future proof, and is as close to worry-free as possible.
Goals:
Needs to be easy to manage and worry-free (almost no maintenance).
Scale out easily, as we grow.
High performance
Reliable
Easy to manage user permissions, shares...
Have a simple way for us to get qualified support, when needed.
Work for Mac and Windows users seamlessly.
Allow our employees to work directly from the server, as if they were accessing the files directly from their hard-drive.
Storage Needs:
Virtual Environment - extremely fast storage, with high IOPS - for our VMWare hosts.
Business Storage - fast storage for our creative users (mac) and standards users (windows) with considerable size and made for accessing files like they were on the user machine.
Security Cameras - storage for 24 cameras, recording 1920x1080, 10fps around 10 hours per day, retaining the footage for 180 days.
DAM - database, index, caching… everything our Digital Asset Management solution will need.
Backup - everything that we own and operate must be backed up on a daily basis (even with hourly increments for some cases)
Archive - made to archive files that will be read not frequently.
BitBucket - a big storage so we can dump everything we want to, make sense of it, and move to a better place (or leave it there) - like external drives, old hard-drives, etc.
Long-Term Backup - a way for us to backup everything in a cheap but reliable media for a long time.
Considerations:
We are willing to pay more for a solution that has a brand behind and proven track record, if it makes sense.
Video storage will be dealt with later on. Our current solution works for our current needs. Will need to be revisited in the near future.
Concerns:
Having servers and hard-drives that were bought and custom build, having no brand to support it and provide any help when needed.
Every place we read says that FreeNAS should NOT be used in an enterprise environment.
Should we use SAS or SATA drives?
I am attaching the way we see our storage needs in terms of tiers, showing how the relationship of size x speed x cost is. I am adding also a storage flow that shows how we believe the flow of our data needs to be.
Here is the solution that was initially proposed to us, by another consultants:
Tier 0 - Flash Storage (For VMs)
Chassis: 1U SuperMicro
CPU: 2 Intel 4-core Xeon E5-2609v2
RAM: 128GB
OS: FreeNAS 9.3
RAID configuration: 2 2-disk RAID 10 vdevs
Bays: 8 (4 available)
Disks: Samsung 850 PRO 1TB
Usable Storage: 1.5TB
Max Storage: 27TB (adding 2 more JBODs)
Price: $6,350.00 ($2,823.33 per TB)
Tier 1 - Business Storage
Chassis 4U SuperMicro
CPU: 2 Intel 4-core Xeon E5-2609v2
RAM: 128GB
OS: FreeNAS 9.3
RAID configuration: 3 6-disk RAID Z1 vdevs + 2 hot spares
Bays: 24 (0 available)
Disks: Samsung WD RE 4TB
Cache: 2-disk read zil, 2-disk write zil (Samsung 850 PRO 256GB)
Usable Storage: 40TB
Max Storage: 2.46PB (adding 8 more JBODs)
Price: $11,704.00 ($292.60 per TB)
Tier 3 - Backup Storage
Chassis 4U SuperMicro
CPU: 2 Intel Xeon E5-1650
RAM: 256GB
OS: FreeNAS 9.3
RAID configuration: 13 2-disk RAID 10 vdevs + 4 hot spares
Bays: 36 (0 available)
Disks: Samsung WD RE 6TB
Cache: 2-disk read zil, 3-disk write zil (Samsung 850 PRO 256GB)
Usable Storage: 57TB
Max Storage: 475TB (adding 8 more JBODs)
Price: $24,977.21 ($438.55 per TB)
Tier 4 - Archive Storage
Chassis 4U SuperMicro
CPU: 2 Intel Xeon E5-1650
RAM: 256GB
OS: FreeNAS 9.3
RAID configuration: 13 2-disk RAID 10 vdevs + 4 hot spares
Bays: 36 (0 available)
Disks: Seagate Archival HDD 8TB
Cache: 2-disk write zil (Samsung 850 PRO 256GB)
Usable Storage: 160TB
Max Storage: 1.37PB (adding 8 more JBODs)
Price: $17,716.75 ($110.73 per TB)
What do you think about this configuration? Shoot holes in it! Anything that is bad that we are being suggested? Anything that we should be aware of?
What your configuration would be? What is your recommended storage solution? Drives? Servers?
Please share some insights, ideas, recommendations, advice, examples, anything - so frustrated and willing to pay for help.
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