Has anyone built their own professional/business class NAS based on
Adaptec 5xxx Series RAID + Edge/Fanout Extenders without using pre-built 1-4u rackmount 4-16 drive units.
I'm talking about connecting large multiples of drives up to the maximum per controller connector SFF-8087 or SFF-8088 using Extenders with SFF-8087 and SFF-8088 connections to add up to around 128 drives per controller connection.
Granted there would be a performance bottle neck were you to use a significant number of these drives in a single RAID array however it should be possible to combine the drives in multiples of around 16 drives having up to 8 raid arrays with 128 drives. It should be possible most of the time to garner respectable performance without issue provided significant sustained access is not required.
I'm not suggesting such a substantial sized NAS need be created but I would like to learn about those who have used Expanders, what issues they have faced in using more than 4 drives per port and how they built and configured the NAS.
Please note I am not interested in NAS built purely from motherboard connected drives or NAS based on SFF-808x to SAS/SATA Fanout cables or performance oriented RAID using costly SSD's exclusively.
For such a project I might set a budget of say around £1000 for a 12 or 16 drive system excluding drives consisting of:
-Basic No Frills Computer (excluding RAID controller) (£250)
-External Case and SATA/SAS Hotswap bays for 12 or 16 drives (£200)
-Adaptec 5xxx Series RAID Controller (£250)
-Edge or Fanout Extender (£300)
12-16 Low cost 1TB or 1.5TB SATA Drives might be added for a furthur £600-£750 approxiamately though one might consider adding drives in smaller multiples of 3-5 drives, perhaps creating up to 3 raid arrays using each 5 drives with one hot spare. These drive sets might be systematically replaced with larger drives as capacity rises and cost of larger capacities drops.
I would typically expect such a solution to be used both as a general fileserver, and as a form of network service provider (FTP, HTTP, SMTP, Virtual Machines, etc) and with iSCSI to provide storage to other computers, potentially replacing internal drives on other computers for OS and Database applications. Consider the potential to have an almost limitless number of OS boot onto a client PC, and be able to easily backup and restore the cleanly built OS.
For reference, A typical Rackmounted solution for 12-16 drives typically costs between £8000-£16000 excluding the computer and raid controller with limited storage from small SAS drives.
If no one has tried then perhaps Toms Hardware might consider this a challenge.
Adaptec 5xxx Series RAID + Edge/Fanout Extenders without using pre-built 1-4u rackmount 4-16 drive units.
I'm talking about connecting large multiples of drives up to the maximum per controller connector SFF-8087 or SFF-8088 using Extenders with SFF-8087 and SFF-8088 connections to add up to around 128 drives per controller connection.
Granted there would be a performance bottle neck were you to use a significant number of these drives in a single RAID array however it should be possible to combine the drives in multiples of around 16 drives having up to 8 raid arrays with 128 drives. It should be possible most of the time to garner respectable performance without issue provided significant sustained access is not required.
I'm not suggesting such a substantial sized NAS need be created but I would like to learn about those who have used Expanders, what issues they have faced in using more than 4 drives per port and how they built and configured the NAS.
Please note I am not interested in NAS built purely from motherboard connected drives or NAS based on SFF-808x to SAS/SATA Fanout cables or performance oriented RAID using costly SSD's exclusively.
For such a project I might set a budget of say around £1000 for a 12 or 16 drive system excluding drives consisting of:
-Basic No Frills Computer (excluding RAID controller) (£250)
-External Case and SATA/SAS Hotswap bays for 12 or 16 drives (£200)
-Adaptec 5xxx Series RAID Controller (£250)
-Edge or Fanout Extender (£300)
12-16 Low cost 1TB or 1.5TB SATA Drives might be added for a furthur £600-£750 approxiamately though one might consider adding drives in smaller multiples of 3-5 drives, perhaps creating up to 3 raid arrays using each 5 drives with one hot spare. These drive sets might be systematically replaced with larger drives as capacity rises and cost of larger capacities drops.
I would typically expect such a solution to be used both as a general fileserver, and as a form of network service provider (FTP, HTTP, SMTP, Virtual Machines, etc) and with iSCSI to provide storage to other computers, potentially replacing internal drives on other computers for OS and Database applications. Consider the potential to have an almost limitless number of OS boot onto a client PC, and be able to easily backup and restore the cleanly built OS.
For reference, A typical Rackmounted solution for 12-16 drives typically costs between £8000-£16000 excluding the computer and raid controller with limited storage from small SAS drives.
If no one has tried then perhaps Toms Hardware might consider this a challenge.