Help to chose NAS... Please

[bushidowarrior]

Hello all,

I really need some help with the selection of a NAS/SAN.

Here is a short list of the key things I can think of.

* Going to be using VMWare
* Need a backup system for the entire NAS/SAN
* Status vis iPhone
* SNMP

First of all I understand that the GBIT link is a bottle neck. I intend in the future to add a 10Gbit to a switch.

But I have other concerns as well. I really need help is selecting a NAS/SAN THese are the ones I have looked at.

I have about 3000 Euros to spend and these are the systems I have looked at, if there are other recommendations, please help. I will in the future buy a 10Gbit card and a switch with 10Gbit link and use 1GBIT RJ45 to the servers.

QNAP - TS-809U-RP
QNAP - TS-879U-RP
QNAP - TS-EC879U-RP

SYNOLOGY - RS3412RPxs
SYNOLOGY - RS2211RP+

I like the idea with the expansion of the SYNOLOGY.

My frustration, I have asked this question before not as in-depth. I understand the importance of IOPS, but people come back to me and say, you need to know how many iops you need etc etc.

Now I do understand that this is important, of course. However I would like some really result from people who have the above or similar SAN/NAS.

So now we come to the part when I state what I am going to use it for.

* I want to use VMWARE with multiple VM machines (HOW MANY CAN I HAVE)
* Going to use it to test software, build systems, etc
* Back the ENTIRE system on to an external storage device, so I can recover everything.
* Will have a portion of the system for a production server and once the server become to busy then I will move it to a dedicated server in the cloud (rented server)
* Use to store videos (Is it possible to edit from the SAN/NAS directly???)
* Storing all my work, etc, basic stuff
* ISCSI for VMWARE is ESSENTIAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reading reviews on the Internet have confused the hell out of me because some people say SYNOLOGY and other QNAP etc.

But what I really want is someone to say, "Hi. I use a ****** and I have 3 ESIX 5 servers with over 30VM machines, they are partial busy and it works well, however I did need to upgrade the RAM bla bla bla".

So please can anyone help.

 

[GhislainG]

Adding a 10G switch is nice, but the QNAP TS-809U-RP and the SYNOLOGY RS2211RP+ shouldn't be on your list as they don't seem to support that option. In addition, you probably want USB 3.0 or eSATA for external backups. The other NAS on your list should provide similar performance if the same hard disks are installed.

I want to use VMWARE with multiple VM machines (HOW MANY CAN I HAVE)

What servers will you use and what are their specs? The more processing power and memory, the more VMs you can have. Knowing how much disk access those servers will require also is very important. Your VMware servers will be limited to Gigabit, but how many interfaces will be used? Some servers include several Gigabit interfaces and more can be added if need be (though 10G is preferable).

 

[frombehind]

Err, what GhislainG is partially correct. The synology boxes you are looking at, dont suport the 10gig... BUT they have very similar models that do - look on their website. There are a few of their high-end models that take an extra intel 10gig ethernet card, you use that in addition to the several 4 gig ports already on your nas.

I cant speak for QNAP, but I have been somewhat of a synology fanboy over the last several years. Just added a 12 bay nas of theirs to my collection of 4 other smaller units =)

As far as the VMware stuff goes, there are options in the configs, even of the older units that allow you to configure all that stuff. Im going out on a limb here to guess that you have a decent cisco switch backbone for all your networking stuff?

If so, you can do a port-channel on you 2 ports of the NAS and bind them both to a single IP (there are 4 ports, and possibly 2 more additional ones from that addin 10gig card on a higher end NAS). I am currently working with a pretty large VM infrastructure (~25 VMs, about 10,000 users on the network)... our SAN's are in the HUNDREDS of thousands dollars cattegory, and linked to our VM servers with 4gig fiber. However, the usage on these fiber links RARELY exceeds 1 gigabit usage... so in all honesty, we coulda been just fine with 1 gig ethernet, and I am sure you will be too.

But thats what I do at work... At home I use my Synology's to share out my, err, "aquired" content to a network of maybe 15-20 users. It runs just fine under raid 5 and I have seen it handle 5 streams of 1080P video just fine - while at the same time i was moving files around on it.

Well, best of luck with whatever you choose to go with =]

 

[GhislainG]

Err, what GhislainG is partially correct. The synology boxes you are looking at, dont suport the 10gig...

To be honest, I wrote that the SYNOLOGY RS2211RP+ doesn't. I never wrote that both don't support 10G.

 

[bushidowarrior]

Err, what GhislainG is partially correct. The synology boxes you are looking at, dont suport the 10gig... BUT they have very similar models that do - look on their website. There are a few of their high-end models that take an extra intel 10gig ethernet card, you use that in addition to the several 4 gig ports already on your nas.

I cant speak for QNAP, but I have been somewhat of a synology fanboy over the last several years. Just added a 12 bay nas of theirs to my collection of 4 other smaller units =)

As far as the VMware stuff goes, there are options in the configs, even of the older units that allow you to configure all that stuff. Im going out on a limb here to guess that you have a decent cisco switch backbone for all your networking stuff?

If so, you can do a port-channel on you 2 ports of the NAS and bind them both to a single IP (there are 4 ports, and possibly 2 more additional ones from that addin 10gig card on a higher end NAS). I am currently working with a pretty large VM infrastructure (~25 VMs, about 10,000 users on the network)... our SAN's are in the HUNDREDS of thousands dollars cattegory, and linked to our VM servers with 4gig fiber. However, the usage on these fiber links RARELY exceeds 1 gigabit usage... so in all honesty, we coulda been just fine with 1 gig ethernet, and I am sure you will be too.

But thats what I do at work... At home I use my Synology's to share out my, err, "aquired" content to a network of maybe 15-20 users. It runs just fine under raid 5 and I have seen it handle 5 streams of 1080P video just fine - while at the same time i was moving files around on it.

Well, best of luck with whatever you choose to go with =]

The information you have here is good. Ok, each server I have has 2 x 1Gbit NIC, so I could team them through VMWARE, that will give me 2 gbit per a server.

Can the switch make THAT much of a difference, i have a GS724T. Could I use this???

So from a VM point of view the NAS will be sharing DATA and supporting the OS as well, I have a few Databases BUT I will use 2 bay with 2 x 512GB SSD in Raid 1.

I noticed that highend QNAP has quadcore but I think the same problem happens here, NONE of the NAS's have any HW/BC cache.... Correct me if I am wrong. E.g. the HP P2000 have the controllers which have 1gb buffer. Still need a little help to make a decision here. I like the synology because I get more bays and I can have extra synology rack added on for future storage..

Any more help

 

[frombehind]

Sorry, GhislainG...

I guess my post DOES sound like Im bashing yours, That was not at all my intention

As far as the Switch, It really shouldnt matter what you use, as long as you have the capability to do port channeling.

 

[bushidowarrior]

Sorry, GhislainG...

I guess my post DOES sound like Im bashing yours, That was not at all my intention

As far as the Switch, It really shouldnt matter what you use, as long as you have the capability to do port channeling.

Ok, great. My idea was to dedicate a switch to it, e.g. Netgear GS724T which has 2 fiber links,

Side question, is the the BIC that determines the fiber link, or is it a combination of the switch supporting the BIC speed, 1gbit, 4gbit etc.

Thanks

 

[frombehind]

Err, that particualr bit about the fiber is a bit beyond my area of expertese... I just deal with the gigabit Cat5... its always been enough for me =)

 

[GhislainG]

Ok, great. My idea was to dedicate a switch to it, e.g. Netgear GS724T which has 2 fiber links,

Side question, is the the BIC that determines the fiber link, or is it a combination of the switch supporting the BIC speed, 1gbit, 4gbit etc.

Thanks

That switch supports 1G fibre links only. Unless you already have a fibre backbone (not used on a home network), why would you need it?