Yeah... I really should have listened to the local consultant instead of listening to Dell, but I made the mistake of listening to Dell when they suggested getting a couple large servers to handle everything instead of a NAS box and a couple "Pizza box" servers to handle DC roles. Now I'm having to go back and do what was recommended in the first place.
Thanks for your input, Richard. I will try and take everyone's advice to heart and learn what I can on my own. From: richardmccl...@aspca.org [mailto:richardmccl...@aspca.org] Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 11:34 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: SAN question When examining bells and whistles, and since you are intending to move user files to the unit... Be sure to get one which offers data de-duplication. That can cut storage needs considerably! (NYC HQ has it; we lust for it!) Be sure you understand how each "choice" handles snap-shotting. Above all, I'd say getting user files off the DCs is a must! -- Richard D. McClary Systems Administrator, Information Technology Group ASPCA® 1717 S. Philo Rd, Ste 36 Urbana, IL 61802 richardmccl...@aspca.org P: 217-337-9761 C: 217-417-1182 F: 217-337-9761 www.aspca.org The information contained in this e-mail, and any attachments hereto, is from The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals® (ASPCA®) and is intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may contain legally privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying or use of the contents of this e-mail, and any attachments hereto, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify me by reply email and permanently delete the original and any copy of this e-mail and any printout thereof. "John Aldrich" <jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com> wrote on 09/23/2010 10:12:28 AM: > I have not measured our file I/O, I don't even know how to do that. If you > can point me towards some tools I'll do so. > Current storage on our two servers is about 1/2 terabyte each, with about > half that full. Currently our only backup is to mirror the two servers > (domain controllers, etc.) I do not believe that we have sufficient storage > to migrate critical folders from everyone's desktops to the server, and we > are not hosting email in-house. We have about 85-90 users, and knowing how > no one likes to delete email (particularly sales folks) I expect that we > will need more storage. According to our ISP's server, we're using about 600 > megs. I know some of our sales reps have complained because I limit their > mail store to about 50-60 megs. I could probably limit it to 100 megs and > they'd complain. :-) > As to the number of "heavy duty" vs Light Duty, I'd guess somewhere around > 20-30 "heavy" users (mostly sales folks) and the other 2/3 are probably > 20-30 emails per day users. > I want to get the storage role off our domain controllers, and possibly use > the hardware to run VMWare and convert the DCs to virtual servers as well as > running our third "server" machine (Windows 2000 Server hosting our Time and > Attendance software) as a virtual machine as well. According to the work > load, the current DCs (Poweredge 2900 machines with dual quad-core Xeons) > are just loafing and I'd like to put them to better use. That being said, I > can't really do anything with them until such time as I have somewhere to > put the disk images, etc. > Email will most likely be Kerio Connect due to the cost constraints and > needed feature sets. Per Kerio, putting the email store on a SAN *is* > supported. > I figure I should have about 5 Terabytes useable storage to do what I want, > as well as leave room for growth, snapshots, etc. > > > > > From: Jeff Steward [mailto:jstew...@gmail.com] > Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 10:48 AM > To: NT System Admin Issues > Subject: Re: SAN question > > I'm bored, I'll bite. > > Like others here, I'm not convinced you even need a SAN or even NAS. You > can probably make use of DAS. > > To even begin to make an attempt to give you more guidance we need: > > How many users will be hitting the file server. > What type of file i/o are we talking about? Have you benchmarked your > current performance? How much storage do you currently have and how much do > you think you will need to meet anticipated growth over the next 24 to 36 > months. > > If you move to providing in-house Exchange, how many users will you be > hosting? How many are heavy duty users versus light duty? > > That's a start, answers to those questions will help us help you further. > > -Jeff Steward > On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:16 AM, John Aldrich > <jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com> wrote: > Ok, guys. I'm trying to narrow down my many choices with regards to our > on-going search for a SAN manufacturer. I'd like your thoughts on the whole > question of adding more intelligence vs just adding more disks. i.e. the EQ > vs LeftHand models. > > I can see arguments to be made for both models. I'll tell you that, > initially, the SAN is going to be a glorified file server, however, we plan > on hosting our email data store on the SAN when we bring email in-house > later on. I've already verified with the email vendor that I hope to use > that this is not a problem, so that's a non-issue. Other than that, the only > database we would store on the SAN would possibly be the database from our > Vipre install, although initially that would stay on the local storage. > > So, I'd like to see some discussions of the benefits of just adding a tray > of "dumb drives" or adding a complete controller along with the drives (a la > LeftHand.) > > I just don't know enough about the benefits of each model to know what would > work best for us. I'm hoping that you guys who are more experienced would > give me the benefit of your knowledge. > > > > Thanks, > John Aldrich > IT Manager, > Blueridge Carpet > 706-276-2001, Ext. 2233 > > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > --- > To manage subscriptions click here: > http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ > or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com > with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > --- > To manage subscriptions click here: > http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ > or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com > with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > --- > To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software. > com/read/my_forums/ > or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com > with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
