SSD only Storage Area Network

[FlorinXCI]

Hello Guys,

 

I am thinking to build something similar to 24 ssd raid that Linus made.

More exactly i want/have to build SSD based SAN with the next features:

*Dual Controller

*Dual Fiber Channel

*Hot Swap Disks

*Storage Groups (Add Host / Add Lun)

*Server Grade (Enterprise) SSD's.

*Hot Spare

*Rack mountable

*I dont think it's the case for ssd's to have the next features: auto tiering, big cache, fast cache.

*Monitoring & Reporting

*Email Alerts

*User Management

 

Could you help me in achieve this?

 

Thank you,

Florin

[Belgarathian]

Hello Guys,

 

I am thinking to build something similar to 24 ssd raid that Linus made.

More exactly i want/have to build SSD based SAN with the next features:

*Dual Controller

*Dual Fiber Channel

*Hot Swap Disks

*Storage Groups (Add Host / Add Lun)

*Server Grade (Enterprise) SSD's.

*Hot Spare

*Rack mountable

*I dont think it's the case for ssd's to have the next features: auto tiering, big cache, fast cache.

*Monitoring & Reporting

*Email Alerts

*User Management

 

Could you help me in achieve this?

 

Thank you,

Florin

 

I'm not much help here, but could you please post a build log of this machine?

[FlorinXCI]

Since this is a project, i have nothing concrete yet. Still poking around.

[legopc]

Ehm... why? And you do realize that instead of buying this you could just get a sweet bmw m2 for the same amount of money

[Guest]

Ehm... why? And you do realize that instead of buying this you could just get a sweet bmw m2 for the same amount of money

Rofl.

 

Legit though, why are you building this? Generally it's not recommended to DIY a SAN.

[leadeater]

*I dont think it's the case for ssd's to have the next features: auto tiering, big cache, fast cache.

 

I hope you are meaning you don't need auto tiering since you are aiming for a single storage tier of SSD only, that feature is not applicable.

[leadeater]

-snip-

 

Looking at the requirements you have listed you will be very hard pressed to build a system for less than the major enterprise storage vendors let alone at the same quality and reliability.

 

Even if you took off the non essentials like monitoring, reporting, user management and just went at it for a raw numbers comparison versus the likes of Netapp or EMC anything you build is likely to fall short. They have to use optimised hardware and firmware to get the usable performance out of such high numbers of SSDs.

 

I'll also have to question your requirements as to why you even need this. There a better ways to spend this amount cash, nice car or a holiday. Unless you have an extremely I/O demanding use-case for all SSD just caching HDDs with SSDs will actually give similar levels of performance.

 

Do yourself a favor and buy from Netapp, EMC, IBM, Dell, HP, Pure Storage, Violin or Tintri etc.

[FlorinXCI]

Now to explain myself, i see you guys are wondering why i am doing this.

Long story short i could go for "I wont give a company name" SAN, the price is not really a problem and i am already using one at full capacity.

My aim is to pay the same price or less to build an SSD only SAN. 

For example i can get an Enterprise Kingston SSD for ~ 500 USD that i see really really affordable.

 

Once again, it's just a project. Checking out if this is achievable, nothing to lose.

[leadeater]

Now to explain myself, i see you guys are wondering why i am doing this.

Long story short i could go for "I wont give a company name" SAN, the price is not really a problem and i am already using one at full capacity.

My aim is to pay the same price or less to build an SSD only SAN. 

For example i can get an Enterprise Kingston SSD for ~ 500 USD that i see really really affordable.

 

Once again, it's just a project. Checking out if this is achievable, nothing to lose.

 

Awesome, just covering all my bases as it's always best to recommend enterprise storage systems first with these types of requests. I've to a lesser extent done something similar with my IBM x3500 M4 and went with all SSD. I'd be interested in updates as you go, would like to know how it turns out and any pit falls along the way.

 

What storage OS are you looking at using for this project? Paid? Free? I've recently come across Enterprise Storage OS (ESOS) and would like to know how good it actually is. I'm actually currently using Windows Storage Spaces, Microsoft iSCSI target and SMB3 shares, extremely impressed and very much looking forward to evaluating Storage Spaces Direct.

 

Before anyone starts the typical don't use Windows line for storage go check out the following Ignite video, if anyone thinks 1.1 million IOPS and from memory 5GB/s is slow then I have zero interest in talking to them.

 

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015/BRK3474

[FlorinXCI]

Awesome, just covering all my bases as it's always best to recommend enterprise storage systems first with these types of requests. I've to a lesser extent done something similar with my IBM x3500 M4 and went with all SSD. I'd be interested in updates as you go, would like to know how it turns out and any pit falls along the way.

 

What storage OS are you looking at using for this project? Paid? Free? I've recently come across Enterprise Storage OS (ESOS) and would like to know how good it actually is. I'm actually currently using Windows Storage Spaces, Microsoft iSCSI target and SMB3 shares, extremely impressed and very much looking forward to evaluating Storage Spaces Direct.

 

Before anyone starts the typical don't use Windows line for storage go check out the following Ignite video, if anyone thinks 1.1 million IOPS and from memory 5GB/s is slow then I have zero interest in talking to them.

 

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015/BRK3474

Probabli i`m going for Windows line. As for hardware i`m still poking around.

[FlorinXCI]

Mission aborted. We-re going for a solution from EMC again.