Network Storage solution

[mik_se7]

I work in a school we currently have some Qnap NAS units but i have seen some online videos that suggest i might get more for our money if i do a self build storage server / NAS, I watched Linus do the server build based on the As Rock x99 WS-E/10G motherboard with an E5 2618L 8 core processor and i just wanted to get an idea if anyone else has tried this setup or could recommend alternatives?

 

I want to use this to carry out more frequent backups, currently doing every night with about 30 day retention doing backup's of updated files to save time and bandwidth, I use DPM server to carry out the backups and have the QNAPs attached as ISCSI drives to the server as the QNAP software wasn't reliable.

I want to build 2 of these one onsite backup and one offsite and i want them to replicate to each other or have the offsite do a backup of the onsite at least once a day so this is going to require a fair amount of space.

 

I backup a few Hyper V VM's, bare metal of the main server and about 6TB of data, i would ideally like to remove these from the server to reduce server load and have fast data access using 10GB ports possibly teaming them.

 

grateful for any suggestions, tips and tricks to get the best solution.

 

thanks

Michael

[Electronics Wizardy]

Why do diy here? id just get a new or used server here. Do you have a rack?

 

What 10gbe standard are you using? sfp+ or rj45?

 

Do you have a budget?

 

What os are you running on this server or want to run.

 

[Minbari]

On the cheap side with used hardware a device like a Dell R720 can be had for cheap and with an external controller card, MD1200 powervaults (and similar) can be added for huge expansion to a single server, without going down the complete diy route. For closer to diy, some supermicro superserver might work. I would personally stay away from using "workstation" consumer chipset boards and making whitebox systems from them. 

 

If you were hoping to end up purchasing new servers, a low power 1U HP G9 or Dell 13G servers can be had for very cheap with full warranties new. They can both have disk shelves added to them for gradual expansion of hundreds of TB as required. 

[mik_se7]

I'm running Windows 2012 R2 on the server and have 2 additional licences, ideally i would like to have the server, storage and backup at the school then the same off site in case of a disaster but it comes down to budget at the end of the day so having at least data storage or offsite backup off site is something and i believe its better to have our own solution rather than paying for cloud based solutions as we have a building offsite we can use.