This post is a draft-in-progress. Needed to share the info so here it is – in unfinished form.
I’m currently starting my own software company and needed fast, reliable storage on the network at an affordable price. I wanted RAID-5 or better, multiple gigabit Ethernet connections, 10,000k SATA or SAS drives, and a linux (or unix) platform. It also had to be rackmount but stylish-looking, preferbly black.I concluded the most economical option was to roll-my-own NAS using Sun Microsystems Solaris and ZFS filesystem with RAID-Z, a software raid solution.
Why Not Buy One?
There is a number of 2-4 drive RAID-0/1 products emerging on the retail scene but I wanted at least RAID-5 reliablity+performance. On the other end, enterprise stoarge starts close to $10,000 and sky-rockets from there… In the middle there is a narrow class of entry-level rack-mount NASs for around $2000. Attractive at first, these boxes offer nothing but compromise when you peal back the layers.
I nearly bought a Linksys-NAS only to discover a forum full of 2-year old unresolved critical firmware bugs. The Buffalo Terrastation Pro looks solid but gets mediocore benchmark-scores. Most such solutions offer a single ethernet-port, proprietary RAID implementations and firmware etc. Your stuck with whichever operatingsystem the box offers, and locked into the network-protocals it supports. It gets dizzying after awhile.
Sun ZFS and RAID-Z
yadda, yadda, yadda…
The Chassis
2U Rackmount Server Chassis 8-SCSI Hot Swap
(temporary link).
So I ended up with this. By my own error I was expecting somthing with SAS/SATA connects; this has 80-pin SCA-SCSI harddrive connections with 68-pin SCSI to the host-controller. Turns out this is not the end of the world, and may work out better in fact.
Other Components
| Component | Make / Model | Qty | Price | SubTotal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chassis | ??? | 1 | $150 | $200 * |
| Motherboard | SuperMicro X7SB4 | 1 | $335 | $335 |
| CPU | Intel Core-2-Duo | 1 | $145 | $145 |
| Cable | 5 Plug 68-Pin SCSI | 1 | $16 | $16 |
| HDD for OS | 80 Gig, SATA-300 Caviar or Barracuda | 2 | $44.99 | $92 |
| Sub-Total | $787 | |||
| Harddrives | Seagate Cheeta 10k.6 147gig | 4 | $149 | $628 * |
| Total | $1427 |
(*) Some prices include tax or shipping in the sub-total.