[Gllug] SANs

[Steve Sims]

Hi Gang,

I've just been introduced to this list by a friend of mine who tells  
me that there's plenty of knowledgable sys admins on this list who  
might be able to lend me some advice.

The brief story is that I work for an on-line music store, and  
inevitably we have some big storage requirements.  Right now we've  
got a 2.5TB RAID array attached to a Linux server as our primary  
storage, but we're fast approaching our storage limit so an upgrade  
is in order.  This array is maxed out and can't be expanded, so it  
means a new box.

Getting another Linux box with a bigger RAID array would be one way  
to go from here.  A SAN though would seem to make more sense, since  
we could keep our storage unified and get an infrastructure that is  
more easily scaled up.

Now, our primary web and database servers are Xserves, and we're very  
happy with them, so the thought was to get an Xserve RAID, and run  
Xsan.  Whack a few fiberchannel cards into our existing servers,  
install the right client software, and then we'll be sorted with a  
much nicer, more scalable storage system.  Or so the theory goes.   
Unfortunately we're not in a "money is no object" position, but I  
think we can find the budget for the Apple based solution, or  
similarly priced option.

This is just a rough plan though - I'm interested to hear peoples  
opinion on SAN options.  How are they to set up, install, manage,  
problems, that kind of thing.

Thanks in advance,

Steve
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