Really flexible storage array for multiple systems?

[heymrdj]

Due to my eclectic computer hobbies, I'm starting to see where it would be really sweet if there could be an external storage array that would let me easily move storage around on the fly, nearly in a cloud type situation.

Say this, a box, with room for like 24 hard drive swap bays, connected to controller(s). With this the box could be made to make multiple RAID arrays for multiple systems. These systems would connect to the other systems via some type of direct medium, more than likely external SAS. Here's an idea of the layout of what I would like, if someone can tell me a product that would support this, I would be much obliged cause I really feel it's time to invest in a good storage system.

Windows Home Server with a DE product. It needs to see disks directly. So I put a mix of 500GB, 1, and 2TB drives in this storage box and through some configuration, maybe port multiplication, I assign them to an available external SAS/SATA port. I connect my now ultra thin (1u server style, or even a dual server 1u box in the form of a dual atom box with 2 1u atoms) via that SAS/SATA connection. Now WHS sees those drives as if they were connected to it's own system. At a later time if I choose I need more storage I simply add more drives to the seen port and WHS sees them as if they were hot plugged in.

Another server in the rack, maybe a 1U or 2U quad socket with lots of RAM, as my esxi server. This server needs drives too. So I add some 1TB drives to the box, assign them to a new external port(s), and now the esxi box can see it's own group of drives.

I decide I need a Xen server, but it's more important data, so I built a RAID 6 array in the box, and ship it out to the server via another port, so now Xen has its own RAID 6 array running in the box.

So basically, its all about keeping storage consolidated, and making hard drives modular. If I need storage elsewhere, I can brake it out of a RAID array and push it to another group of drives and use it there instead. So here's the questions.

1. Does this tech exist?
2. If it does, whats it called?
3. Is it even in the reaches of affordability .

Thanks!

 

[Emulex]

use a vsa (virtualized) filer to dole out your goods. lefthand and emc celerra used to provide free (but not supported) vsa's to export your DAS as iscsi. You could use openfiler to dole out the iscsi as smb/nfs or windows storage server.

remember with iscsi you can raid-1/0/5 using windows server iscsi's so if you had two iscsi servers in the ceiling and in the basement with good connectivity you could mount them both and mirror two iscsi volumes into 1 raid-1 since the o/s sees iscsi as scsi drives. esx loves scsi/iscsi/etc.

the hp MSA products are DAS but they have san controllers so you can connect up to 8 sas devices at once. iirc they may have announced standalone switches which allow 16-32 devices - i haven't quite figured out how sas switching works but its been in used with hp bladesystem for a long time.

reliable iscsi export gives you some options but the cost is latency.

 

[heymrdj]

use a vsa (virtualized) filer to dole out your goods. lefthand and emc celerra used to provide free (but not supported) vsa's to export your DAS as iscsi. You could use openfiler to dole out the iscsi as smb/nfs or windows storage server.

remember with iscsi you can raid-1/0/5 using windows server iscsi's so if you had two iscsi servers in the ceiling and in the basement with good connectivity you could mount them both and mirror two iscsi volumes into 1 raid-1 since the o/s sees iscsi as scsi drives. esx loves scsi/iscsi/etc.

the hp MSA products are DAS but they have san controllers so you can connect up to 8 sas devices at once. iirc they may have announced standalone switches which allow 16-32 devices - i haven't quite figured out how sas switching works but its been in used with hp bladesystem for a long time.

reliable iscsi export gives you some options but the cost is latency.

That's not going to really do it for products like WHS that need to see the bare metal hard drives. Alot of things I would want to run won't accept ISCSI targeting, they need to run on basic drives. The goal here is to make it so that all the computers i need can run storage off of a flexible system. Something I was noticing kind of like it is called a RAID Subsystem. It appears though that each system needs a RAID card to interface it. I was hoping the the subsystem itself would handle all the RAID work (i know lots of higher end hardware RAID cards can run multiple RAID arrays), and from there be able to pipe the RAID array our (or a lv consisting of just a single drive) out via a external SAS or SATA port either on that RAID card or thorough a port multiplier or SAS expander.

 

[Nothinman]

I've heard of people running WHS in a VM and I don't know why it would need direct access to the hardware.

It really sounds like you want a big SAN and VM host to run WHS and whatever else, at least that's the most likely workable solution.

 

[heymrdj]

I've heard of people running WHS in a VM and I don't know why it would need direct access to the hardware.

It really sounds like you want a big SAN and VM host to run WHS and whatever else, at least that's the most likely workable solution.

A VM presents WHS with a disk it can understand. WHS won't install and run to ISCSI. It will run on a virtual hard drive that it sees as an actually hard disk.

 

[Nothinman]

A VM presents WHS with a disk it can understand. WHS won't install and run to ISCSI. It will run on a virtual hard drive that it sees as an actually hard disk.

It won't install to iSCSI but the data drives can probably be iSCSI.

But that's why I said a SAN plus a VM environment is probably the closest thing you'll find.

 

[ChrisBenn]

There are issues getting iSCSI targets to work with DE in WHS 2003 specifically (even as data disks). They work in vail.

You might have to go to a HBA level interface - fiber channel or an iSCSI HBA (broadcom, etc) - that would present the drives locally and probably work.

Otherwise WHS in a VM is the best way.

For really most other applications iSCSI will work just fine & do what you want - if you are fine with the ~100-120Mb/sec 1Gb limit (unless you are going up to 10Gb ethernet)

 

[Emulex]

odd. xp,vista,win7 have always alllowed iscsi data drives (Even with raid). now boot. i thought whs/vail all booted off DOM-like devices?

 

[heymrdj]

Seeing as piping out the OS drive is a fairly large task to ask for with no issues from any OS I throw at it, I might be stuck using one drive in each server. Right now my plans are to buy a SAN, looking at the HP, Dell, and Promisetrack arrays. With it I'm eyeing that 1U Supermicro Atom 330 server. It holds 1 3.5" SATA drive, or 2 2.5" drives. So I think I'll go with 2 value SSD's in RAID 1 in the atom server, running a file storage and backup OS, and connect that to the SAN via fibrechannel to use for my house's main storage (need about 8TB right now, and want to have room to expand to at least 16TB). The SAN's will replicate between me and my brother's homes hopefully and that will create a offsite storage solution.