We Multiply You
Solid State Member
- Messages
- 11
Storage Server at Lowest Cost
Hi,
I posted this in the "Hardware" part of this forum but didn't get any answer which got me to think maybe it is because I might have posted it in the wrong place, so I'm trying again here:
I'm looking for the technical answer for a need of mine that I hope could be brought by members of this forum.
I would like to build a huge "hard drive" at lowest possible cost per unit of storage. Each of these modules will serve as a big external hard drive for a server and exceed a capacity of 20Tb (their is no limit of capacity and the capacity will be determined by the optimal storage/$ ratio).
The only technical restriction is that the configuration should not limit the transfer rate of each physical hard drive (that is, for example, that the processor should be able to support maximum simultaneous transfer to each of the hard drives of the computer, or that the number of hard drives should not exceed the capacity of the computer to transfer data (if this "big drive" should be connected by Gigabyte ethernet, then there should be no more drive than 1000 divided by their individual transfer speeds in Mb/sec).
As you may understand, I have absolutely no computer knowledge at all and have no idea if what I'm looking for is even possible in a very cost efficient manner, but the big picture is building a big computer with as many internal drives as possible (or otherwise as long as it doesn't limit performance) and use this computer as a one big hard drive that is put on the network or plugged in via firewire 800 for example).
I have absolutely no idea what OS to use for this (the only OS I know is Snow Leopard Server which I know would do fine for this but which I cannot use because of the cost it would imply (I would need to use an apple computer with a limited number of internal drives which would cost be about ten times more per unit of storage than what I am looking for).
As of which internal drives to use for this I am open to any suggestion but I would be guessing a WD 2Tb Caviar Green which I believe is the second cheapest drive/Gb after seagate's counterpart which sadly has a very bad reliability as opposed to other seagate drives.
The idea is to have as much storage as possible for a price/gb slightly above the one of the internal hard drives themselves, without limiting their individual transfer speeds. With respect to cost, energy efficiency is regarded but only if this will make a difference of final cost after less than one year of 24/7 use.
Thank you in advance for your contributions. Feel free to make any suggestion and ask any questions if you don't really understand what I'm looking for.
Hi,
I posted this in the "Hardware" part of this forum but didn't get any answer which got me to think maybe it is because I might have posted it in the wrong place, so I'm trying again here:
I'm looking for the technical answer for a need of mine that I hope could be brought by members of this forum.
I would like to build a huge "hard drive" at lowest possible cost per unit of storage. Each of these modules will serve as a big external hard drive for a server and exceed a capacity of 20Tb (their is no limit of capacity and the capacity will be determined by the optimal storage/$ ratio).
The only technical restriction is that the configuration should not limit the transfer rate of each physical hard drive (that is, for example, that the processor should be able to support maximum simultaneous transfer to each of the hard drives of the computer, or that the number of hard drives should not exceed the capacity of the computer to transfer data (if this "big drive" should be connected by Gigabyte ethernet, then there should be no more drive than 1000 divided by their individual transfer speeds in Mb/sec).
As you may understand, I have absolutely no computer knowledge at all and have no idea if what I'm looking for is even possible in a very cost efficient manner, but the big picture is building a big computer with as many internal drives as possible (or otherwise as long as it doesn't limit performance) and use this computer as a one big hard drive that is put on the network or plugged in via firewire 800 for example).
I have absolutely no idea what OS to use for this (the only OS I know is Snow Leopard Server which I know would do fine for this but which I cannot use because of the cost it would imply (I would need to use an apple computer with a limited number of internal drives which would cost be about ten times more per unit of storage than what I am looking for).
As of which internal drives to use for this I am open to any suggestion but I would be guessing a WD 2Tb Caviar Green which I believe is the second cheapest drive/Gb after seagate's counterpart which sadly has a very bad reliability as opposed to other seagate drives.
The idea is to have as much storage as possible for a price/gb slightly above the one of the internal hard drives themselves, without limiting their individual transfer speeds. With respect to cost, energy efficiency is regarded but only if this will make a difference of final cost after less than one year of 24/7 use.
Thank you in advance for your contributions. Feel free to make any suggestion and ask any questions if you don't really understand what I'm looking for.