Well, I realize that this plan might not perform the best... and might cost a bit... but....
I was thinking... what if we built a minimal Domain0 server... and then used Network Attached Storage (doing RAID5 or somesuch) for the DomainUs...
See, what I am thinking... A) Easier maintenance... B) Easier expandability (out of room, add another to the network). C) Less wasted hard drive space (if the NAS unit handles the RAID for me, since FreeBSD doesn't do RAID5 yet).
What about the old server machine you ask? Well, probably convert that to be the CEO's new machine, since she doesn't have one yet.
Currently I am thinking of starting with 1 (or 2) of the Buffalo Terastation 1TB devices, in RAID5 configuration. According to Wikipedia there are two alternative firmwares for it... OpenLink and FreeLink.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that confuses me is that FreeNAS says it supports RAID5 and it based on FreeBSD... hmmm...
Then again, why not put a tiny Domain0 on each of these devices, and not actually have any REAL server hosting them?
In regards to Terastation vs. Terastation Pro... If you compare the Pro vs the Regular TeraStation, it looks like the Pro uses SATA drives and a faster processor so you would think that it might have better performance than my regular version???
ReplyDeleteTrustedReviews - Buffalo Technology TeraStation Pro 1.0 TB
ReplyDelete"Costs are kept down by equipping the appliance with a simple 266MHz PowerPC processor and a modest 128MB of SDRAM memory. It uses a Linux kernel which is implemented partly on 4MB of flash memory. However, the kernel is also distributed across a protected 100MB partition on each hard disk. Consequently, if you try and replace all the drives with your own the appliance won’t run and you also can’t buy the appliance without any hard disks."
http://www.trustedreviews.com/networking/review/2006/02/05/Buffalo-Technology-TeraStation-Pro-1-0-TB/p1