Consolidating storage for 60-70 users Exchange/File & Print/SQL Server to a NAS

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Consolidating storage for 60-70 users Exchange/File & Print/SQL Server to a NAS

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Regs

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Snowflake

#209063 24-Apr-2009 17:42

lchiu7:
Regs:

also consider hyper-v plus scvmm or vmware esx (not esxi). both will cost you extra but can give you extra features around redundancy (only hyper-v with new windows 2k8 release due out is capable of live migration)

Out of interest what is wrong with ESXi? Fewer management tools but for two boxes and maybe 6 images, looks quite compelling from what I can see

Thanks

Nothing wrong with ESXi - it will handle FC and iSCSI i believe, just wont do some of the cooler things live live migration, clustering and load balancing

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#209066 24-Apr-2009 17:45

Mark: Hiya,
For your size, go NAS.

60 to 70 users is nothing in terms of I/O. Plus if you gofor a decent NAS box (EMC or NetApp .. even though I'm an EMC brainwashed person I'd say go for NetApp they are cheaper and easier to setup) you'll get iSCSI for free and VMware over iSCSI (and NFS) works rather nicely indeed.

NetApp also give you data de-duplication for free as well, so you can schedule that to trawl your data and save space.

I run a NetApp and its kind of a SAN and a NAS box depending on how you look at it. If you implement CIFS or NFS then its a NAS, if you use FC/iSCSI and LUNs then you could call it a SAN. The NetApp can do all of the above (depending on licenses purchased) so is a good choice in that regard.

I wasnt aware that the data de-duplication was free however... are you sure about that? If so then i better start looking at it! They also have "FlexClone" which is great for virtualization, but not in my budget :(

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lchiu7

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#209071 24-Apr-2009 18:50

Regs:

Nothing wrong with ESXi - it will handle FC and iSCSI i believe, just wont do some of the cooler things live live migration, clustering and load balancing

If the environment is relatively stable CPU wise, probably don't need to worry about those cool tools.

As for using a NAS, I would be wary of running Exchange with the mail store on a NAS drive since even with Gb ethernet, I can see issues on the LAN

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

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Snowflake

#209346 25-Apr-2009 22:48

Mark:
NetApp also give you data de-duplication for free as well, so you can schedule that to trawl your data and save space.

got me all excited, but for nothing. Its only free if you already license NearStore :(

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