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On 15/03/2010 18:21, Stroller wrote: |
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> It's hard to be more specific without knowing your usage. |
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Yes... I was deliberately vague to see what options came up... but I can |
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be more specific. The budget is miniscule - and the performance demands |
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(bandwidth and latency) are completely non-challenging. It's in this |
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context that I'm looking for reliability and availability... and I'd |
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like to have unix permissions working properly. Security is a moderate |
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concern - the physical network is secured - but there is a broadband |
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connection which exposes various services. |
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|
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> For storage of a "mere terabyte" you can buy a networked storage |
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> enclosure which will accommodate two drives. These are cheap, do |
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> mirroring, will accommodate standard 1TB, 1.5TB, 2TB drives, but are |
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> probably not too fast. |
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|
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A cheap NAS enclosure is a definite possibility - there'd be no |
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performance issue - though this leaves three key questions: |
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1) Will it support unix file-permissions and can I be (fairly sure) it |
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will be secure if someone hacks my Wi-Fi? |
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2) Will I be able to put the (majority of the) gentoo filesystem on it - |
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or will I need to have a fully booted system to connect? |
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3) Can I use two entirely separate devices and mirror to both? (I |
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expect the failure of the enclosure to be at least as likely as the |
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failure of a drive.) |
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|
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> If you build your own server you can use software or hardware RAID. |
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|
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Hmmm... building my own server - I've done that in the past, but my plan |
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is to minimize DIY with a view to minimizing the number of components |
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that might fail. Ideally, I'd have four devices - one with a CPU and |
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memory (the server)... booting from Flash or CD or whatever (+a |
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replacement in the cupboard); two separate boxes with drives in them |
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(mirrored storage); one (wired) Ethernet hub and broadband gateway. I'd |
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connect to the network from a separate desktop/laptop to interact with |
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it - either locally or remotely. |
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|
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> I wouldn't get too het up about Samba / CIFS vs NFS. Samba / CIFS can |
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> be faster than NFS, even in an all-Linux environment. Other times it's |
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> not. This seems pretty much random, depending upon whom is doing the |
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> benchmarking. On an intellectual level, at least, I find neither |
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> wholly satisfying - it would be really nice to have a Linux-native |
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> network filesystem that does authentication / permissions properly. |
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> But both do work. |
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|
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Well the 'server' will be running Samba - and it's the back-end storage |
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for that I'm trying to resolve. CIFS definitely looks problematic - |
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since Unix permissions for server data are one valuable separation |
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between publicly accessible services and my private data. NFS might be |
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OK (it doesn't "feel" great) - though I *really* don't want to move from |
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one server to two when I'm aiming for reliability. |
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|
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> I looked at ZFS, but decided that Solaris, from a look at the HCL, was |
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> too picky over hardware. I think ZFS is great, I no longer think it's |
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> the future. My selection of cheap hardware is far wider under Linux, I |
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> can install Gentoo and just `emerge mediatomb` and stream movies to my |
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> PS3. |
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I like ZFS, conceptually, though I don't like Solaris. I'm aware that |
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Apple have toyed with adopting ZFS and that it is available for BSD... A |
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*really* neat solution would be a (pair of) cheap NAS devices running an |
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appliance distribution of BSD with ZFS - exporting a NFS mount... |
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possibly over a VPN? Hmmm - I'm trying to avoid complexity, too. Hmmm. |