Buying NAS, cannot seem to find one with my requirements

[Zylawy]

Hello,

I am currently looking for a NAS device that will do the following:

-Storage capacity of at least 14T
-Can be stackable to expand
-Must be Hot Swapable
-Can do snapshots of its current system state with point-in-time backups
-Include continuous data protection software
-replicate to another NAS offsite
-Can do 2 way replication (even if the we have to make 2 volumes on each NAS and point back to each other)
-Block level replication
-Deduplication software
-24x7 support (optional) or at least good support when needed.

This device will be used 24x7 and will be moving 1T read/write per day roughly.

We looked at the ReadyNAS 3200 from Netgear, however they do not replication at the block level, or have deduplication software, so my job is to look for something with all of the above...... Does anyone know of a NAS device that can provide what I need?

Any help would really help me at this point.

 

[claykin]

You were on the right track with the Readynas 3200. You'll need to implement your own software solution for block level and dedup.

FYI, Readynas can be remote Agent for Symantec BackupExec. http://www.readynas.com/?p=2980

 

[kamina]

I'm curious what kind of software implementation you could create... What filesystem do the synology NAS devices run?

Something like a Netapp would support all of that, but it would cost a lot of money (especially as remote replication would require a separate license).

Otherwise you could see if Sun offers something as ZFS would support most of these features (and sun should have good support).

 

[Zylawy]

We were looking at getting ArcServ with XOsoft.

This would provide the deduplication we need.

What about a NAS that does block or bit level replication? Since one unit will be in the US and another in Canada, we dont want a change to a 1GB file to have to travel on the net work there and or back.

 

[claykin]

what kind of data are you storing on the NAS that you require block level?

 

[Zylawy]

We will be storing System State snapshots of about 10 servers

The changes to the system state will then be replicated to an offsite NAS. So if one little change is made, We wouldnt want the whole 250 - 400 GB file to be sent accross the network.

I know that ArcServ XOsoft does all this, however are there any NAS devices that can do what ArcServ dose (except for the actual backup of other servers).

Allow me to show you what we looked at:

Netgear ReadyNAS 3200
Quote - $4,999 (does not include the drives)

-Online backups (Snapshots) and secure offsite replication to another ReadyNAS system
-12 SATA II channels
- Multiple colume support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, Background sync and Smart Sync resume
- Hotswap disk
- Snapshot support for point-in-time backsups of the ReadyNAS system
- CDP (Continuous data protection) software for Windows and MAcintosh clients
- Replication to another ReadyNAS system
- 2-way replication from offsite ReadyNAS to In-House ReadyNAS

So the only additional things we need are:

- Block level replication
- Deduplication

(To get these 2 things with ArcServ will be about $3,100 for 5 server pack of licenses)

So in Short:
- 2x ReadyNAS 3200 = $11,297.74
- 24x drives $317.00/unit = $8,597.04
- 2x 5 pack ArcServ with XOsoft = $7,033.12
Total with 13% Ontario tax (I believe its at 13%):
$26,927.90

ALL PRICES ARE BALL PARK.

By having the deduplication and block level replication with the NAS we will save about $7,000. So even if there is a NAS out there that cost $7,000 or $10,000 with those options then it will be worth it.
(If we expand we will not need to buy more licenses with ArcServ)

Is there a NAS out there that does all of the above? and If so post a possible ball park price?

 

[claykin]

Maybe you are better off with Windows Storage Server 2008. http://www.microsoft.com/Windowsserver2008/en/us/wss08.aspx

 

[kamina]

Is there a NAS out there that does all of the above? and If so post a possible ball park price?

It seems you are wanting a lot of the hottest enterprise features, and most NAS manufacturers are not quite there yet. We do a lot of this on a secondary storage machine which runs opensolaris and zfs but it was set up by us and there is no (software) support.

I was looking for information on block level replication for linux and bumped into a spec sheet for openfiler which seems to support it in it's enterprise license. I did not see a mention on deduplication though, and have absolutely no experience on the product or quality of support.

 

[Zylawy]

Maybe you are better off with Windows Storage Server 2008. http://www.microsoft.com/Windowsserver2008/en/us/wss08.aspx

We are currently looking into this, but it seems that in order to get Windows Storage Server 2008, you will need to buy the equipment as well, which now were into the $15,000+ price range for the space that we need.

 

[Zylawy]

I may need to do a little more research, but I think this may do:

http://www.transtec.de/D/E/products...e/Microsoft_NAS.html?mod=prod&name=NAS3316M-A

 

[claykin]

Have you looked into this http://www.areasys.com/solution.aspx?v=Windows_Storage_Server_2008

 

[Zylawy]

I have came across that.

Any idea on a price?

 

[Zylawy]

Too bad the only way to get Windows Storage Server 2008 is buy buying an expensive NAS/SANS device.

The cheapest one I came across for far was $4500 CDN (not after tax, or even shipping)

Anyone ever see this?

http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/

And you can buy the U4 case here: http://www.protocase.com

My project has now changed (again).

 

[claykin]

You're going to build your own solution? Where will you obtain the software to do the heavy lifting of data backup, dedup, delta, previous versioning, etc??

Maybe you should look @ www.crashplan.com. They do dedup, delta and versioning and you can use your own boxes as storage destinations. Maybe those Backblaze Pods can be your repository???

Too bad the only way to get Windows Storage Server 2008 is buy buying an expensive NAS/SANS device.

The cheapest one I came across for far was $4500 CDN (not after tax, or even shipping)

Anyone ever see this?

http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/

And you can buy the U4 case here: http://www.protocase.com

My project has now changed (again).

 

[Zylawy]

You're going to build your own solution? Where will you obtain the software to do the heavy lifting of data backup, dedup, delta, previous versioning, etc??

Maybe you should look @ www.crashplan.com. They do dedup, delta and versioning and you can use your own boxes as storage destinations. Maybe those Backblaze Pods can be your repository???

This could work so long as you use the "file storage server" as a dumb for everything:

http://arcserve.com/us/products/features.aspx?id=8282