NAS with AD integration

[Nonprofit]

Hi all,

Short version: I am looking for a NAS that will integrate with AD for the purposes of access security. Is this a standard feature in NAS units?


Long version: New to the forum, but long time site lurker. I manage IT for a medium sized organization that has had modest data needs for a long time. This is changing.... fast.

Right now I have a spare win 2003 box with a RAID1 setup acting as our file server. This includes all project data and home directories. About 250GB worth, and I'd say up to 10 people working off of it at a given time.

So basic stuff. But we are outgrowing this box, both in terms of the available storage capacity and (I think) in terms of its processing power. Things certainly seem slower now that we are loading it up.

I am considering moving our file server needs over to a NAS solution. However, and this will expose my lack of NAS experience, I really need a solution that will integrate with our AD so that I can assign access levels based on current AD accounts. Much like I can now with my win 2003 solution via a folders security properties. Is this a standard feature on modern NAS units?

Thanks in advance!

 

[00Roush]

I assume AD is short for active directory.

I know a few NASes advertise AD compatibility but I wouldn't say it is a standard feature.

Could you give a bit more information about your current setup? Cpu, amount of RAM, how old, speed of network... Just wondering as it still might work with a few upgrades.

00Roush

 

[Nonprofit]

Sorry about that! Yep, AD = Active Directory.

My current Win2003 server is a Dell Poweredge, 1.8 ghz, 4gb ram, 2 500GB drives in RAID 1

The network is a 100base Ethernet, with about 25 nodes.

At peak times I would say there are 10 to 12 concurrent connections to the server. It only serves files, so we are talking opening, editing, saving files.

We are running up against the storage limit of those drives which is mainly what has prompted this. But the perceived slow down in response time to open, edit, save files on this server also has me worried.

 

[valentin]

IMHO you would not find any NAS appliance powerful as the server you have now. Even though it seems quite old.

But you may build a computer to use as a server instead of the current one.
Use a gigabit network switch and adapters - it would give you immediate 2x - 3x boost in speed. And when you build a new server it would also have faster and bigger hard drives - so up to 4x or 5x faster than now.
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Ford pilot picture

 

[00Roush]

You could just replace those hard drives with larger ones. This would solve your storage problem. On top of that some new drives might help speed up file accesses.

If you don't mind me asking... how much data are the users moving across the network at a time? I ask because the 100 Mbit network might be the bottleneck as it can only provided a max of 12.5 MB/sec. Well real world would probably be more around 10 MB/sec. Just wondering.

The easiest way to find out where a bottleneck might be is to use the performance snap-in that is apart of Win 2003. Check the cpu usage, network utilization, and hard drive usage (disk time). If any of these are near 100% it could be a bottleneck. Let me know if you are not familiar with this tool and I can direct you.

Also as was mentioned upgrading your switch and server to gigabit can help a lot. Even if the rest of the network is still at 100 Mbit. This is because the server can now provide up to 125 MB/sec to the switch. So then if you have 10 users connecting at once each one would potentially be able to transfer at 12.5 MB/sec.

00Roush

 

[Nonprofit]

Thank you!

I am going to play around with performance monitor and will post back if I run into problems.

Great advice on the switch and the NIC. I will look at both of them immediately.

 

[Nonprofit]

Ok, so upon firther inspection...

The server does has a giga NIC, and is attached to a Dell giga switch.

Performance monitor looks solid in every department save one. Page Faults/sec. If I recall my old MCSE days, you want this value lower than 20. Yet this server is sitting in the 40 to 60 range, spiking into the hundreds.

All other important counters for memory, processor, disk and network are well within range.

I will say though, these drives are chirping in a way I'm concerned about. I mean, literally, physically, chirping. Sounds like the noise is being made on every read/write. If I run a defrag it sounds like a flock of birds. I wonder, is this normal with some drives or it behavior that suggests a problem?

 

[valentin]

I have had twice the case when drives start making noise. Both times the drives failed in a week.
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Dodge custom 880 specifications

 

[Nonprofit]

Well, this one has been chirping for half a year now. I could be lucky, or it might be nothing. But regardless, I am going to get on the horn with Dell and see what is up.

It is in a RAID 1 setup, so my hope is that if one drive is bombing out, the raid array will cover it while I get to the bottom of it.

 

[BriComp]

Hi,
I wonder if you are suffering from Fragmentation of your drives.
Every time there is a seek, especially on older drive designs ( by this I mean 2Yrs ONLY! ) you will hear some noise as the head moves.
If the drives are fragmented there will be much more head movement. This would tie in with the noise increasing if you try to defrag. It will also reduce the data throughput as the heads will be frequently moving to a new point on the disk surface rather than taking data off it.
I defraged the PC I use as a server recently and I recon the data throughput increased by 25% afterwards.

 

[Nonprofit]

I know this has drifted far from the original post, but I wanted to give an update.

I rang Dell up and we went through some diagnostics. The drives are not reporting any errors, and pass self tests.

I was told that if a drive was exeriencing mechanical troubles that would produce strange noises like chirps, that we would most likely see some errors.

Doesn't sound like there is much left to do unless I want to proactively replace them now.

I am going to update the system BIOS and the raid controller driver tonight, and run a full raid consistency check, as well as a complete self test on each disk. I don't expect finding anything to report back, if I do, I will. Thanks to everyone for the help!!


Oh, and if you would like to jump back on topic here... I'd still be interested in hearing opinions about AD integrated NAS's. Or, in learning how a NAS can easily achieve domain network permission integration.

 

[scotty]

Replace the chirping drives. Funny sounds are usually a big warning sign.

As others have pointed out, you likely wont find a consumer NAS that will offer as good performance as a regular server, albeit several years old. Given that the box is a few years old and serves a 'medium sized' business, I would personally be lobbying for a replacement, especially given how important file servers usually are in the first place. Having people's shared drives and home directories conk out on them isn't good. AD integration is somewhat common though, so you shouldn't have too many problems finding a NAS (should you go that route) that offers AD integration. They're pretty simple.

Something worth considering might be a good storage server 'NAS' like a DL360 from HP. They're fairly reasonably priced and run Windows 'Storage Server' 2003, so they'll pop right into your domain. To make transition fairly painless, you could look towards setting up DFS for replication purposes and slowly move people over to the new box without much/any disturbances. Servers like these are a nice middle-ground before stepping into SAN territory.

Although on that note, iSCSI SAN's are getting pretty cheap these days, so that might be something to look at. Last I checked (about a week ago), you can get a good entry level HP MSA2000 iSCSI SAN ranging from about $7500 to $10K. SANs make a lot of sense for businesses, especially with growing storage needs. Just a thought.