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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

iSCSI GIGe or 10Gige solutions

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Frank Cueto

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Guys, this is getting out of control here... I must have about 50-70TB's of data, that I need to have accessible 24/7.

I am looking into iSCSI for this solution, preferably on 10gigE.

Any of you have any experiences on this field???

Thanks!!
 
The only thing I can say is that you should for something like this go to an integrator and let them do the whole project. 10gigE is going to be big money, 1gigE is going to be slow. 4gigE is a compromise in many ways. As much as I hate it Fibre channel is still leading in the area. However depending on number of workstations check out CalDigits new SuperShare system, looks interesting but havent used it yet.
 
I just put in a Promise Xsan set up that could handle it but I would recommend sticking with 4Gb Fiber. Let me know if you want any information on how to set up a Promise XSan.
 
The new EqualLogic (now owned by Dell) iSCSI SAN units rock. 96TB in a single 4U rackspace with multiple 10G ports.

-sc
 
Steven, that sounds good. I could manage to put 10gigE card on all our workstations and one of those for centralized storage might work.

Thanks for the heads up.
 
Yes, I am aware of Fiber, we have several systems configured as such here, but I rather not invest in "old" tech. Also, seems 10gigE is going to become what GigE is today. ubiquitous. Who knows, maybe the new Mac pro's will come with it standard?

Anyhow, I BELIEVE (I could very well be wrong on this) that 10GigE is going to be way simpler to deal with, cheaper, and faster.

Anyhow, if anyone out there has suggestions for a centralized storage, that can be shared across multiple systems, all this without breaking the bank I am all ears!
 
Fiber is hardly old tech.
Based on the systems you have (Baselite, DaVinci, Smoke, etc) you dont want to cut corners on storage. Do it right the first time and you wont have to do it over again when you discover that the system is unreliable.

From my experience, storage is the one area you dont want to cut corners. It will make or break a facility at crunch time.

We invested a small fortune in a large 4GB Fiber Stornext SAN and I'll never regret the decision. It has saved our asses on every project completed since its install. We are now adding a 10gigE system on top of it.
 
Well, 10GigE didn't seem like cutting corners to me. Is it Iscsi That seemed like a bad idea to you?

It just so happens that we are re-wiring completely the facility, and kinda decided to skip the Fiber generation and jump straight to 10GigE.

Any insight from you is most welcome.

:-)
 
Frank Cueto said:
Anyhow, I BELIEVE (I could very well be wrong on this) that 10GigE is going to be way simpler to deal with, cheaper, and faster.
Click to expand...

Key word here is going to be. 10gigE is a very expensive solution at the moment. I would personally steer away from a copper based 10G-BaseCX4 ot 10G-BaseT system and that means going to a 10GBaseSR switching and wiring system which can start to really become expensive fast.

Saying that a 10G-BaseT system could work well for a small post house in many ways, I tend to look at things in a scalability manner due to previous experiences with enterprise storage. But if you were going to have a fixed number of stations and not veer more than 20% from that number in say 5 years a copper based system would be effective.

However you have the flipside of the support infrastructure around iSCSI and 10GB Ethernet is very Enterprise centric, whereas Fibre Channel is a proven product in the post production industry and your much more likely to get better support and understanding of your aims and goals from a FC provider/integrator than an iSCSI/10gbE integrator.

If you have a good in house IT guy/gal who understands the omplex nature of Enterprise Storage, I'd go with 10GBE if you are externally supported for IT I would go with Fibre Channel.

My 2c.
 
Frank Cueto said:
Well, 10GigE didn't seem like cutting corners to me. Is it Iscsi That seemed like a bad idea to you?

It just so happens that we are re-wiring completely the facility, and kinda decided to skip the Fiber generation and jump straight to 10GigE.

Any insight from you is most welcome.

:-)
Click to expand...

10gigE looks pretty good, we are just now looking at adding it as Autodesk requires 10gige for Red Rocket support on Smoke, Flame and Lustre systems...its still not cheap though. I should be able to offer more info soon, once we start designing our system.
 
digitalfx said:
10gigE looks pretty good, we are just now looking at adding it as Autodesk requires 10gige for Red Rocket support on Smoke, Flame and Lustre systems...its still not cheap though. I should be able to offer more info soon, once we start designing our system.
Click to expand...

I am EXACTLY on the same boat regarding the RR and Autodesk...
 
Very rough guide at the end of 09 was 4000 dollars per 10GigE port on installations over 100 ports. So figure roughly that now for a smaller install of under 48 ports.
 
Well, the prices I've been getting lately are WAY WAY lower than that!
 
Check out Dell's 10Gb 24 port switches.

We are getting them for significantly less than $1000/port. Actually I think it may be under $500, but that may be federal pricing.

-sc
 
And i was recently quoted around $500 per nic.
 
Prices for 10G hardware are all over the place at the moment, but it's steadily dropping. SuperMicro and Tyan will be supporting integrated 10G network ports on server boards later this year. Currently there are 10G NICs out there for under $300 and some are not too bad. One of my favorites is the SuperMicro dual-port adapter, which is about $330 from ProVantage right now. I don't think it will work in a Mac, though.. No EFI for network boot options on the Mac and I don't know if OSX would recognize it as a network device or not without specific drivers.

When considering 10G, where the price really starts to add up is the actual storage nodes or if you want managed switching hardware. 24-port managed switches can be as high as $2500/port and even more for larger switches, or stackable models. But unmanaged switches range anywhere from about $300 per port on up to $1500, depending on the number of ports and the internal bandwidth of the switch. It seems there are a lot of bargain 8-port switches out there, but theyr'e restricted to 20Gbps internal bandwidth. So it's great for 2 or 3 computers, but would choke if you actually tried to run all 8 ports.

2G/4G fiber, multiport fiber and Infiniband are all options to consider too. 4G fiber is essentially the standard for facility data storage and most SAN implementations. But 10G is price competitive with it now and will soon be cheaper. It also helps that it can run off commodity CAT-6 UTP wiring up to 250 feet and can push over 550 feet when using good quality CAT-6E wiring and compliant connectors. Belden and Liberty CAT-6E cable can be bought for $75 for a 1000 feet at wholesale. It's not like it's expensive stuff.
 
My 4k figure was an all in cost. Design, installation, hardware, cabling etc.

I would have to say that if your looking to pipe high bandwidth storage needs you need a high end managed switch with a lot of throughput.
 
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