White Box ZFS Storage Server: Hardware Guide

From Genunix

ZFS is an impressive new file system for Solaris that avoids the complexity and expense of incrementally improved storage solutions.

You can build a white box storage solution with high performance SATA drives and Open Solaris compatible hardware. Your white box hardware can avoid the need for expensive RAID cards, Non-Volatile RAM, and expensive storage network switches.

Here's an example of a DIY ZFS server that will connect to RedHat Fedora Core 5 LAMP servers.

Storage Case: A case that can hold at least 6 drives.

Drives: SATA 2 3.0GB/S drives offer good price and performance

SATA Backplane:

Motherboard:

Network cards:

  • Intel Pro 10/100 cards will usually work. They show up as iprbN, where N is the interface number. Intel cards are cheap and do a nice job of offloading network jobs from the CPU.
  • Most 3Com 10/100 cards also work.
  • Most cards with Realtek chipsets work. Check the Sun HCL to be sure.
  • Intel Pro 10/100/1000 cards usually work.

Recommendations welcome.

8 Drive Bay SATA enclosure with the Marvell controller supported by Solaris.

See discussion:

http://sarovar.org/forum/forum.php?thread_id=1804&forum_id=1236

See this threads for hardware:

http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/2006-March/001594.html

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/Burly8RHS.php

http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg61_alumhotswap2-4-8rack.htm

See blog post:

http://uadmin.blogspot.com/2007/12/new-home-server.html

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