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For an ad agency, I need to find a good storage company.

There are some things to take in considerations :

  • Support for different OS (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows Xp/Vista) (if it matters)
  • Internal/External systems (through internet or with dedicated servers)
  • Redundancy (save on more than one disk and backups)
  • Quick transfer
  • Automation

Files to be backuped will mainly be PSD, AI files, and documents.

What should i need to know to choose a good provider ?

Any advises (if you know some to compare) (France)

Thanks.

EDIT :

Capicity is about ±2.5Tb

Budget is unknown, and open.

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  • How much space do you require? Will you need accounts for everyone?
    – gekkz
    Jan 19, 2010 at 16:20
  • Are you looking for on-site storage (in case someone deletes something important), or an off-site backup (in case your building burns down)? -- Your spec seems to imply both, but these serve very different purposes.
    – voretaq7
    Jan 29, 2010 at 16:44

2 Answers 2

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You need to tighten your requirements before you start talking to vendors. Here's what I'm drawing from your question:

  • You have a requirement for high-performance, low-maintenance network storage.
  • You want it backed up.
  • You may need redundancy, or you may incorrectly think that redundancy equals backup.
  • You have money.

IMO, it sounds a network attached storage system is what you should be looking at for a storage solution. I'd recommend talking to VAR or consultants who provide you with other services and see what they recommend. Any number of vendors can provide a solution for you, I'd think about service and support as a deciding factor.

For backup, you should look at a local tape solution or a cloud provider. The cloud provider will be cheaper, but restoring lots of data will take a long time. Disk to disk backup solutions are the hot thing today, but much of their value comes from de-duplication, and in general de-duplication isn't very valuable for audio/video/photo files.

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Most important question is your budget, after you know that you can go around and see what is out there on the market. You will want to have a more detailed opinion on how much space you need, what kind of performance is crucial for your business, what availability your company expects etc. After you have answers for these questions you can choose what kind of storage is the most appropriate given your requirements and constraints. There are many options to choose from, given that storage today is the single most important design aspect of an infrastructure.

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  • Actually, I think you're looking at it backwards. Generally, you develop requirements before budget, and then back off or compromise requirements to meet your budget constraints. You always want to meet your requirements as cost-effectively as possible. Never go shopping with the idea of "I need to spend X on storage this year".
    – rmalayter
    Mar 8, 2011 at 3:54

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