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Scenario:

Have 10 computers, each have 12x2TB HDDs (currently) in raidZ2 (10+2) configuration, so, in the each computer i have one approx. 20TB volume.

Now, need those 10 separate computers (separate raid groups) join into one big volume.

What is the recommended solution?

I'm thinking about the FCoE (10GB ethernet). So, buying into each computer FCoE (10GB ethernet card) and - what need more on the hardware side? (probably another computer, FCoE switch? like Cisco Nexus?)

The main question is: what need to install and configure on each computer? Currently they have freebsd/raidz2, but it is possible change it into Linux/Solaris if needed.

Any helpful resource what talking about how to build a big volumes from smaller raid-groups (on the software side) is very welcomed. So, what OS, what filesystem, what software - etc.

In short: want get one approx. 200TB storage (in one filesystem) from already existing computers/storage. Don't need fast writes, but need good performance on reading data. (as a big fileserver), what will works transparently, so when storing data don't want care about onto what computer the data goes. (e.g. not 10 mountpoints - but one big logical filesystem).

Thanks.

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For 200TB of storage, you'd be better off buying storage from a SAN vendor than tying to stitch 10 makeshift shelves of disks together – MDMarra Jun 3 '12 at 20:24
Does this 200TB volume have to be a block device, or just a filesystem with all the files in the one place? – Mark Henderson♦ Jun 3 '12 at 20:26
@MDMarra: Thanx for your advice, but here is currently existing hw. The question is about how to "stitching" them together. – jm666 Jun 3 '12 at 20:27
one filesystem - probably don't need a block device (you mean SAN?). Simple want one 200TB filesystem, where can store files without need thinking about: this file into the filesystem on computer1 this into computer2. Therefore not want 10 different mount-points, but one logical filesystem). – jm666 Jun 3 '12 at 20:31

2 Answers

up vote 8 down vote

glusterfs has striped volumes that could do this

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+1 to GlusterFS – dyasny Jun 3 '12 at 21:08
up vote 2 down vote

Ceph is a distributed object store and file system designed to provide excellent performance, reliability and scalability.

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