I am using Windows platform to setup a web based file share system. In more details, individual users could upload and share documents from web interface (content may be big document, like video files), similar scenario to Google Docs.
My current issue is how to make storage scalable? In more details, I have 4-5 front end web servers (to make a web server farm) and I want to know how to setup storage system to store uploaded files.
I want the storage to be automatically grow -- i.e. each web server seems to use unlimited disk space (no need to handle disk full issue); another issue is I do not know how to store files efficiently and reliably (e.g. if each web server has its individual separate storage, suppose abc.wmv is stored in web server A's storage, then if web server A downs, no one can access abc.wmv). Another trouble I can think of is, if I increase the # of front end web server, for the new web server, how to decide which uploaded files should be stored (shall I migrate some files from other web servers to the new web server)?
I am consider to use SAN, but I am not sure whether SAN could resolve all of the issues. I want to learn some best practices to handle this issue.
thanks in advance, George