Best storage for medium sized mail system?

[Andrew Hodgson]

Hi,

I would like to implement a mail system (Linux Scalix) with about
500gb of data. I am wondering whether to use local storage (I would
probably go with RAID10), or whether a SAN would be a better choice
for this purpose, which would also give benefits of being able to have
multiple boxes do the work.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.
Andrew.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi,

I would like to implement a mail system (Linux Scalix) with about
500gb of data. I am wondering whether to use local storage (I would
probably go with RAID10), or whether a SAN would be a better choice
for this purpose, which would also give benefits of being able to have
multiple boxes do the work.

What do you mean by "multiple boxes"? You can allways export
the filesystem to other computers, if you use a mailer
that is multi-computer capable.

Any suggestions?

Depends on how much you want to spend, I woudl guess. If
the SAN is also RAID10, then basic reliability will be pretty
comparable. However it is my impression that a SAN costs 3-4x
as much as the disks in it. The in-box disks with software
RAID cost 1x the disk cost. Does not make them worse or slower.
(If you use hardware RAID, stay away from Adaptec
and don't forget to stock a spare controller.)

The one benefit I see with a SAN box could be transparent
hot-swap. But for a mail server 5 minutes of downtime to
replace a disk is not an issue.

Arno