distributed storage

[Yudong Tian]

Hi everyone!
    I'd like to hear your expert opinion on how to effectively use the
distributed storage
capacity of a cluster. Suppose you have hundreds of nodes, each with a local
hard disk,
thus the accumulated capacity is huge. Aslo you have large amount of data to
be stored.
How can we reliably take advantage of the storage on the nodes?
   I checked out PVFS. It is nice, but it seems to me the reliability is an
issue -- if one of the 
storage nodes goes down, the whole FS is not available (correct me if I am
wrong). 
CXFS and GFS are not our options because they cost $$. 
Any suggestions on how we can best use the capacity, while having no
problems 
when one or two nodes crash? 

Thanks.
-------------------------------------------------------
Falun Dafa: Truthfulness Benevolence Forbearance
http://www.falundafa.org 
-------------------------------------------------------
Yudong Tian, Ph.D. GSFC/NASA  (301) 504-5825

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