[Beowulf] Storage recommendations?

[Joe Landman]

Robert Horton wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm looking for some recommendations for a new "scratch" file server for
> our cluster. Rough requirements are:
> 
> - Around 20TB of storage
> - Good performance with multiple nfs writes (it's quite a mixed workload
> so hard to characterise further)
> - Data security not massively important as it's just for scratch /
> temporary data.
> 
> It'll just be a single server serving nfs, I'm not looking to go down
> the luster / pvfs route.


a) what network fabric (IB, 10GbE, GbE, ...)

b) roughly how many simultaneous writers ... large block streaming, or 
small block random?  How much sustained IO (MB/s) do you need to support 
your worker machines?

c) looking to build it your self or buy units that work?


-- 
Joseph Landman, Ph.D
Founder and CEO
Scalable Informatics, Inc.
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