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Re: [PLUG] Review: Thecus N8800+ iSCSI NAS (Linux)
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Troy Sorzano wrote:
> Lee Marzke wrote on Saturday, April 10, 2010 10:58 PM
>
>
>> I'm in the process of replacing a Linksys ReadyNAS NV+ with the
>> Thecus N8800 2U rackmount NAS. In addition to being more expandable
>> the Thecus supports iSCSI for my ESX Vsphere environment. It also
>> runs on Linux on an Intel Celeron M CPU, and it is quite easy to get
>> root access.
>>
>> ...
>>
>> I've posted a review of the N8800+ and description of using rsync
>> and ESX below:
>>
>> http://plug.4aero.com/Members/lmarzke/thecus/
>>
>
> Lee,
>
> Thanks for the review. I am looking for a low cost ESXi compatible NAS/SAN for our production but non-critical apps. A true SAN is out of the question and budget. Right now I am using local storage on the ESXi server. For backups I am manually stopping the VMs and copying the files to a windows server share. This is not optimal or fun. If I use a Thecus N8800 could I improve my ESXi backup process? I understand the idea of "storage" but have never implemented iSCSI. Are you using rsync to backup your ESX VMs? If so, can it be done while the VMs are running?
>
> Thanks for any info.
>
>
Troy,
I've only tried the N8800 with one ESX host, but haven't run any production
VM's on it yet, as I'm still testing ( a RAID5 expansion is currently
estimated
at 35 hours to complete ) After I move my production VM's I'll post again.
For ESX backup check out a really neat product from PHDvirtual called
esXpress. It does de-duplicated backup of the VM's while they are
running to a
NFS or SMB share. With de-dup you only need 10% of your production
drive space
to keep 6 months of daily/weekly/monthly backups.
esXpress spins up several "Virtual backup agents" ( VBA's) to do the
de-duplication and
they store to a companion VM appliance that stores the blocks.
Restores are a matter of running a script that has access to the
de-duplicated file
share. No software needed for the full restore of the VM. You can
also restore
individual files without restoring the entire VM.
The price is $1000/host with unlimited sockets, and unlimited VM's,
limited to
4 VBA's
This does not require Vsphere Vcenter server, however it does require ESX
not ESXi. It's fairly easy to switch to ESX, but patching ESX
without Vcenter is
a pain. Vsphere Essentials was recently on sale for $500 for 3 hosts,
however.
(Disclosure: I'm a business partner with them, and do some VMware
consulting
for their clients. )
Lee
--
"Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion..." - Kryptos
Lee Marzke, lee@marzke.net http://marzke.net/lee/
IT Consultant, VMware, VCenter, SAN storage, infrastructure, SW CM
+1 484-961-0369 voice +1 484-348-2230 fax
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