PART IV

Price Matrix Let's now calculate how much our superNAS is going to cost:
Item Name	Price
3ware 9650SE-12ML PCI Express x8 SATA II Controller Card	$734
Corsair CM73DD1024R-667 1GB DDR2-667 PC2-5400 ECC	$320
3ware Battery Backup Unit for 3ware 9650SE	$114
WD RE2 RAID Edition SATA Hard Drive, 500GB, 7200 RPM, 16MB Cache x 4	$600
AMD Opteron 2212 2.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket F Dual Core Processor	$255
TYAN S2927A2NRF ATX Server Motherboard	$302
Supermicro SuperChassis 745TQ-800	$620
Accessories (rubber rudders to prevent vibration, static discharge etc)	$50
Total	$2995

*Prices are the best deals available from various e-stores as on 05/15/2007

That did not seem very bad...looks like we are on target. We jumped from 2000$ to 3000$ because we assembled the stuff. If some billion dollar company made this, I'm guessing it would be around half the price, because of mass production.

Feature List

We can now officially announce the feature list of our fileserver! Combining all of the enterprise class features of the products that we used, we can state the storage server configuration as follows (the proud moment!):

Product Name: FS4V01
Form Factor: Tower / 4U chassis (178mmx452mmx648mm)
Processor: Standard: Maximum:	AMD Opteron 2212 Santa Rosa 2.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache 2x AMD Opteron 2212 Santa Rosa 2.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache
Memory: Standard: Maximum:	4 GB PC2-5400 667 MHz ECC DDR2 RAM 32GB
Storage: Standard: Maximum:	2.0 TB SATA2 (500GB x 4) 3.0 Gbps Hot Swappable 9.0 TB SATA2 (750 GB x 12) + 4.5 TB SATA2 (750 x 6) + 1.5 TB IDE(750 x 2)
Network Interface: Standard: Maximum:	4 GbE Ports + 2 GbE Ports/FC interface “
Expansion Slots: 3x PCI v 2.3 32-bit/33MHz slots
Power Supply: 800W Redundant Power Supply
Protocol Support: NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, FTP, HTTP, WebDAV
Authentication: NIS, LDAP, Kerberos, Local
Network Servers Support: DNS, Active Directory, NTP

Theoretical Metrics:

Maximum Throughput: 4Gbps (bonded 1 x 4 GbE ports, 802.3ad link aggregation)

User Base: 25

Maximum Raw Storage: 9 TB, optional 4 TB SATA + 1.5 TB IDE

Comparisons

As this is a hardware design in concept, the actual performance and user base have not been measured. The configurations and price are compared below. The performance data deduced, if any, is deduced from the configuration and empirical computations. Once the actual hardware is available, it can be subjected to various benchmarks and tests. (that is, if any of you are ready to fund me ;)... its just 3000 bucks, c'mon!)

Configuration Table:

Configuration	Our Fileserver FS4V01	HP StorageWorks 600 All-in-One Storage System - 3.0TB SATA	EMC® NS350	Sun StorageTek™ 5220 NAS Appliance	NetApp StoreVault™ S500
Price		$9,649.00	$47,000	$ 27,000.00	>$6,000
Processor	AMD Opteron 2212 Santa Rosa 2.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache	Dual Core Intel® Xeon 2.67 GHz/1333 MHz FSB with 4MB (1x4MB) L2 Cache	Dual 1.6 GHz Pentium IV	One 2.2-GHz AMD Opteron™ processor	Not Specified
Memory	4 GB DDR2 ECC Memory ( 2 x 2 NUMA configuration) 256 MB DDR2 533 ECC Memory onboard RAID chip	1GB/4GB Fully Buffered DIMM PC2-5300	4 GB 266 MHz DDR RAM	Two-GB DDR1/400 ECC-registered DRAM	DDR2 Memory (System RAM) 1024MB Nonvolatile SDRAM (NVRAM) 256MB – to protect in flight transactions for 3 days.
Form Factor	4U (tower or rack)	5U (tower or rack)	8U	NAS Head: 1U, Storage Enclosure: 3U	2U, 19” rack-mountable
Storage	2.0 TB: 4 x 500 SATA2 (Hot Plug)	3.0TB: 6 x 500GB SATA (Hot Plug)	Not Included	2.0 TB (8 x 250 GB) 7200 rpm SATA Disks	Not Specified
Maximum Raw Storage Expansion	9.0 TB (12 x 750 GB SATA2) + 4 TB(6 x 750 GB SATA2) + 1.5 TB (2 x 750 GB IDE)	3.0 TB	18 TB, 10 TBs usable, 60 disks of 73 GB and 146 GB 15K rpm FC drives; 73 GB, 146 GB and 300 GB 10K rpm FC drives; 500 GB FC 7200 rpm drives; 500 GB SATA II 7200 rpm drives	SATA: 24 TB (raw)/18 TB (usable, RAID 5 with hot spare)	6TB Up to 12 250GB SATA I and 500GB SATA II
Expansion slots	(3) PCI v2.3 32-bit/33MHz slots	(3) x4 PCI-Express (x8 connectors) (1) 64 bit, 133MHz 3.3V PCI-X (2) 64 bit, 100MHz 3.3V PCI-X		Two internal PCI-X 64-bit slots (one available for expansion)	68-pin VHDCI connector for LVD SCSI devices
Backup	Remote synchronisation to disk or tar to tape	Software to backup to disk, tape, or other removable media	NDMP	Optional NDMP	NDMP
SAN Protocol Support	Optional	No	2x2 Gbps Fibre Channel ports for array/switch connectivity, 1x 2 Gbps Fibre Channel port for Tape connection.	One standard dual-port 2 Gb/sec FC HBA. One port for RAID connectivity and another for tape backup	Fiber Channel and iSCSI Up to 64 LUNs, QLogic SAN Starter Kit, available from the StoreVault Division
Redundancy	Redundant Power	Redundant Power	Redundant Power, bus and IO subsystems.	Redundant hot-swappable power supplies.	Dual, redundant, hot-pluggable, integrated power supply/fan, Dual, redundant loop resiliency circuit (LRC) modules or dual, redundant electronically switched hub (ESH) modules.
Network Interface	4 Gbe Ports + 2 Onboard Gbe ports	Embedded NC373i Multifunction Gigabit Network Adapter with TCP/IP Offload Engine	4 copper Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) ports per data mover, maximum of 8 ports	Four standard 10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet ports; one optional dual-port (optical or copper) Gb Ethernet NIC	2 Ethernet 10/100/1000 Copper
Snapshots	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes, Upto 255 per volume
Battery Backup	Yes	Yes, 3 hours	Yes	Yes	Yes, Upto 3 days
Local File system	Ext2/ReiserFS/NTFS	NTFS	Extended Universal File System (UxFS)	64-bit journaling file system, NTFS streams support	WAFL
File access protocols	NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, FTP, HTTP, WebDAV	CIFS and NFS	NFS v2, v3, & v4, CIFS, FTP, TFTP	CIFS/SMB, NetBIOS, NFS v2 and v3, FTP	NFS V2/V3/V4 over UDP or TCP, NFS client authentication, Microsoft® CIFS
Block access protocol	iSCSI target	Microsoft iSCSI Software Target	iSCSI	iSCSI target	Fiber Channel and iSCSI Up to 64 LUNs
Directory and name services	NIS, LDAP, Kerberos, Local, DNS, Active Directory, NTP, SNTP	CIFS, NFS	NTP, SNTP, NIS, LDAP, Kerberos, Local, DNS, Active Directory, NTP	ADS (LDAP, Kerberos v5), NT 4.0 multiple master domains (MMD), DNS, WINS, NIS, NIS+, local files	UNIX® NIS, Macintosh® NIS, Windows® Active Directory and Windows Workgroup (local) integration
System administration and Monitoring	Web based OpenFiler Interface, Linux tools(ssh)	iLO, All-in-One Storage Manager	EMC Celerra Manager, SNMP, Web Interface, Telnet	Web (HTTP/based on Java™ platform) GUI, telnet, Rlogin, Rsh, SSH, console command line interface (CLI), SNMP, Remote Syslog	Web Interface, SNMP
Dimensions (HxWxD) mm	178 x 452 x 648	468 x 220 x 640	268.8 x 450 x 603.3	438 x 445 x 640	133 x 447 x 559
OS	Updated OpenFiler Linux based RamDisk OS	Windows Storage Server 2003 R2		StorageTek 5000 NAS OS storage-optimized operating system	Network Appliance™ Data ONTAP® StoreVault Edition

*Some important aspects such as heating and power consumption have not been considered because the data is not available for our fileserver.

Conclusions

Our disk server has some of the best features when compared to commercially available NAS boxes, at a much lower price. Agreements with OEM manufacturers will lead to a huge change in purchase price. Better disk configurations too, are possible if the product was manufactured. The price of the same device manufactured under bulk purchase or agreements will reduce the price to as low as 30-50% of the current price. Upgrade path and future roadmap of the product has not been thought of, but can be developed if the product expands into a product line. We may be able to reduce the price a bit more with our choice for the chassis, eliminating a few of high end features. We also have planned a second type of NAS server, where the storage controller and NAS controller box are separate, interconnected by a high speed FC link, with various more redundancy support built in. It will be more expensive than the proposed model, but will be significantly cheaper than the competitive models available in the market.

References

Prices

http://www.newegg.com

http://www.ebay.com

http://www.directcanada.com

http://www.hp.com

http://www.pricegrabber.com

Sample Disk Server Configurations

http://www.accs.com/p_and_p/TeraByte/index.html

http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200701.ars

Product Details

http://www.tyan.com

http://www.3ware.com/products/serial_ata2-9650.asp

http://www.intel.com/network/connectivity/products/pro1000pt_quad_server_adapter.htm

http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/745/SC745TQ-800.cfm

OS

http://www.openfiler.com

http://www.openfiler.com/docs/openfiler-guide-1.1/#d0e77

http://servers.linux.com/servers/06/04/10/179239.shtml?tid=31&tid=100

Comparisons

http://www.sun.com/storagetek/nas/5220/specs.xml

http://www.emc.com/products/networking/servers/ns_series_i/pdf/H2051_NS350_series_SS_ldv.pdf

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid5_gci1232435,00.html?topic=298663#snapshot07
http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/MiddleFrame.asp?page=config&ProductLineId=450&FamilyId=2446&BaseId=19681&oi=E9CED&BEID=19701&SBLID=

http://www.storevault.com/products/hw_s500.html

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=o2000&page=2

Other References

http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=481869&seqNum=9&rl=1

http://linas.org/linux/raid.html

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2004/101104infports.html?page=2

http://www.directron.com/wd5000ys.html

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=caviarre&page=1

http://www.supermicro.com/newsroom/pressreleases/2006/press091806.cfm

*All registered trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Disclaimer

Just to wash off my hands...don't believe anything that is said above, if you don't want to. I am a professional, but professionals are still human. There may be mistakes, which if you point out, I'll be glad to correct. There may disagreements, which if you point out, nothing is gonna happen. Because everyone has one opinion, and mine is the one you just read. Put yours as comments if you want to. ;)

And on top of it, I'm not getting any incentives to write this article, and am not responsible to any person or firm, except my professional integrity (ahem!). That being said, all my best efforts have been put in to make sure the information in here is complete and correct. Do post your comments!