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University Chooses Apple RAID for Linux Cluster

Posted by Hemos on from the mucho-storage dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A Linux World article describes how Swinburne University chose Apple's Xserve RAID to add storage to it's Dell linux cluster, as it was the cheapest solution. Apple was sceptical about its RAID system working with Linux, but the system was up and running in 15 minutes."

4 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Cheapest redundant solution by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Before a bunch of silly gooses shout they can get the same storagein their generic Linux boxes please lets note that were comparing reliable redundant systems.

    the X raid has dual redundant power supplies, redundant fans, dual redundant raid controllers, dual redundant and DEDICATED processors, dual redundant ethernet connection, dual redundant fiber channel outputs. it has separate busses and controllers for each ATI hard disk, and the busses to the disks are high speed. all of the disks are hot swapable self contained pluggin units. and it all sits in 3U. (plus another U for whatever server is receiving the fiber channel). All the software on board is tuned to the task and other than the web admin, the box has no extraneous services.

    also the raid is Hardware raid 5,1,0 not software. other than a netapp at 25x the price, there's nothing that comes close.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Cheapest redundant solution by Creepy+Crawler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'd rather have a bulk of HD's at 7200RPM than at higher speeds. More RPM equates to more heat and easier failure.

      --
  2. Re:Compression - WOW! wait, I mean HOW? by GoRK · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm sure that they are not processing web traffic statistics, but that is an application that mirrors the data needs in a similar situation. I imagine many other applications have similar data needs. No doubt, the 3K is not re-expandable to 13TB, and probably neither is the 30GB.

    For instance, I might be generating 10GB of logs per day. To save disk space, the streams might be written out with gzip compression (it's write-only, after all), or I might rewrite the formats to conserve space - write the IP addresses in 4 bytes rather than writing out the full ASCII dotted quad, etc. Since it's text and the format is highly redundant, it compresses very well.. I might end up with a 50-500MB log file depending on how things are done. At the end of the day, I could process the statistics and generate report/archive data of several KB that retains all the important data I want to keep from the logs.

    ~GoRK

  3. Apple's Trojan Horse for I.T. Depts.? by Johnny+Mozzarella · · Score: 5, Insightful

    iTunes has been called a Trojan Horse that will slip into consumer PCs and perhaps persude them to buy an iPod or a Mac.

    Will the XServe RAID become the equivalent Trojan Horse that will slip into corporate data centers and lead to future purchases of XServes?

    I hope Apple doesn't ignore this opportunity but instead promotes the fact that the XServe RAID plays well with other systems.