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Making Use of Terabytes of Unused Storage
kernspaltung writes "I manage a network of roughly a hundred Windows boxes, all of them with hard drives of at least 40GB — many have 80GB drives and larger. Other than what's used by the OS, a few applications, and a smattering of small documents, this space is idle. What would be a productive use for these terabytes of wasted space? Does any software exist that would enable pooling this extra space into one or more large virtual networked drives? Something that could offer the fault-tolerance and ease-of-use of ZFS across a network of PCs would be great for small-to-medium organizations."
Datacore offers software called Sanmelody to turner servers into a cheap storage network and there are other vendor solutions as well. http://infiniteadmin.com/
OpenAFS is a distributed file system. It seems to fit your bill. No personal experience, so don't know how well it actually works.
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
You know, make fun of Microsoft all you want, but they actually have something for this - DFS - Distributed File System. Just create a share with each of these and POOL IT with a DFS system. Then use and manage it to your hearts content with all the midget-donkey-goatse crap you want.
The drive survived because the 9mm is weak. Get a better gun using a better round, like .40 cal or even a good old .45.
.45 is considered one of the best alternatives.
I've had a chance to read after-action reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 9mm is pretty much a joke. Most of the forces that really rely on hangun stopping power have obtained emergency authorization to bypass normal procurement processes in order to get better handguns using better ammunition. To my knowledge, a modern
Running DFS (to serve files) on Windows XP clients? What are you smoking?
From Microsoft TechNet:
The servers that will participate in DFS Replication must run Windows Server 2003 R2.
It is possible to use DFS Namespaces when domain controllers and namespace servers run a mix of Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 without SP1, and Windows 2000 Server, but some functionality is disabled or available inconsistently, depending on the operating systems on the servers.
From: http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/library/1aa249c0-40f3-4974-b67f-e650b602415e1033.mspx?mfr=true
Way to jump to conclusions about me and how I manage a network. I honestly didn't ask the question as a "control freak", I don't spy on the employees, and I don't play Internet cop. I try to get them the tools they need to do their jobs, help them when things don't work, and otherwise stay out of their way. I also didn't imply the pool would be for me to do with as I please; I can see several ways in which that storage would benefit our business were it not spread out in small chunks. The users have all that space, and they simply DO NOT use it. In our business, they don't have much call for large files like photos, movies, etc. It's mostly spreadsheets and OpenOffice Writer documents. But thanks for being an ass.