Looking to add NAS to our LAN. Suggestions?

[ame540]

Hello Everyone.

We have a small LAN that consists of about 35 users, a few servers for various applications / webservices / etc. We are in the market for a storage device that we want to use to basically backup all of the local user's profile data. Roaming profiles are not in use at this time and we are just using a workgroup configuration for shared resources ( no domain contoller, etc. )

Is a NAS device a good option for this? Im thinking in terms of a centralized unit, that we can have UPS power and Tape backup for a bit more redundancy than what would be achieved on each desktop.

The Dell Powervault 745N comes to mind as something in our price / necessity range. Any other suggestions? or are we going about this solution all wrong!

Thanks!

-A

 

[Bernard74]

Hi

I must say I am not a big fan of NAS Box's...

From what I have experience regarding NAS box's running Microsofts NAS Appliance software, the key features are never used.

NAS features..

1. Web Management
2. Quick Deployment and implementation
3. Snapshot capabilities
4. Disk Quoter

The best benifit is No. 4 disk quoter.

But as I said, of all the customer that I have sold NAS servers to, after later discussions none of them use these specific feature even though they we the main business drivers for buying in the first place.

My opinion.....Windows 2003 now has alot of these features, put your money towards a reliable server with the storage you require running windows 2003 server...E.G. Redundant Power, dual CPU, Memory Chipkill support of mirroring, Raid 5 protection....AND a MUST Hardware monitoring capabilities!!!! get you UPS and backup software setup and away you go.
A good match would be an IBM x235 as it can support alot of internal storage and has good redundancy features, HP, DELL, NEC all have good products will similar spec's.

If you want a well valued box get the dell
If you want good pricing and good technology go HP
If you want to spend a little more but have all the bells and wistles go with the IBM product.
(this will start some comments



My 2c

regards

Bernard

 

[shmitty67]

Hello,

I like Bernard's response as it is easy to build on.

As the storage manager for my group I like NAS boxes for the benefits Bernard listed. We were able to take advantage of 1 and 4 and if we were to purchase another NAS device we would be able to take advantage of 2 as well.

An advantage of the MS based NAS boxes that Bernard did not list which applies to larger organizations (like mine)is that licensing is included. No need to worry about CALs and you also get clustering without paying the hefty price of the beefier MS server versions (not sure the cost benefit of this but I know it worked in our favour).

If you know MS and your IT staff expertise in MS I'd stick with them. If you have varied experience I'd suggest having a look at NetApp and even EMC as they are the market leaders in the NAS segment (at least around here they are).

Good luck,

Brent

 

[ame540]

Thanks to both of you for posting your responses based on your experience. As weve moved on, i have decided to not go with the NAS solution at this time. (we have a dell poweredge 2650 thats barely being used as i found out) so im going to use this guy to take care of being the "profile server".

I have learned alot in the last 2 weeks about NAS and its benefits / easy deployment (no need for CALs, just hook it up) so this will definately be something im going to consider once the space and resources on this current server need to be expanded.

thanks again!