Need Buying Advice for NAS

[hmills]

I have been looking at the Powervault 745 and Snap Appliance 4200. I need some advice on IDE vs. SCSI. I noticed that you can add a scsi controller. Is this in place of the IDE? Would anyone recommend a SCSI configuration over IDE ATA 7200 in a RAID 5? Also, how important is processor and ram in a NAS for 50 users accessing the redirected My Documents folder? I have also seen a Snap 4400 with a PIII processor. Should I spend more for Celeron or P4?

 

[davidmichel]

Since the application is just for the user's My Documents folders, I think you have the flexability to choose either IDE or SCSI. Other more disk intensive and high profile applications really should have SCSI for the better reliability under high stress conditions.

I am partial to the Snap servers for the lower end installations like this.

If you expect the number of users to remain stable then I don't think the extra processor power is needed.

Comtec17 must be really busy because he is real good at this type of stuff.

 

[clonny2]

IDE is cheaper so you get more for your money using IDE over SCSI. SMB connections are first bottlenecked by RAM. You can also add more RAM if you need. Depending on how intensive your IO is, the Snap4200 should be fine. But adding RAM never hurts. If you have the money, then the more CPU is also better, but it is not required.

>---------------------------------------Lawrence Feldman
SR. QA. Engineer SNAP Appliance
lfeldman@snapappliance.com

 

[hmills]

Thanks for your help. I have a clue, now