Forum OpenACS Q&A: Storage

Could you share with everyone what sort of storage do your OpenACS installation use? What hardware? Why? What broke? Recommendations? Are there highly sophisticated Linux SCSI cards that provides separate channels for data splitting, mirroring, configuring, monitoring and hot plugging? (like the one ArsDigita prefers to use) Are you back-ing up your database using unusual hardwares? Share a tip with us! 😊

This post should not be in OpenACS Development - Porting, but something like OpenACS Development - Hardware Discussion, people are painfully aware of the limits associated with the hardwares we often find Linux and FreeBSD on and are making plenty frequent changes (many worthy of mention here on OpenACS). And I bet we love to talk about our hardware so I think it would be great to have a OpenACS Development Discussion Forum for Hardware.

• check out Net Express, who've been selling Linux servers (alpha, sun, and x86) with Linux installed for eons. Nice thing about this site is that all the components listed are links to pages of recommended parts, which in turn link to manufacturer pages. They know what works and what doesn't. Oh, you'll probably groan at their recommended rack enclosures that clock in at hundreds of dollars, etc, but they have more modest options as well. They're conservative in their manufacturing, more savvy than VA Linux by a long shot, IMO. Also far more flexible, you can mix and match any components they stock for a box with total freedom. If you like to build yourself, they'll even sell you the parts unassembled (at the same price, of course, they're not stupid!) Their prices tend to be 15% or so higher than my best "scrounge 'round Portland" prices, which isn't bad considering they'll build the system for you...

• I mirror my database on a single Adaptec 2740UW controller, using two $180 4.5 GB 7200K RBM LVD drives. I'll add a second controller someday, perhaps. If I have to go back to my nightly backup, I'm OK with that for now and frankly silent controller failures are rare. The real problem is that my machine will go down if the controller croaks. At the moment, I'm a step or two ahead of Ben in the backup department, as I backup on a UDMA drive (i.e. that's a different controller than the mirror) and ftp a copy to California and another to my home machine (I've got a DSL line) from the ISP's downtown Portland, Oregon office. It will take a really big earthquake to wipe me out...

• UDMA drives are fast even under Linux (which as distributed currently only drives them at 33 MB, not 66). That's what I use for my development machine, backing up on a second machine on my LAN (the old P200 that used to run my sites).