Keep in mind that the enclosures that NetApp uses have internal intelligence that the Filer head talks to. Also, the software expects hardware to be setup in a certain manner and behave accordingly. So, the ability of certain enclosures to work with an F740 would be suspect and you would definitely need to have a DataONTAP version that supports the shelves. Most enclosures have a different interface than from other vendors. NetApp gets its enclosures from various people and they have to do a lot of software just to get them to work reliabily.
Apart from the technical issues, I have looked at the prices between the "cheap" JBOD and the NetApp R200 series systems. Yes the "cheap" JBOD costs about 1/2 as much, but it takes a LOT more time to install and maintain. For most (???) sites, I think you get a false economy. For a small subset of sites, there may be the skill and labor to make it justifiable (universities come to mind, cheap or free labor from grad students and low budgets, but then NetApp probably gives them a big discount).
Assuming you did get it to work, then support from NetApp would be non-standard, if at all. My best guess is that licensing would probably not be a problem, assuming you don't try to resell any of this.
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com on behalf of Joe Schmoe Sent: Fri 6/11/2004 6:17 PM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Piecing together a NetApp on the cheap (with IDE) ?
I want to put together a very cheap, yet very high capacity NAS. Some of the advanced features of NetApps (like data replication over WAN, etc.) have really caught my eye, but the prices are just too much for my budget.
I plan on leveraging the low cost of IDE storage. I have noticed the existence of third party disk shelves/JBODs that accept IDE disks in the front, but present a SCSI interface out the back.
So my question is, would it be reasonable for me to buy a very cheap, old NetApp head unit off of ebay (like an F740 for $400) and then attach several of these SCSI enclosures packed with IDE disks to it ? Pesumably, four loaded enclosures at 4TB each (10 400gig IDEs) would give me 16TB, which is very attractive ...
Let's set aside the philosophy issue of sourcing third party parts and the advice netapp has regarding that - I am simply interested if this idea is _workable_. The reason I am not looking at the native IDE NetApp units is that they are too new and are not available on ebay for hundreds of dollars.
Also, I have no idea if this is even acceptable to NetApp in terms of licensing - do they support ebay purchased gear in any capacity ?
Your comments and suggestions, even if tangiental, are greatly appreciated.
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