Cheap SAN?

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Cheap SAN?

Stamey

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December 14, 2009 at 1:38 pm

#214829

What is the cheapest SAN I can get?
I wan to do some cluster testing and practicing, and I have a couple of identical servers at home, but need to come up with some shared disk.
This is for my home lab and will not require much performance or redundancy.
Thanks,
Chris
Learning something new on every visit to SSC. Hoping to pass it on to someone else.

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004425 More actions · Answer 1

Stamey (12/14/2009)
Learning something new on every visit to SSC. Hoping to pass it on to someone else.

Man... I love that tagline. "Pass it forward".

Unfortunately, I don't know an answer to your original question as to what a cheap SAN might be. Maybe we'll both learn something on this one. Good idea, by the way. I need to do this sometime, too.

--Jeff Moden

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Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736557 More actions · Answer 2

Dell had some cheap ones, and you could check eBay for something used.

You can use virtual servers and share the disks that way.

Stamey SSCertifiable Points: 5600 More actions · Answer 3

Steve Jones - Editor (12/14/2009)
Dell had some cheap ones, and you could check eBay for something used.
You can use virtual servers and share the disks that way.

I am not familiar with a way to use a server, virtual or not, as the shared disk. Will a cluster service use a network share for its shared disk? I thought it had to be locally attached, as in with an HBA.

If this is possible I might be able to use one of those little NAS devices I have seen.

Thanks,

Chris

Learning something new on every visit to SSC. Hoping to pass it on to someone else.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736557 More actions · Answer 4

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Clustering/65994/

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Clustering/66246/

Johan Bijnens SSC Guru Points: 135377 More actions · Answer 5

If I'm correct,

you could also just use a NAS to perform your tests;

Your goal is to test Clustering and failover, not SAN technology.. correct ?

Buy a NAS for a couple of €/$/... and off you go.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverClustering/thread/8b47cb0d-b44c-414c-a1e4-ad6cc4345487

Johan

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but keeping both feet on the ground wont get you anywhere :w00t:

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EdVassie SSC Guru Points: 60479 More actions · Answer 6

There are many cheap NAS boxes available, but all that I have seen appear as a network drive to Windows. This means they are no use for testing clustering.

One alternative is to download a iSCSI target such as StarWind and install it on Windows. This will give you iSCSI drives you can use on the same or another box to test clustering.

My preferred choice would be to invest in a Technet subscription and install W2008 R2 and build your cluster as virtual servers. Technet will give you access to just about all MS operating systems and server software for non-production use.

Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.

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alen teplitsky SSC-Dedicated Points: 30014 More actions · Answer 7

Steve Jones - Editor (12/15/2009)
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Clustering/65994/
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Clustering/66246/

what he said

you can also do the same thing in VMWare and probably Hyper-V if you have server hardware at home