Anyone here using iSCSI technology for centralised storage in their hosting environment?

No one using iSCSI?

You're going to have a hard time finding iSCSI users among the typical WHT hosts :)

My opinion is that if you can afford the investment to do it properly with a high quality gigabit switch and a pair of redundantantly configured iSCSI targets, it's an excellent way to consolidate your storage and allow for future scalability. It's possible to set up such a configuration with a few terabytes of storage for less than $10,000 these days.

I work in the storage industry for a company that makes Fibre Channel and iSCSI hardware. For cost sake iSCSI is a good and viable alternative to a Fibre Channel SAN. Though performance is not the same: iSCSI=1GB FC=4GB. But this will change when 10GB iSCSI is introduced. The technology is still not fully accepted yet since sales are low compared to Fibre Channel SANs. But the big players are just now making a big push for acceptance and will try marketing into the SMB and mid size companies and leave the FC SANs for large and enterprise customers.

Dave :peace:

Which storage system would you recommend for hosting environment. It should be cost effective and reliable.

I assume that you are still looking for iSCSI? Three arrays that come to mind are from NetApps, Equallogic and IBM. I am sure there are others out there but I can't attest to their reliability and ease of use. And some of the major players have not released their offerings yet. I would look to a channel supplier such as CDW for pricing and installation as they sell to the public and the major companies only sell through the channel. Some channel suppliers may bundle the HBAs, switches and arrays together at a reduced price. I hope this helps!

Dave :peace:

If you're looking for an inexpensive solution, you can take a standard server with lots of storage, and then use Wasabi Systems' Storage Builder. It's a module that you install in the IDE port of the motherboard, and turns the server into an iSCSI target.

http://www.wasabisystems.com/products/

How does other web hosts oversell the space? what backup solutions are they using?

Does any one recommend to have 2 500GB HDD in each server rather than investing in iSCSI or similar?