Need a new webserver and also a new NAS...ideas please?

[Fat Tone]

My little web server is nearly dead. it has been running 24/7 for over five years so I can't grumble. The load is not at all high. It is a Win2k3 server attached to the network in my office but is not a part of the domain.

Separately we have a requirement to allow a small number of users (who are a part of the domain) access to a good amount of private storage. By which I mean users of the corporate domain are only given 1GB each on their Z: drive and purchasing any more from our IT department costs $/m. I have a small number of users who need many GB each, and thus are currently making 'local' arrangements (i.e. D: and probably not backing up). I suppose the total requirement could initially be a couple of TB.

So I'm wondering what my options are to provide a new web server and provide lots of storage with suitable backup? Being a Uni, funds are far from limitless.

All suggestions welcome.

Thanks,

T.

[Chucky Cheese]

I've never set one up myself, but is a SAN feasible?

Build it small initially and then add to it as the need demands?

...just a thought

cc

[Claymonkey]

Honestly I think the best solution for you is a headless ESXI box with an iscsi link to a Freenas box. You can build both on the cheap and probably build two of each and rsync and script them so you have redundency.

Freenas is perfect for your NAS storage needs and ESXI you can have multiple Linux webservers created on each box (and there are plenty of prebuilt LAMP appliances)

This guy has a good breakdown of his setup:

http://www.weckstrom.com/ESXi%20on%20the%20cheap.htm

and goes into ISCSI with it here:

http://www.weckstrom.com/Using%20FREENAS%20iSCSI%20targets%20with%20VMware%20ESXi.htm

ESXI:

http://www.vmware.com/products/esxi/

Freenas:

http://www.freenas.org/

excellent LAMP appliance:

http://virtualappliances.net/products/

Good starting place if you're new to ESXI/Vmware:
http://vmware-land.com/ - Check out their top ten lists and Links pages.

I'd recommend having your NAS storage be Raid5 and your ISCSI link for the vmware virtual drives be on a Raid1 setup. You can go crazier than this but you can do this for the price of 3 1TB+ drives (raid5) and 2 250GB+ drives (raid1) you might have those laying around. Keep in mind if you're going to have databases on these though the drives are going to be thrashed so make sure you're using higher end drives. I had a friend use 3 consumer grade seagate 750gb's in a raid5 and all three died within six months because he was running exchange off of it.

[Claymonkey]

Feel free to PM me if you go this route and hit snags. I'm running the ESXI/Freenas setup at home for my test lab for my MCSE study and will have likely hit most of your pain points.

[Fat Tone]

Thanks for the suggestions Claymonkey, but I think we will be going for something a bit more off-the-shelf with a couple of 4TB NAS boxes and a std Windows Server.

[Claymonkey]

I actually agree with you on that Fat Tone. If I set up what I just described as a contractor I'd probably make them buy HP or Dell servers (with 3 year warranties) and consider something like openfiler instead of Freenas. The difference between bang for the buck and appropriate for business use is a fine line.