SAN home lab environment

[BroadcastStorm]

Hi guys,

I am new to storage but I would like to put together a SAN/NAS/Shared Storage iSCSI/FC home lab environment that will be supported with different OS, is there a cheap way on putting together this lab, or will this cost me a fortune, links on some read outs/threads etc. and where I should start will be awesome.


Thanks

[QHalo]

It will cost you a small fortune, especially FC. When I wanted to dig into this I had someone suggest a DS 3400 IBM FC array as a decent array that would not only perform well but be able to roll with the latest tech like 4Gb and 8Gb switches. The cost of the chassis alone is 3k. I guess it just depends on how deep you're talking about going. The deeper you go though, the deeper your pockets better be.

I guess some more info would be able to refine an answer, because when you mention SAN, the sound of a cash register ringing should pop in your head. I don't want to dissuade just prepare you for what you're going to find. I'll try and dig up some stuff I found on the topic in regards to building a home lab when I get home.

[dynamik]

OpenFiler or FreeNAS will do iSCSI. Great for labbing ESX/vSphere vMotion, etc.

[tiersten]

Somebody else will have to chime in about whether this is still true or not but at one point, OpenFiler didn't support iSCSI persistent reservations which is important for Windows clustering and I think Exchange? No idea if this is still true or not. Also no idea if FreeNAS can do it or not.

For FC, what QHalo said. Its not going to be cheap to get FC SAN experience unless work have some FC SAN gear and are willing to let you play with it. I've got an old DS4300 + SAN16B in the garage but I hardly ever turn it on because it uses so much electricity and the capacity is terrible considering I can get a single SATA drive that stores more.

[BroadcastStorm]

OpenFiler or FreeNAS will do iSCSI. Great for labbing ESX/vSphere vMotion, etc.

Thanks for the info I will check the free one first, I only want to study storage and I always believe in having a physical lab.

[tiersten]

Thanks for the info I will check the free one first, I only want to study storage and I always believe in having a physical lab.

Uhh. OpenFiler and FreeNAS won't give you real world experience of SANs. They're more useful to allow other products to use network storage than for actual experience of a SAN/NAS itself.

[QHalo]

I guess I didn't understand what you wanted to accomplish. If you're only looking for cursory experience with storage then these will suffice. If you seriously want to get into storage then you're going to have to learn the Fiber Channel protocol and that's going to cost you if you want a lab. Good luck.

[pespi_man]

I just put together a home lab with FC using Openfiler as the SAN with 2 esx4 hosts.

If you do decide to go with FC, make sure you read up on the forums and get the FC cards that other people use and be prepared to allow for abit of time working out what the commands do. I re-installed alot and re-updated alot before i got it all working.

I spent about $160 all up,

- $100 for the FC switch from Ebay 32port brocade
- $60 on 2 x FC 2gig cards also Ebay.
I had all the hardware/cables allready.

I used this link to get it going - https://forums.openfiler.com/viewtopic.php?id=3422&p=1 it was very helpfull.

ISCSI on the other hand was alot easier to get going and alot cheaper!

Good luck

[BroadcastStorm]

Hey guys thanks alot for the response, I will work on a lab I can play around etc. my goal is to have an exposure with SAN based storage, I'm sure it will not be like playing with the big boys EMC etc. but the exposure should be a good starting point, besides the equipment that was mentioned is not super expensive, I already have an existing HP Proliant and a Dell Server, I will read up on the link.

[BroadcastStorm]

Hi guys, is there a anyway to virtualize a FC switch? I just want to see the orientation of it etc.

What model of FC switch do you guys recommend is good to establish my SAN foundation? I was thinking 16 port should be plentiful, maybe I can also use it for my production web server at home, just hate those DL 360's their loud, also do I need to stick with Brocade, I would think Cisco would have FC switches? or HP etc.


Thanks!

[BroadcastStorm]

I got my openfiler up and running, with the following config.

Note to myself is to make sure the floppy drive controller is off, it was causing bugs when loading volumes :P

Disk 0 - OS Base Install

Disk 1, 3 - 1.5 TB Raid 5 Storage Volume

I was playing around Windows 7/Windows 2008 iSCSI Initiator, not having luck so far with the 3 way CHAP authentication, I will connect my VMware box to the LUN sometime to see how this works.

Thanks for the advise, I am still researching a Fibre Channel switch let me know what you're using that is affordable.


Thanks =)

[nhan.ng]

any update on your research? im also interested in this subject as well.


thanks

[cyberguypr]

Bringing this topic back from the dead to see if anyone wants to share their FC lab details. Looking to have some fun in the lab pretty soon without having to reinvent the wheel.

[QHalo]

Build Your Own Fibre Channel SAN For Less Than $1000 - Part 1 - SmallNetBuilder

VMware Communities: vSphere 5 Home Lab

Virtualisation: Home Lab Update : The Storage Architect

Lab boche.net – VMware vEvangelist

[H]ard|Forum - View Single Post - Your home ESX server lab hardware specs?

Couple of decent posts on the matter and a few setups that people have done. I haven't explored much further than reading.