Need a new file server for Mac/Windows environment!!! Halpz!

jonathanpuebla0039 · 2013-10-10T13:15:21.000Z

Halpz! Currently have a Windows Server 2008 VM running on a NetApp disk storage array. Its been okay, but we’re running out of allocatable space and its been crazy slow lately, though performance doesn’t show anything to be concerned about.

I’d like to move this to a physical dedicated server, but am wondering 2 things:

Will this work just as good if not better in a Mac/Windows environment
Is there a better solution for our environment?

These are the 2 hardware servers we’re considering:

EMC VNXe3150
Overland Snapserver

Please share any thoughts or suggestions, thanks!

bryandoe · 2013-10-10T13:37:14.000Z

Keep it virtual unless there’s a really good reason not to. If the performance is hurting now, it could easily be an issue with the hosts and not the storage.

whopper · 2013-10-10T14:16:04.000Z

Do you want NAS, or a SAN, or both? The Overland looks like a NAS box, the VNX can do both NAS and SAN (iSCSI).

In this situation, NAS is generally considered to be the simpler (and therefore better) solution.

Don’t forget to consider how you are going to back it up before you buy it, not after.

StorageNinja · 2013-10-10T14:42:46.000Z

Apple supports SMB just fine. If you need higher performance NFS always works too.

Is there a reason you don’t want to just spin up a Windows File server?

nicolasleblanc2110 · 2013-10-10T16:12:47.000Z

I agree with whopper. NAS is generally simpler. Also, he makes a very good point about - “Don’t forget to consider how you are going to back it up before you buy it, not after.” Cannot be stressed enough.

jonathanpuebla0039 · 2013-10-10T16:14:11.000Z

I’m most likely going to run it again off a windows server so backups shouldn’t be a problem. Anyone have any similar experience actually working on this in a Mac/Windows environment?

scottalanmiller · 2013-10-10T22:44:01.000Z

Don’t go physical, this isn’t 2005. Don’t move backwards in architecture because of exhaustion of storage.

scottalanmiller · 2013-10-10T22:44:20.000Z

Jon.P:

I’m most likely going to run it again off a windows server so backups shouldn’t be a problem. Anyone have any similar experience actually working on this in a Mac/Windows environment?

Problems? Windows Server is the core storage server for Mac environments. Not sure what you are asking.

pbp · 2013-10-10T23:21:50.000Z

Modern OS X is good. As John773 notes, SMB works well. Might get weird with SMB3, but that is a Server 2012 feature.

jonathanpuebla0039 · 2013-10-10T23:29:19.000Z

We have all our production VMs attached to a NetApp storage unit, and we’re running out of space for our 3TB file server. I don’t think we could allocate anything more than 1TB to it. Thats kinda why I’m leaning towards migrating the file server off onto its own dedicated server. The price I received for another NetApp disk shelf is roughly $30K, so also not ideal.

scottalanmiller · 2013-10-10T23:31:31.000Z

Jon.P:

We have all our production VMs attached to a NetApp storage unit, and we’re running out of space for our 3TB file server. I don’t think we could allocate anything more than 1TB to it. Thats kinda why I’m leaning towards migrating the file server off onto its own dedicated server. The price I received for another NetApp disk shelf is roughly $30K, so also not ideal.

You can allocate as much as you want to it. Just maybe not as simply as you wanted.

Why would you use NetApp at all? Use local disks instead… faster and more reliable.

jonathanpuebla0039 · 2013-10-10T23:33:00.000Z

Scott Alan Miller:

Jon.P:

We have all our production VMs attached to a NetApp storage unit, and we’re running out of space for our 3TB file server. I don’t think we could allocate anything more than 1TB to it. Thats kinda why I’m leaning towards migrating the file server off onto its own dedicated server. The price I received for another NetApp disk shelf is roughly $30K, so also not ideal.

You can allocate as much as you want to it. Just maybe not as simply as you wanted.

Why would you use NetApp at all? Use local disks instead… faster and more reliable.

What I meant was, we only have 1TB available to allocate it to it. Unfortunately we don’t have any additional space left on the NetApp (this was already set in place when I joined the company, didn’t really have a say ).

scottalanmiller · 2013-10-10T23:35:23.000Z

Jon.P:

Scott Alan Miller:

Jon.P:

We have all our production VMs attached to a NetApp storage unit, and we’re running out of space for our 3TB file server. I don’t think we could allocate anything more than 1TB to it. Thats kinda why I’m leaning towards migrating the file server off onto its own dedicated server. The price I received for another NetApp disk shelf is roughly $30K, so also not ideal.

You can allocate as much as you want to it. Just maybe not as simply as you wanted.

Why would you use NetApp at all? Use local disks instead… faster and more reliable.

What I meant was, we only have 1TB available to allocate it to it. Unfortunately we don’t have any additional space left on the NetApp (this was already set in place when I joined the company, didn’t really have a say ).

Why not use local disks, though? Using a NetApp (or any external storage) is not recommended for this use case anyway.

jonathanpuebla0039 · 2013-10-10T23:39:27.000Z

My thoughts exactly, it doesn’t make sense to have all our production VMs in the same place as a virtual file server with user data on it.

scottalanmiller · 2013-10-10T23:59:23.000Z

Jon.P:

My thoughts exactly, it doesn’t make sense to have all our production VMs in the same place as a virtual file server with user data on it.

Well, that’s a separate issue. Why is ANY of that data on the NetApp? Local disks are faster, cheaper and more reliable. What is the NetApp’s purpose?

jonathanpuebla0039 · 2013-10-11T00:05:07.000Z

Precisely why I want to move it off ;). The NetApp currently holds the storage for our VMware cluster and 4 ESXi hosts.

scottalanmiller · 2013-10-11T00:08:11.000Z

Jon.P:

Precisely why I want to move it off ;). The NetApp currently holds the storage for our VMware cluster and 4 ESXi hosts.

Oh okay, for four hosts there can be good reasons to use it. Although there are good reasons not to as well. All depends on the purpose. Could be for cost savings or something else.

tobywells · 2013-10-11T07:01:24.000Z

Regardless of the Physical vs VM plus disk debate there is a major issue to consider. If you are running a Mac/Windows environment and utilising stuff like Adobe CS and not just office/pdf type files you need to run a separate AFP server on top of Windows Server

Yes Macs can connect to SMB no problem, for suits using office files this is fine. Try asking a creative with fonts and InDesign files to run off standard WinServ SMB and watch as nothing works properly and creatives start throwing their colouring pens at you

You have to run this File Sharing Solutions for Mobile, Mac & PC - Acronis Cyber Files

Then they access using AFP and all is well with the world.

I know your pain if its a big Mac shop. I had to put 25Tb of space together for my place and argues about Physical vs Virtual. In the end it came down to backup strategy and we put the money into the storage replication and just threw an pair of DL380s in failover to host it.

And before anyone says it yes we know Mavericks will support SMB 3 out the box but this is Apple, they could well screw around with it and not everyone can afford to upgrade all theirs Macs and apps. Grouplogic = peace in Macworld

scottalanmiller · 2013-10-11T09:13:56.000Z

toby wells:

Regardless of the Physical vs VM plus disk debate there is a major issue to consider. If you are running a Mac/Windows environment and utilising stuff like Adobe CS and not just office/pdf type files you need to run a separate AFP server on top of Windows Server

Yes Macs can connect to SMB no problem, for suits using office files this is fine. Try asking a creative with fonts and InDesign files to run off standard WinServ SMB and watch as nothing works properly and creatives start throwing their colouring pens at you

You have to run this File Sharing Solutions for Mobile, Mac & PC - Acronis Cyber Files

Then they access using AFP and all is well with the world.

I know your pain if its a big Mac shop. I had to put 25Tb of space together for my place and argues about Physical vs Virtual. In the end it came down to backup strategy and we put the money into the storage replication and just threw an pair of DL380s in failover to host it.

And before anyone says it yes we know Mavericks will support SMB 3 out the box but this is Apple, they could well screw around with it and not everyone can afford to upgrade all theirs Macs and apps. Grouplogic = peace in Macworld

Important to note that with the latest release of Mac, SMB, not AFP, is the primary protocol. AFP is being retired. SMB and ergo Windows file servers, are now the official “native” protocol for Mac, not a secondary citizen like they used to be.

StorageNinja · 2013-10-11T11:24:52.000Z

Scott Alan Miller:

toby wells:

Regardless of the Physical vs VM plus disk debate there is a major issue to consider. If you are running a Mac/Windows environment and utilising stuff like Adobe CS and not just office/pdf type files you need to run a separate AFP server on top of Windows Server

Yes Macs can connect to SMB no problem, for suits using office files this is fine. Try asking a creative with fonts and InDesign files to run off standard WinServ SMB and watch as nothing works properly and creatives start throwing their colouring pens at you

You have to run this File Sharing Solutions for Mobile, Mac & PC - Acronis Cyber Files

Then they access using AFP and all is well with the world.

I know your pain if its a big Mac shop. I had to put 25Tb of space together for my place and argues about Physical vs Virtual. In the end it came down to backup strategy and we put the money into the storage replication and just threw an pair of DL380s in failover to host it.

And before anyone says it yes we know Mavericks will support SMB 3 out the box but this is Apple, they could well screw around with it and not everyone can afford to upgrade all theirs Macs and apps. Grouplogic = peace in Macworld

Important to note that with the latest release of Mac, SMB, not AFP, is the primary protocol. AFP is being retired. SMB and ergo Windows file servers, are now the official “native” protocol for Mac, not a secondary citizen like they used to be.

There are still tons of legacy apps that coded for AFP that are heavily dependent on HFS+ metadata (type and creator codes).

Time Machine is still a AFP only feature (and a damn nice one).

I’d also like to point out that Apple isn’t using Samba. They forked out with SMBX that actually breaks some support for SMB, at the expense of focusing on SMB2.0 support. Considering 2003 is almost EOL though, this should be fine.