We are looking to build a StorageGRID with "Bring Your Own Hardware" because we need to lower the overall cost, so we just need the licenses.
We have a few SG6060 setups which works great, but of cause at a higher cost 🙂
As far as I can remember the SF6060 creates RAID groups (or pools) on the E-Series storage, but when you setup SG on your own hardware, do you need the RAID protection? Or can you just present SG with say 60 individual disks ?
Any suggestions or design examples are very welcome... we are starting out with 500TB but this will grow to at least double within 5-6 years...
#BYOH StorageGRID?
subtle plaza
rugged oyster
Hi @subtle plaza you may have already seen this but we actually have a great Tech Blog post about this very topic - https://community.netapp.com/t5/Tech-ONTAP-Blogs/Hardware-planning-for-a-Bare-Metal-StorageGRID-Installation/ba-p/167256
subtle plaza
Thanks, I'll have a look
rugged oyster
There is also this section in our docs - https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/storagegrid-116/rhel/storage-and-performance-requirements.html
It's got a little more info about performance points not sure if that helps you though. Just thought I would point that out though - you may have already digested all that info!
subtle plaza
Thanks again, just a followup question... the volumes 1-n for the storage nodes, can they be standard physical disks? If I where to have say 4 Dell servers with 256GB Memory, and some mirrored SSD's installed locally, then a NetApp disk shelf attached, say a DS224-12 with SAS disks connected to the server with a normal SAS HBA.. (of cause I need to reformat the disks from 520 to 512k blocks)... but I guess it would work like this right?
(one shelf per storage node of cause)
license wize I need a license per TB right? Is that the "raw" TB or does this take into account EC?
rugged oyster
In the doc's link I shared it has a snippet which says
"You must use RAID-backed block devices for all storage categories. Non-redundant disks, SSDs, or JBODs are not supported. You can use shared or local RAID storage for any of the storage categories; however, if you want to use StorageGRID’s node migration capability, you must store both system data and object data on shared storage."
So to your query around standard physical disks I think the answer to that is no.
Do consider reaching out to your local NetApp sales team or partner, as they can provide advice on the storage requirements for the bare metal SGrid software. As you will want to ensure you are running a supported configuration.
Regarding the capacity based license, let me see if I can get clarity on that. I believe its just based on the raw TB but need to verify.
subtle plaza
I guess NetApp has their reason to require RAID backed devices... I don't quite understand the logic as it might be faster to rebuild a volume using SG than a RAID backed device... but I guess it would be possible to use the software based features of CentOS like mdraid or ZFS even ? Even though I do not much care for both of them 😉
...and I am of cause in contact with your local netapp distributor but they are not as experienced with BYOH setups...
rugged oyster
I suspect software raid is actually not supported for the bare metal deployment but I am unclear if this requirment changes if say you are deploying in VM on Vmware for example. So that might be worth clarifying with your local partner (they can contact NetApp team directly to clarify).
mellow field
there are cost effective storage GRID net app native products available GS 5700 series systems, 5712 with 12 TB drives that can be cost effective
if you are looking to start with 500 TB and double in 5-6 years, you can simply procure fully loaded HW that that amounts to 1152 TB raw but [procure liceses only for 500 TB to begin with and scale those licenses up as your needs grow
any day, NetApp S3 storage grid HW is much reliable compared to BYOH
sorry, it doesn't answer your question directly but wanted to share my experience