[Gluster-users] Noob question

[Sallee, Stephen (Jake)]

Hello list!  This is my first post to this list and I am new to gluster so please be gentle : )

Please allow me to state my scenario:

I am building a storage cluster that will need the ability to dynamically grow and be highly available.  The storage will be mostly for video although it will be used for general file and backup storage as well.  The cluster will be servicing a small university of about 4,000 users.  We expect high concurrent user counts and simultaneous utilization of some files, especially video files, is almost guaranteed.

I have read as much as I can find about gluster and I think it will suit my needs nicely, my question is one of hardware and interconnects.

We would like to provide our users with the best experience possible but we do not have unlimited funds.  My initial thoughts are to build 5 - 7  servers with the following specs:

1              x              AMD MagnyCorus (12 core) processor
8              x              1TB 7.2K SATA III (RAID 5)  ***See notes***
1              x              10Gb Ethernet (for data)
1              x              1Gb Ethernet (for management)

***notes***
I know RAID 5 is terrible, however it has been deemed that RAID 10 is too expensive, hence the RAID 5.
***/notes***

So community, what are your thoughts?  I know there are many, MANY mitigating factors that will effect performance, however I did not want to go into that much detail.  I fear that I am already going to get a host of TLDR responses.  Please let me know of your thoughts, and any helpful information you may wish to pass along.  Thank you.

Jake Sallee
Godfather of Bandwidth
System Engineer
University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
900 College St.
Belton TX. 76513
Fone: 254-295-4658
Phax: 254-295-4221

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://supercolony.gluster.org/pipermail/gluster-users/attachments/20120410/1a8fa7fc/attachment.html>