looking for an hardware advice

[benoitc]

So I am trying to put in place backup server without increasing too much the budget envelop and I am wondering what would people suggest these days.

I was thinking at first to repurpose a supermicro SIA214 I have and increase the SSD storage inside and had a 2x10G card but unfortunately it is has no hot swappable disks. Do some people run a backup server without swappable disks these days?

Another idea would be linking to it a JBOD using a SAS card (but then no 10) or to link it to a nas using the 1GB links. Would that work ?

Is there any othe rsolution? I am looking for a possibly short depth storage server not too noisy that could do the trick. Thoughts? Any feedback is welcome.

 

[benoitc]

So it appeared to me I can link both machines using a 10G link. I bet it's enough if use ISCSI. Thoughts?

 

[benoitc]

so anyone ? I'm really struggling with what is better between increasing SSD storage
to my server (but all interns disks) with a 10G card addition and declare it as a baccup
server ( solution 1) or link this server to the NAS using a 10G link (connected directly
between the 2 machines) and ISCSI (solution 2). I can see the following Pro/Cons.

Do I miss anything? Any feedback is much appreciated

SOLUTION 1.

Pro:​

• Fast, only local SSD storage​
• Fast network access (10G)​

​

Cons:​

• not hot-swap​
• not expandable if i had a 10G card, the PCI-e port will be used. If I stay in 1G
  (4 ports on this machine) I can add SAS card later.​

SOLUTION 2.

Note: I can extend the network on the NAS by using USB 3.2 Gen 1 adapter to 5G . I have
4 ports. So the NAS can still be used for other purposes. Maybe a 5G link is also enough
for the backup server?

Pro:​

• NAS can be extended easily​
• hotswapping is available​

​

​

Cons:​

• use a 10G link (is this an issue?)​
• separate from the backup server software, which means another machine to supervise​