Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Currently the dual drive Synology with 8 TB drives I was looking at was around $900.
But with no device failover, so a very different comparison. It's fine if that is not something that you need, then it certainly applies to you. But it is very, very important to understand that it's not a fair comparison to compare a single node NAS to the AetherStore approach. You are comparing a two way mirror, single node solution against a four way mirror, four node solution. You can argue that there is a risk to data accessibility in the case of desktops being shut off all at once, but the durability of the data is generally dramatically more important and the quad mirror and quad nodes simply is in a different class than you are considering.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
On a side Note - The remote location does have 8 PCs in it... all with 500 GB drives, with around 300 GB free. Assuming 4 copies (I would never consider less in Aetherstore) that gives me 600 GB of storage. I'd need to install 4 TB drives in all 8 machines to match the capacity of a 2 drive 8TB NAS.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
On a side Note - The remote location does have 8 PCs in it... all with 500 GB drives, with around 300 GB free. Assuming 4 copies (I would never consider less in Aetherstore) that gives me 600 GB of storage. I'd need to install 4 TB drives in all 8 machines to match the capacity of a 2 drive 8TB NAS.
Why would you not consider less? I think that's strange. Four way mirror with four nodes as a secondary site, secondary replica of data. You are talking about feeling the need for eight or twelve copies of your data to feel safe... why? What's the fear?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
AetherStore approach. You are comparing a two way mirror, single node solution against a four way mirror, four node solution.
Do any of the 4 node NAS boxes allow for 4 drive RAID 1? Let's look at the cost of that option here as well then.
Though - really? How many SMBs are really looking to get more than a 1 drive fail protection?
With AetherStore, the only reason I worry about having 4 drives is because of the volatility of end user devices. Even then I'm still not as protected as I am in the DC, because most SMBs don't supply UPSs to end users, as an example.
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And if you don't feel safe with AetherStore without 8-12 copies of your data, why would you be okay with dramatically less with a NAS when it also has less nodal redundancy? What aspect of it is making one feel safe and the other feel risky?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
On a side Note - The remote location does have 8 PCs in it... all with 500 GB drives, with around 300 GB free. Assuming 4 copies (I would never consider less in Aetherstore) that gives me 600 GB of storage. I'd need to install 4 TB drives in all 8 machines to match the capacity of a 2 drive 8TB NAS.
Why would you not consider less? I think that's strange. Four way mirror with four nodes as a secondary site, secondary replica of data. You are talking about feeling the need for eight or twelve copies of your data to feel safe... why? What's the fear?
Where are you getting eight or twelve? I'm talking about four copies.. nothing more, nothing less. I suppose we could split the difference and go three, but again, really?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
And if you don't feel safe with AetherStore without 8-12 copies of your data, why would you be okay with dramatically less with a NAS when it also has less nodal redundancy? What aspect of it is making one feel safe and the other feel risky?
again, not sure how you came to 8-12 copies.
8 PCs, 4 total copies, need 8 TB usable space.
First things first, 8 TB * 4 copies = 32 TB
32 TB / 8 PCs = 4 TB.
So I would need 4 TB in the PCs to allow for 4 copies.
And why do I demand 4 copies, because as stated, the volatility of end users and the PCs - I already explained that my application causes the need for more frequent reboots than normal. Frankly, 4 might not even be enough to ensure the data is always online. (that would be an interesting test.).
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
On a side Note - The remote location does have 8 PCs in it... all with 500 GB drives, with around 300 GB free. Assuming 4 copies (I would never consider less in Aetherstore) that gives me 600 GB of storage. I'd need to install 4 TB drives in all 8 machines to match the capacity of a 2 drive 8TB NAS.
Why would you not consider less? I think that's strange. Four way mirror with four nodes as a secondary site, secondary replica of data. You are talking about feeling the need for eight or twelve copies of your data to feel safe... why? What's the fear?
Where are you getting eight or twelve? I'm talking about four copies.. nothing more, nothing less. I suppose we could split the difference and go three, but again, really?
You want four copies locally, and four copies remotely. You said you would not consider less. That's eight copies. If you have a second set locally as you would need to consider to be even close in the NAS world, that's twelve copies.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
And why do I demand 4 copies, because as stated, the volatility of end users and the PCs - I already explained that my application causes the need for more frequent reboots than normal.
So your concern is that you think that a reboot of a PC from time to time is going to make your backups inaccessible in the rare event of a system outage? If a server is down and you need to do a restore, you can't either stop people from rebooting for those few minutes and/or just wait for a reboot to finish?
I'm sorry, but I must be missing something huge. This sounds completely ridiculous. What kind of bizarre uptime do you need from your backup storage?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
On a side Note - The remote location does have 8 PCs in it... all with 500 GB drives, with around 300 GB free. Assuming 4 copies (I would never consider less in Aetherstore) that gives me 600 GB of storage. I'd need to install 4 TB drives in all 8 machines to match the capacity of a 2 drive 8TB NAS.
Why would you not consider less? I think that's strange. Four way mirror with four nodes as a secondary site, secondary replica of data. You are talking about feeling the need for eight or twelve copies of your data to feel safe... why? What's the fear?
Where are you getting eight or twelve? I'm talking about four copies.. nothing more, nothing less. I suppose we could split the difference and go three, but again, really?
You want four copies locally, and four copies remotely. You said you would not consider less. That's eight copies. If you have a second set locally as you would need to consider to be even close in the NAS world, that's twelve copies.
Well the remote copies are the equivalent to the remote NAS. OK so in that case, you're right it would be 8 copies, because one would be backing up to the other aka NAS to NAS sync.
But I personally don't have the need to have an onsite synced copy, so that last 4, for a total of 12 is not needed.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
event of a system outage? If a server is down and you need to do a restore, you can't either stop people from rebooting for
As my users to stop working? really? Yeah sure I could ask them to stop rebooting without asking - but damn, that would be rough since my first comment to them is to always reboot.
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
But I personally don't have the need to have an onsite synced copy, so that last 4, for a total of 12 is not needed.
Okay, but that means that you probably don't need quad nodes and quad mirrors on AetherStore, either. Because you are only comparing it to a two mirror one node NAS.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
But I personally don't have the need to have an onsite synced copy, so that last 4, for a total of 12 is not needed.
Okay, but that means that you probably don't need quad nodes and quad mirrors on AetherStore, either. Because you are only comparing it to a two mirror one node NAS.
Sure, but I have a near zero percent chance that my NAS will just turn off during the day as well.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
As my users to stop working? really? Yeah sure I could ask them to stop rebooting without asking - but damn, that would be rough since my first comment to them is to always reboot.
It would actually be rough? I mean this sounds crazy. You are in your ten year server loss event. The biggest deal that happens to IT in a decade. You have a server that has died and you need to do a restore....
And your four users reboot so much, so often that even for once a decade you can't ask them to at least stagger their reboots for a few minutes while you pull data off?
I'm calling BS. If that's the case, your already so fragile that you can't be functioning. And they can't be doing any work, their machines never stop rebooting!
This is, quite simply, not a possible scenario in the real world.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
It's like a drive becoming temporarily unavailable, there is a delay. If it is long enough, the write will fail. If it is short enough, it will just cause latency. In any case, the process writing to it will know what happened and act accordingly.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
It's like a drive becoming temporarily unavailable, there is a delay. If it is long enough, the write will fail. If it is short enough, it will just cause latency. In any case, the process writing to it will know what happened and act accordingly.
Well that makes me feel better.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
It's like a drive becoming temporarily unavailable, there is a delay. If it is long enough, the write will fail. If it is short enough, it will just cause latency. In any case, the process writing to it will know what happened and act accordingly.
Well that makes me feel better.
And remember, it's only the head node that you'd be waiting for, ever. What's the reboot length on those boxes and what's the frequency and are they doing this 24x7? Would writes after hours still have this problem? Are you planning to stream backups offsite during the day?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
It's like a drive becoming temporarily unavailable, there is a delay. If it is long enough, the write will fail. If it is short enough, it will just cause latency. In any case, the process writing to it will know what happened and act accordingly.
Well that makes me feel better.
And remember, it's only the head node that you'd be waiting for, ever. What's the reboot length on those boxes and what's the frequency and are they doing this 24x7? Would writes after hours still have this problem? Are you planning to stream backups offsite during the day?
Well the head node I would assume isn't a PC, but instead a VM (as JB mentioned before) but maybe that's just crazy on our parts as well.
Reboot length - 3-4 mins I'd guess on the outside.
Frequency - daily and sometimes randomly multiple times a day.
syncing backups only after hours. -
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Well the head node I would assume isn't a PC, but instead a VM (as JB mentioned before) but maybe that's just crazy on our parts as well.
Well, normally that's not what is assumed but that's fine. If that's the case, then just assign that VM enough storage and you have nothing to worry about.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Frequency - daily and sometimes randomly multiple times a day.
Daily? You made it sound like it was ever ten minutes around the clock. You think it would be rough to ask them to hold off on a daily reboot during a critical system restore?
