50TB Plus VMware vSphere Cluster Storage Server in the Forums!

For those that may have missed it, a forum member nry yesterday posted a 50TB+ storage server build. What set this post apart was the level of documentation provided for the 50TB+ storage server and its evolution. Apparently, nry started a few years ago with a simple tower server. This is certainly something that I, along with many readers here, started with in terms of storage. Through the posts, nry shows how that simple storage server turned into a rack full of components finally culminating in a 50TB+ storage server.

You can check out the full thread on the forums here. This post did strike a chord as it sounded very much like my journey in 2009 and 2010 when I was using the Big WHS which held only 30TB at the time.

By 2012, nry’s server setup was something much more robust than a simple tower chassis. This is a rackmount picture of nry’s 2012 VMware vSphere cluster. It looks great!

Being a software developer, nry uses much of his storage as a VMware vSphere cluster storage platform. That is one of the main applications driving 50TB+ of storage. Here is a shot of hard drives and solid state drives powering the vSphere cluster.

Needless to say, that is a lot of devices.

To make everything run fast, nry is also using Intel 10GbE adapters, an Areca 1882-8i RAID controller and a Chenbro CK23601 Expander. This gives nry the ability to address enough disks at once for his 50TB storage server build out. It also allows the VMware vSphere cluster to have quick access to the storage platform.

One other important aspect to the vSphere cluster is networking and nry is using trusty HP 1810 switches.

The above is only a very short summary. Check out the full thread on the forums here as it has tons of pictures and is a great resource for those looking to undertake a similar project.