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Server Storage Question

         

matthewamzn

9:48 pm on Mar 4, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have a dedicated server with 120gb of storage. It's running a mysql database and is used for all the file storage. I'm just wondering what most people do when they require more storage. Do you need multiple servers? or is this what raid storage is all about.

webdoctor

7:33 pm on Mar 5, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I'm just wondering what most people do when they require more storage.

this often depends on what kind of data you are trying to store. lots of small files? a few very large files? rapidly changing files? mission-critical files? you will get more help if you give us a bit more information

Do you need multiple servers?

why not have more/and or bigger hard discs? :-)

or is this what raid storage is all about.

mirroring hard drives or setting up e.g. a raid 5 system over three (or more) drives is about not losing everything when one hard drive fails. it's not really about storage space - you actually LOSE storage space when you mirror or use raid 5 - you're essentially storing each bit of information more than once.

physics

6:22 am on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Besides upgrading the hard drive you can use external drives such as USB or networked drives (or you can network with another server that has tons of storage space).

wheel

3:03 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Get a bigger hard drive. Drive space is cheap.

The reason for going to raid tends to be a) redundancy and b) speed. If you don't have either of those concerns then don't worry about it.

A 120 gig hard drive is small by today's standards. 300 gig hard drives are commonplace and relatively inexpensive.

Moosetick

4:23 pm on Mar 6, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



While 120gb is small for an IDE drive now, it it still large for SCSI and still a LOT of space. Let's see what you can store on 120gb...

2.4 million 50k jpegs
60000 2mb jpegs (that is about 5 megapixels)
400+ hours of decent quality video
2000+ hours of mp3

That is a LOT of information. Unless your site hosts pictures or video I can't imagine why you would legitamately need so much space. If you did need that much space, you likely will have lots of users and will definately want RAID to speed things up. Since you don't seem to know what RAID even is, it is unlikely your site will require it anytime soon.

aspdaddy

10:56 pm on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



If you have both live data being accessed regularly and archive storage it might be worth separating them onto different volumes and compressing the archives. This can also simplify your backups.