Hello,
I have around 10 servers located in a datacenter.The datacenter's
connection is close to 30 induvidual gbit lines.
The servers have a 155mbit port.Each server has around 150gb of hdd.
What i would like to know is how would i go about combining all the
hard drive space into one server..The servers are located on the same
lan so i get around 15mb/sec speeds from one server to the other
server and 10-14mb/sec speeds to servers outside the lan.I would like
to network mount all the drives onto one server to make it a 1.5tb
server.I wouldnt want excessive access times.The networked harddrives
should have as little lag as possible
Also is it possible for me to combine all the servers bandwidth into
one big massive 1.5gbit line? Distributed bandwidth or something like
that? If so how would i go about doing it?
All the servers run red-hat linux.
I would like an answer asap but i want a detailed one ;).
And if I get a quick detailed answer expect a large tip atleast 40% of
the question's price.
Thank you.

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Request for Question Clarification by webadept-ga on 13 Feb 2004 21:47 PST

Would need the version numnber of the Red Hat you are using.. Kernal
version would be better.

Also, when you talk about combining the bandwidth, are you talking
about combining this so that access from outside the data center from
various users, or combining it so that the servers can talk to one
another faster? A card can only transfer the amount of data its speed
allows, so even if you got all nine other servers to talk to the one
at the same time, in sinc, the one can only take in 155mbit. Maybe if 
you explain what you are trying to do there, I could help with that as
well. The shared disk space isn't really a problem.. it would just be
best to have the kernal version before giving you the detailed
instructions.

webadept-ga

Hi w00t-ga:

You have asked an intriguing question, one that requires a relatively
detailed answer to be properly Answered. Unfortunately, I myself will
not have the necessary time available to do this question justice
until at least a week from now, but I wanted to mention to you that
what you are looking for is possible, with the additional of more
equipment and software.

I also wanted to mention that you may want to ask a systems
integration company certified by your server manufacturer and
networking equipment supplier to provide you with a high-level quote
on a solution that will meet your needs. They should be able to tell
you, at zero to minimal cost, what it will take to do the job, and
more importantly, how much it will all cost including implementation
labor.

As well, for the benefit of my fellow Researchers, you may want to
post some additional details regarding your server, such as the type
of servers you use (manufacturer and model if they are consistent),
the networking equipment you use (again, make and model), and the
operating systems used on the servers.

Best regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

This is actually very easy and is very common, there are two ways you
can do it with RedHat servers.
#1) NFS (network file system) - all UNIX flavors generally have it and
support it.  Windows does as well.  You could share between all
computers regardless of OS.  A company I used to work for used to
share our /home partitions between all computers and windows machines.
 This is the do-it-yourself way that 99% of people who do what you are
trying to do do.  You can find tones and tones of stuff about this on
any linux/unix website, full of howto's and faqs (just google it). Of
course, with that much data on one computer, you will want to setup
raid drives for mirroring and error correction, etc. (Option 2 would
take care of this)
#2) Easy way out with nice features (yet more expensive):
http://www.netapp.com/solutions/
They have some pretty nice stuff but it is expensive.  Might be a
better option to use since you seem not to know too much about
computers and networking, as this is a common and easy problem for
most IT people.

There are a lot of ways to do this, you should look around at
linux/redhat sites for ways people have done it.

Good luck!

Hi
You can use NFS (Network File System), it's easy. One server will be
client NFS and other 9 - NFS servers. Client use all 9 servers, but
users can use only one server (NFS client). Where are a lot of
information about it on linux/unix website. But you can't up network
speed.
More expensive choice.  Setup two networks card into server (NFS
client) and use two networks. Second  for all servers and  first for
output. Server (NFS client)  have all 155mb and use second network for
change information with other 9 servers. Howewer you need additional
switch. If  you want I can help you setup nfs.