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The problems you will face are not obvious and immediate problems. For example, a year from now, a server might fail, and you find out that you can no longer o

The problems you will face are not obvious and immediate problems. For example, a year from now, a server might fail, and you find out that you can no longer obtain that specific model of motherboard or RAID card that was used in that server, so you have to replace the entire thing (purchase all new). Or, you find that a drive in your RAID array fails and you can no longer get a drive with the exact same model and disk geometry as the other disks in the RAID, so you are unable to rebuild the RAID and have to basically start from scratch. The main reason why you should go with real server type components is the support lifetime. You can be fairly confident that you can get replacement parts be it CPU, memory, raid controller, motherboard, or disk drive, for at least 5 years after purchase. Otherwise you will find that when your components die, you will be completely unable to repair them due to lack of available parts. Good luck to you, but I've been down this road before and if you cut corners in the beginning, it usually costs you more money to do it right later on.

khadim 14y ago
Our assumptions is we can recover cost of equipment within warranty period (Most of the components have 3 yrs warranty) Also, most of data redundancy is handled at software level, I feel thats the best usage of FOSS like Hadoop/Cassandra. We can avoid expensive high end hardware and build system with commodity hardware components and rely more on cloud technology. You might still be right, but hope things work out.
krobertson 14y ago
I agree. You can find previous generation server hardware pretty cheap through liquidators or ebay. Availability may vary in India, so that may be a factor. Hardware availability after the initial purchase is certainly a big longterm consideration. I can easily search for "dell 2950 raid" or "dell perc 5i", match the individual part number to the I have, and be good.
chrisbolt 14y ago
Or, you find that a drive in your RAID array fails and you can no longer get a drive with the exact same model and disk geometry as the other disks in the RAID What RAID controllers require replacement drives with the exact same model and disk geometry? I've not seen one that wouldn't take a bigger drive as a replacement.

khadim 14y ago

Our assumptions is we can recover cost of equipment within warranty period (Most of the components have 3 yrs warranty) Also, most of data redundancy is handled at software level, I feel thats the best usage of FOSS like Hadoop/Cassandra. We can avoid expensive high end hardware and build system with commodity hardware components and rely more on cloud technology. You might still be right, but hope things work out.

krobertson 14y ago

I agree. You can find previous generation server hardware pretty cheap through liquidators or ebay. Availability may vary in India, so that may be a factor. Hardware availability after the initial purchase is certainly a big longterm consideration. I can easily search for "dell 2950 raid" or "dell perc 5i", match the individual part number to the I have, and be good.

chrisbolt 14y ago

Or, you find that a drive in your RAID array fails and you can no longer get a drive with the exact same model and disk geometry as the other disks in the RAID What RAID controllers require replacement drives with the exact same model and disk geometry? I've not seen one that wouldn't take a bigger drive as a replacement.