I'm working on building a new server to basically be the backup server
for all of our 800GB or so of data.

IE:  Symantec BackupExec will run on this server.. communicating with
remote agents on 4 other servers.  Those 4 servers total 800gb of data
in a full backup via gigabit ethernet.

I'm still not sure I see the difference between a NAS, SAN, or a server
with lots of harddrive capacity and dual gigabit ports?

For instance.. here is what we are considering doing:

Building the server piece by piece for a total of $3200, inclusive of
drives and controller cards etc, using either of these 2U rackmount
systems:

http://www.rackmountpro.com/productpage.php?prodid=2918  (I can get a
combination of all needed hardware with a 3 year warranty on the whole
deal for around $3700 instead of $3200)

http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/mer...atid=233&step=4

That $3200 included a Woodcrest 2.0GHZ cpu with virtualization ability
(not really needed for the backup server though).  We've already got
server 2003 storage edition.  This would include a 4x PCI-e 3ware
9590SE-8ML card and 2GB of 667 DDR2 ram.

I'm assuming that with a NAS or SAN you can install 2003 onto it and
use it just the same as any other server?



The other option appears to be going with a system like this:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...=OTC-GOOGLEBASE


The price is alittle more and the CPU type is not a Woodcrest, but
there are 2 of them now.

I've also seen these units without DVD/floppy drives, I'm assuming with
one like that you would have to use a usb dvd rom drive to install the
OS?


Any thoughts on all this?

Differences between server designated as storage vs a NAS vs a SAN..
and perfomance differences in say my homebuilt model and the ones that
come already to go.


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...=OTC-GOOGLEBASE

Thanks for any input.

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