[ale] Giant storage system suggestions

[Barlow, Jim D]

As Jeff Layton says:

> If you want to go a bit cheaper, then I recommend going the
> Gluster route. You can get it for free and it only takes a bunch
> of servers. However, if the data is important, then build two
> copies of the hardware and rsync between them - at least you
> have a backup copy at some point.

> Good luck
> Jeff

Alex:

It is a great time to check  out Gluster http://gluster.org as of the 3.3 release.  Red Hat has put a lot into the project lately.   I've been testing it for my own uses and have been delighted with it.   It may complement your ideas.
I've ordered some inexpensive x86_64 hardware  function as Gluster bricks for my own elastically scalable storage.     It mounts as a high performance fuse file system or NFS, with a Samba shim you are good to go with CIFS.

- Jim