So, I've been reading several articles around ServerFault as well as google. (For Example, this link)
My Requirements are very similar to the link above, however i'd like to also have dynamic or at least resizeable file volumes, so if necessary i can add 4-5 servers to the pool, and then expand the volume.
Any Distributed File systems that support that, to save me some time? Thanks!
LustreFS will be my next test cluster to build.
GlusterFS
I've build a 3-machine test GlusterFS cluster, However i quickly became aware of several of its limitations that it doesn't seem to make clearly public.
One, i can't seem to resize a volume. Once a volume is created, its done. Which seems retarded, why have a fully scalable file system if i can't scale a volume? So maybe i'm doing something wrong. I'm not sure.
AmazonS3 while gives the cheapest startup adds too much cost when broken down to per client per month, so its out. Building my own system when prorated over several years with no bandwidth costs makes it significantly cheaper.
MogileFS isn't an option as we'd like this server to be a SAN-Replacement, for storing tons of media from a multitude of systems, which for us means it needs to be POSIX compliant so it can be remotely mounted via NFS or CIFS.
Try GFS, currently included in RedHat EL 5, it does allow you to add servers or storage - at least that's what it says on the tin: "Scale clusters seamlessly, adding storage or servers on the fly"