[ale] ATL Colocation and file server suggestions

[Sean C. McCord]

On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 11:13:31AM -0500, Douglas Bridges wrote:
> Two (mostly unrelated) questions.  I am working on getting a startup going,
> and I will eventually need a Colo spot in Atlanta to host some servers.
> Obviously, I am price conscious (being in startup mode), but I will have
> approximately 7 servers that I will need to initially host.  I will want a
> connection of at least 10 Mbps.  I need somewhere that I will be able to get
> regular physical access, as I will be getting data on hard drives and DVD's
> from clients that I will need to transfer onto my servers.  I am going to be
> in Northern Atlanta (Dunwoody), so anything closer to this area is
> preferred.

I would recommend mine. :)
I've got a rack at the BroadRiver data center in Atlanta, and I'd be
happy to rent out some RUs.  Location is a couple blocks from Atlantic
Station.  Let me know if you want details.

> On a related note, I am going to want to put together a file server for my
> server farm, but I haven't dealt with larger file servers under Linux in a
> long time.  I don't want to outlay the cash for a high end storage solution,
> but I will want a server that can have several (~4) Terabytes of storage
> available, which can be used by several Windows boxes.  The files will be
> lots of smaller files that will have lots of reads and writes (but more
> reads).

4TB is trivial nowadays.  There is no need to fork over a bunch of money
for it, when a new 1.5TB HDD is around $130.  The real trick is figuring
out exactly what files you need speed for, and what you need storage
for, because SSDs will give you speed, but not affordable storage, while
HDDs will give you storage but not affordable speed.

I generally build servers which separate the two, but that requires a
pretty good idea of what, specifically, you are looking to do.  Again,
let me know if you want more of my input..