[Beowulf] distributed file storage solution?

[Craig Tierney]

Brian D. Ropers-Huilman wrote:
> On 12/11/06, Craig Tierney <ctierney at hypermall.net> wrote:
>> Lustre supports redundant meta-data servers (MDS) and failover for the
>> object-storage servers (OSS).  However, "high-performing" is relative.
>> Great at streaming data, not at meta-data.
> 
> Which is really the bane of all cluster file systems, isn't it? Meta
> data accesses kill performance.
> 

Some are better than others.  Lustre could have been designed from day
one so that every OSS was also a metadata server (MDS), but they didn't. 
  It is on their roadmap to distribute meta-data, but it doesn't look like
there will be a 1 to 1 relationship between MDS and OSS.

If I wanted a more general purpose distributed filesystem, those with 
distributed meta-data can provide better performance.  If I wanted to 
provide a filesystem to my users where compiles wouldn't be horribly 
painful, tests with Ibrix showed it was adequate.  I would be interested 
in testing some of the others (Panasas, Isilon) to see how they compare.

Craig