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The Storage Farm

The Storage Farm (disk space) is a centrally managed pool of over 70 terabytes of space shared among all storage farm servers. (The storage is always growing.) Storage in the Storage Farm is typically provided by Storage Area Network (SAN) technology. Systems Support achieves economies of scale by purchasing storage in large volume. This means Systems Support can offer more fully featured storage space with a wider range of availability and performance characteristics.

The Storage Farm is offered to customers of the managed server farm. It has both internal CIT customers and campus customers from other departments.

CIT Customers are required to use storage from the Storage Farm. The department is charged for space as allocated, on a monthly basis. The Storage Farm business plan accommodates capital replacement of the storage as it ages. If storage requirements change, Systems Support can quickly adjust storage allocations to meet new needs. This results in a smaller pool of unused space, minimizing costs to the University.

Campus Customers who have a service agreement are encouraged to use the Storage Farm. Pricing for Storage Farm servers is established by the storage farm dedicated service. If customers choose not to use the Storage Farm, we encourage them to work with Systems Support to determine which storage will be purchased to maximize availability, while minimizing staff effort.

Benefits of the Storage Farm

  • Professional Storage Management: The Storage Farm staff performs all required firmware updates and maintenance procedures, monitors availability and performance, and assists with procurement and life-cycle upgrades.
  • Smart Purchase: Using the Storage Farm means you can purchase the amount of space you need now and expand if and when your needs change. You don't need to purchase extra space until you're sure you need it.
  • Risk Reduction: Storage Farm equipment has redundant components such as power supplies and boot drives.
  • Easy Migration: If your storage needs change, you can move your data to a different storage tier. For example, if you add a critical application to your server, you can upgrade to Tier 1 storage.

Types of Storage

The Storage Farm provides Fiber Channel Storage Area Network (FC SAN) storage. Logical Units (LUNs) are allocated based on your storage capacity requirements.

The Storage Farm offers three tiers of storage with different performance, storage management, and cost. For more information, see Storage Farm Tiers and Classes.

Additional Information

  • Servers using the Storage Farm service must be housed in one of two CIT machine rooms and managed by CIT's systems administration staff. The primary machine room is on the 7th floor of Rhodes Hall.
  • Data migration is not included as part of the Storage Farm service. However, it can be contracted through a service agreement with CIT's systems administration staff.
  • Data backup is not included in the Storage Farm rate. It is provided separately by EZ-Backup. Fore more information, see EZ-Backup.

Planning Your Storage Needs

To get more information, please send email to systems-support@cornell.edu.