[9fans] Help with two small shared file servers

["Aram Hăvărneanu" <aram.h@mgk.ro>]

Hello,

I'm looking for advice on how to build a small network of two file
servers. I'm hoping most servers to be Plan9, clients are Windows and
Mac OS X.

I have 2 houses separated by about 40ms of network latency. I want to
set some servers in each location and have all data accessible from
anywhere. I'll have about 2TB of data at each location, one location
will probably scale up.

What's the best option for RAID in Plan9? I understand I can use
either Ken's fileserver or the Plan9 '#k' device. Can anyone shed some
light on why I might want one and not the other? Are there any other
options?

Do you recommend fossil+venti or kfs? I've seen that a lot of people prefer kfs.

Are there any options for block level encryption on Plan9?

Is 9p suitable for this? How will the 40ms latency affect 9p
operation? (I have 100Mbit). I assume there are no good 9p drivers for
Windows so I can access my data directly. How good are the various
Plan9 SMB servers? (On the long term I might write a 9p filesystem
driver for Windows, I've been a Windows filesystem developer in a past
life). Is it better if I use the Plan9 boxen only for AoE with a Linux
on top that serves SMB?

I'm hoping to use some laptops for this. I have a lot of unused
ThinkPads that can run Plan9 around here. Are there some kind of
external enclosures that can hold a reasonable number of drives and
connect via eSATA or something? Are they fast enough?

On an unrelated note, what do you recommend for VPN. In Plan9 is very
easy as I can just import a namespace, but I have Windows and Mac
clients. Are there any Plan9 options? If not, what else would you
recommend?

Right now (only one location) I am using a Solaris server with ZFS
that serves SMB and iSCSI. It works great, there's nothing wrong with
it, but I would like a Plan9 solution. Or do you think iSCSI would
perform better with this latency? (I can't use AoE as AoE is not
routable).

Any tips are welcomed :-),

Thanks,

-- 
Aram Hăvărneanu