[SunRescue] disks for SPARCstarage array

[P Nutton]

> -----Original Message-----
>=20
> From: Gregory Leblanc <GLeblanc at cu-portland.edu>
> To: "'rescue at sunhelp.org'" <rescue at sunhelp.org>
> Subject: RE: [SunRescue] disks for SPARCstarage array
> Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 10:07:52 -0700
> charset=3D"iso-8859-2"
> Reply-To: rescue at sunhelp.org
>=20
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Bj=F6rn Ramqvist [mailto:brt at osk.sema.se]
> > Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 2:25 AM
> > To: rescue at sunhelp.org
> > Subject: Re: [SunRescue] disks for SPARCstarage array
> >=20
> > One side-note;
> > the array can't make use of drives bigger than 8.4GB, so you=20
> > are pretty
> > much wasting space with 18GB drives if you even consider that. (A =
Sun
>=20
> This is a SCSI-SCSI RAID box, then?  Have you done any testing to see =
what
> exactly this means?  On our BRAND NEW Compaq DS20, the largest RAID =
array
> that we could create was 32,768MB, on a single array.  However, we =
could
> do
> this use any combination of drives that we liked, from 9GB drives, up =
to
> 18GB drives.  So, is this box limited to a total of 30 9GB drives, or =
is
> it
> limited to a total of 252GB, which could be about 15 18GB drives? =20
>=20
The system is fibre-channel from the 1000E, with one interface per
additional system board, so 3 storage arrays each with 30 disks. As for =
how
big a RAID-5 array I can build, when delivered by sun in 1994 all 30 1 =
Gb
disks were configured into 1 (one, count them) RAID-5 array by the
installation engineer. This was repeated with the next two which were
delivered with 2 Gb drives. It worked fine like this, if a little slow =
in
committing changes. I use Solstice DiskSuite and can put RAID-5 =
spanning all
3 arrays.  I currently have a mix of RAID-5 sizes, the biggest being 22 =
Gb,
with one disk on each array SCSI controller, keeping the log mirror on =
a
separate controller pair with the hot spare pool. I have based the
installation on the guidelines in the Adrian Cockroft book on sizing
servers. I also have external 2 and 4 Gb multi disk packs hung off each =
of
the external SCSI (except the one already running the internal disks =
and CD
Rom). Oh, and a 4mm sun tape autoloader. And a quarter inch cartridge =
tape.
All in one big pile. I access the drives via samba from PC clients =
through
the onboard le interfaces and a couple of qe cards, any one connection =
is
limited to 10 Mbit/s, so there isn't much of a fight for disk =
resources. I
do, however, have a quad fast ethernet card to install....
> =20
> > field-technician to me that) It's fair enough to put 7,200rpm and
> > 10,000rpm drives in there since these have much lower access time,
> > usually down to 5-7.5 ms.
> > Remeber that these arrays have 6 seperate Fast-Wide SCSI-channel
> > distributed among the 30 drive connectors, so try to change 6=20
> > drives at
> > a time to distribute the workload if you use striping.
> >=20
> > +-----+ +-----+ +-----+             +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
> > |     | |     | |     |             | 9GB | | 9GB | | 9GB |
> > | ch1 | | ch3 | | ch5 |             | 2GB | | 2GB | | 2GB |
> > |     | |     | |     |             |     | |     | |     |
> > +-----+ +-----+ +-----+             +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
> > |     | |     | |     |             | 9GB | | 9GB | | 9GB |
> > | ch2 | | ch4 | | ch6 |             | 2GB | | 2GB | | 2GB |
> > |     | |     | |     |             |     | |     | |     |
> > +-----+ +-----+ +-----+             +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
> >   ^ front of array ^                  ^ front of array ^
> >=20
> > > I use them attached to a 1000E as a disk farm for PC backup.
> > >=20
> > > Great list, I have been lurking for a month now and used=20
> > info off the list a
> > > half dozen times already.
> >=20
> > I don't know how many times I've have had use for this=20
> > list... probably
> > too many to count. :-)
> >=20
> > Greg, feel free to take notes into the HW-ref
>=20
> Yep, the info is getting filed, thanks.  Maybe I'll just have to =
write
> some
> random snippits for now...
> 	Greg
>=20
Thanks for the help, I have part numbers for 4 and 9 Gb disks that I =
will
try. Will be in a week or so when I next replace failed disks, I will =
let
you know what works.
> =20
> P.S.  I'm assuming that info here is pretty much PD, since it's going =
to a
> mailing list...
>=20
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