RobFuller Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 We have some money left in the budget so I thought we could purchase an iSCSI SAN box to start using virtualisation properly. I have previous experiences with EMC FC SANs and have been blown away with their performance. I’m worried iSCSI just won’t cut it compared to the EMC’s FC 2 GB’s I know before. I have 3 boxes in mind which I’ve been looking at 1 of them is bit too expensive the SUN but I might be able to pull it off as it does look the best of the bunch. If anyone has recommendations or experiences of these boxes or any others I would greatly appreciate it. • HP StorageWorks 2000i Modular Smart Array • Dell PowerVault MD3000i • Sun Storage 7110 Unified Storage System Thanks in advance!
tmcd35 Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 The last SAN I set up was based on a standard Windows 2003 Server with... Insight UK - Promise VTrak M310p - Hard drive array - 12 bays... - VTRAK-M310P and SANmelody | iSCSI SAN, FC and Storage Virtualization Software both are very good products and I am thinking of using them again. However, I'm considering looking at Openfiler — Openfiler Homepage instead of SANMelody based on chatter on these very boards. One thing I will say, If you are going for a SATA RAID rather than a SAS RAID use something like Insight UK - WD VelociRaptor WD3000HLFS - Hard drive - 300 GB... instead of standard SATA drives. I think the performance of the last SAN I set up suffered because we used Hatachi 320Gb 7200rpm SATA-II drives. 1
RobFuller Posted February 6, 2009 Author Posted February 6, 2009 That has cross my mind going down the build it yourself route, I keep hearing all the time the SATA drives just won’t give you the performance, which I know if probably true to a degree. We are currently using SATA disks in our main servers at the moment; this was like that when I got here. But again performance is ok, though I do notice stutters sometimes. Havant really investigated if that’s down to poor I/O or not.
tmcd35 Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 Puget Custom Computers: SCSI vs SATA, Which is Faster? An interesting read on the subject. 320Mbps SCSI vs 300Mbps SATA-II? With NCQ this (dated) article is showing 10k rpm SATA drive outperforming 15k SCSI drives. I don't know how SAS effects this. If the article is anything to go by I'd say very little. Also, don't forget you can channel bond NIC's, to 2Gbps iSCSI is perfectly feasible.
Theblacksheep Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 I've just got the HP MSA 2012i DC. Very easy to setup. I have gone with 6 300GB 15K SAS disk (one hot spare) for VMs (cdrives) and 6 1TB 7.5K SATA disks for backups, test, storage etc... Performance with iscsi is fine on the SAS, noticibly slower on sata. Wouldnt mind a second array with 12 450GBs SAS for user areas. 1
RobFuller Posted February 6, 2009 Author Posted February 6, 2009 Only the SUN supports link aggregation.
tmcd35 Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 Only the SUN supports link aggregation. Sorry, I was still thinking along the build your own lines. I don't know what the Openfiler software supports - although it should be just Linux. But using Windows and SANMelody, with the right NIC's it's quite easy to set up.
RobFuller Posted February 6, 2009 Author Posted February 6, 2009 Openfiler could be an option, might investigate the supported hardware list?
torledo Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 The 7110 is the most interesting of the lot.....because these are the first NAS/SAN systems from sun that build ontop of the capabilities of ZFS and the storage stack that leverages ZFS. It strikes me as the first salvo's in SUNs attempts at taking on the other notable unified storage vendor Netapp and it's competing WAFL file system.....ofcourse because ZFS and opensolaris are open source you could always have a pop at building your own storage system from supported hardware using the openstorage stack that is freely available. I personally would always favour the vendor supplied route for my primary storage, whether it be nas, san or both. The 7110 is interesting becuase it does multiprotocol, will be backed by SUN support presumably, and appears to have a reasonable entry level price. They've taken the hassle out of the customer building their own ZFS storage box and are obviously charging appropriately. How it matches up against a Netapp or an emc i really don't know....it's very new, previous to this product Sun storage offerings was stuff that was OEM'ed from DotHill, Engenio and HDS. The Engenio kit IBM and SGI also OEM, so they're midrange disks were a very common hardware platform in datacenters just with different badges and mgmt software depending on which vendor you went with, with the 7110 Sun are stepping out in a different direction this is all SUN developed hardware and software it appears. That's why a lot of people are watching very closely how this product line fares.
andyrite Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 Have you looked at the Dell Equalogics PS5000 series?
tmcd35 Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 The 7110 is the most interesting of the lot.....because these are the first NAS/SAN systems from sun that build ontop of the capabilities of ZFS and the storage stack that leverages ZFS. I've been following the ZFS file system for a while. It sounds extremely interesting. So I thought I'd compare costs. Sun Microsystems, United Kingdom - Sun Storage 7110 Unified Storage System £7800 for the Sun. I have to admit a much more reasonable price than I imagined. But... IBM Quad-Core, 8Gb Ram, 4xNICs, 2.4Tb storage on a Promise V-Trak DAS with SANMelody comes in at £6500 Get rid of 2 cores, half the Ram, 2 of the NIC's and possibly go open source and you get quite a compelling iSCSI SAN solution for around £5000!
PeterW Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 Get rid of 2 cores, half the Ram, 2 of the NIC's and possibly go open source and you get quite a compelling iSCSI SAN solution for around £5000! We did something similar for plexer using openfiler I think it was about £3k at the time (will have gone up a few hundred quid due to the weak £).
RobFuller Posted February 6, 2009 Author Posted February 6, 2009 The SUN system with the SAS disks I have been getting quotes for well under the £7K mark, the other 2 just over 5K for 3TB (SATA disks).
torledo Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 (edited) I've been following the ZFS file system for a while. It sounds extremely interesting. So I thought I'd compare costs. Sun Microsystems, United Kingdom - Sun Storage 7110 Unified Storage System £7800 for the Sun. I have to admit a much more reasonable price than I imagined. But... IBM Quad-Core, 8Gb Ram, 4xNICs, 2.4Tb storage on a Promise V-Trak DAS with SANMelody comes in at £6500 Get rid of 2 cores, half the Ram, 2 of the NIC's and possibly go open source and you get quite a compelling iSCSI SAN solution for around £5000! tut tut. Looking at list prices of the SUN......cardinal mistake. Also with the SAN melody aren't you just adding an unnecessary software layer ? ZFS and the sun stack can do snapshotting and other funky stuff. I don't know if it does thin provisioning, but it wouldn't be hard for SUN to add that feature. I like the SANmelody product especially with all the bells and whistle but what advantage did you get from it with your environemtn ? My impression was it really comes into it's own when you want to virtualize different commodity storage arrays. I don't see it's advantage when your looking at purchasing a single array. Also, have you got three seperate support contracts to manage with your DIY soluton....or will datacore handle break fix of the ibm and v-trak products on your behalf ?, in either case the SUN is a minor premium to get a single set of hardware and port of call for support. Not that i don't like your DIY suggestion, it's just i don't think the bottom line is always the bottom line if you get my drift. Edited February 6, 2009 by torledo
tmcd35 Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 (edited) tut tut. Looking at list prices of the SUN......cardinal mistake. All my figures where based on list prices for quick comparison and I'm well aware if I jump up and down hard enough on the right sales rep better pricing is available, especially for edu. Also with the SAN melody aren't you just adding an unnecessary software layer ? ZFS and the sun stack can do snapshotting and other funky stuff. I don't know if it does thin provisioning, but it wouldn't be hard for SUN to add that feature. I like the SANmelody product especially with all the bells and whistle but what advantage did you get from it with your environemtn ? When I built the last SAN it was 'on the cheap'. 7.2k rpm SATA disks, an old PC with a SCSI card added in, etc. I think we did the whole lot for around £3k. But the disks are a performance issue and at the time (around 2 years ago) the cheapest off the shelf solution was over £10k. My impression was it really comes into it's own when you want to virtualize different commodity storage arrays. I don't see it's advantage when your looking at purchasing a single array. Also known as flexibility. You're not tied into any one vendor for compatibility. Running low on storage? Just run out and buy another RAID enclosure and a few drives, snap it in and away you go. Also, have you got three seperate support contracts to manage with your DIY soluton....or will datacore handle break fix of the ibm and v-trak products on your behalf ?, This is true. But having used ALOT of Datacore's support, I will say it is very, very, very good. The only downside is they are based in the US so there's the obvious time lag with e-mails. in either case the SUN is a minor premium to get a single set of hardware and port of call for support. Not that i don't like your DIY suggestion, it's just i don't think the bottom line is always the bottom line if you get my drift. No, I totally agree! One of the reasons for posting the price comparison was to show how close it is. Which did surprise me. If I was building, I'd go for a cheaper server which would drop the price a bit. I was trying to see how much the DIY solution came in at at the same spec as the SUN. So Quad-Core, 8Gb, etc, etc. I'll be honest, I'm not actually in the market myself until next summer. But I've requested around £6500 for this project. I have been toying with Openfiler, purely because it's free. But I'd say the SUN is a very interesting option and one I'm certainly not discounting. 5.25TB for £3k. You haven't got basic details of the server, raid enclosure, and disks you used by any chance? Edited February 6, 2009 by tmcd35
plexer Posted February 6, 2009 Posted February 6, 2009 Sure it's been posted before but: 1.00 SYSTEM System build as per specification below 2,975.00 2,975.00 1.00 CASE/061 Intel SSR212MC2BR Storage Server Chassis 0.00 0.00 1.00 CPUINT/020 Intel Xeon Quad-core E5410 Processor 0.00 0.00 8.00 HDDSEA/022 Seagate Barracuda ES.2 SATA 3.0-Gb/s 750Gb Hard Drive 0.00 0.00 2.00 HDDSEA/020 80Gb 2.5" Serial ATA Hard Drive 0.00 0.00 1.00 MEMECC/005 Kingston 4GB DDR2 FB-DIMM Memory Module - 4GB (2 x 2GB) 0.00 0.00 1.00 ZZMISC/002 System Build & 3 Year Warranty 0.00 0.00 1.00 XPRO/063 1Gb X-Pro Flash RAM Pen Drive 0.00 0.00 Ben 1
linescanner Posted February 7, 2009 Posted February 7, 2009 The 7110 is on special to edu at the moment at £,4500 + VAT. I think it runs to end of March. The other good bit is that you will be able to bolt a J4200 JBOD unit underneath as you need to expand the capacity. If you need anymore info drop me a PM.
ssiruuk2 Posted February 9, 2009 Posted February 9, 2009 I have the Dell MD3000i array. Been very happy with it and its been faultless since it was put in. I am only using it as a file dump at the moment for user home directories etc connecting to a couple of servers using the MS iscsi initiator. Going to look at using it for proper virtualisation later in the year. Got it for £2,500 with with a load of 300gb SAS drives (was a cancelled order that they wanted to shift!) Bargain
Ric_ Posted February 9, 2009 Posted February 9, 2009 The 7110 is on special to edu at the moment at £,4500 + VAT. I think it runs to end of March. The other good bit is that you will be able to bolt a J4200 JBOD unit underneath as you need to expand the capacity. If you need anymore info drop me a PM. I will hopefully be buying two of these off the nice Mr Trevor! They are truly amazing and do more than you could possibly imagine! PC Pro have also just added it to their A-List!
john Posted February 9, 2009 Posted February 9, 2009 I will hopefully be buying two of these off the nice Mr Trevor! They are truly amazing and do more than you could possibly imagine! PC Pro have also just added it to their A-List! You have faaaar too much money then Ric, I'm dreaming of having 1 SAN let alone a pair of them, and you probably already have one knowing you
RobFuller Posted February 9, 2009 Author Posted February 9, 2009 At this price it’s a no brainer, thinking defiantly punching one for now (all that I have left in the budget) then will get another one in the new budget for HA. They maybe some expansion bays for extra storage, wonder what performance the 10 GigE modals could bring/worth the cost? Now just need to find a suitable switch to complement the box any suggestions? Gigabit - 24 port, jumbo frames, flow control, QoS, decent number of link aggregation groups etc. Was thinking Dlink or Netgear as using there kit already.
moggy Posted February 13, 2009 Posted February 13, 2009 The Sun 7110 seems to be getting the thumbs up from everybody. I know we are running out of filestore and I'll have to do something about it. However I am a total novice in this area, how difficult would it be to incorporate the 7110 into a windows 2003 server environment.
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