Recent content by SANEngInCO

We're just using it for file storage at our remote offices, but for such a small package it is very fast. Tons of redundancy and a nice mix of drives. For simple installations where not much space is needed, but redundancy and performance are I would definitely recommend this box...

We've rolled out 3 so far and have a few more to do. They have been very easy to do and don't require a lot of time to get them up and running. We've used the FC interfaces instead of the iSCSI as they are being attached to the remote office DC server which also shares out CIFS to the workers...

I would imagine that any 300G, 15k FC drive would be compatible with any other 300G, 15k FC drive (for example). But I don't know their support matrix on that, since each drive is given the microcode from the frame. If you're looking at an XP, but aren't an AIX shop I would highly recommend...

There are a lot of SRM (Storage Resource Management) tools out there that can help you gather this type of information. SUN Operations Manager, AppIQ/HP, Veritas Command Central just to name a few. Otherwise you will need to gather this data by hand and create your own spreadsheets and...

The main difference between the HP version and it's HDS parent is the software. HP takes the array and places their software on it. This tweeks the XP to run better in an AIX environment verses any other OS. There are no physical differences that I am aware of, and I have had several of the Sun...

I could go into steps to set up a SAN, configure storage, work on hosts, etc but I really don't think that would truly benefit you and your situation. SAN, although not too complex once you get into it can be tough to navigate in the beginning. I suggest that you engage some outside help to...

Steve, There are several larger issues here that you will need to deal with. First, the ISL's from switch to switch will take 4 ports away from your hosts and arrays EACH. So if you have 2 ISL's from each switch, you will lose 8 ports from each switch to accommodate them. Second, if you have a...

Alan, Like everyone is saying, merging catalogs is pretty tricky. I know people who have done it, but those cases are very rare. Consultancy is a good idea at least for that portion of it. As for some ideas around your architecture, here are some thoughts. To gain resiliency, I would recommend...

I read over some documents on the Dell site that the MD3000i is hard coded to max out luns at 2 TB. I think thats silly since nowadays luns sometimes need to be bigger than that." That's what you get when you buy inexpensive storage units like this. DAS units like this and others will be more...

From my experience with both a STK VTL and EMC SATA disks in a DSU, the DSU was faster and had more control over what was done. As you stated, we used Vault with our NBU environment to duplicate the images from disk to tape in order to offsite that day. We backed up about 6TB per day during the...

This is really a great idea JimmyZ1. I spent many hours trying to figure out how to convey to potential employers that my experience on one platform does indeed transfer to others. Since I'm in infrastructure, I will try and convey some of my experiences. ~= Roughly Equal To Storage Infra HDS...

If you are talking about needed to replicate this data to a secondary site, I think you really need to go back to your boss and talk about DSU's again. You basically can use whatever replication software that the storage system offers to replicate that data and it would be simpler to manage than...

Personally, I am a fan of DSU's instead of the VTL. Plus I'm a huge fan of HDS first, SUN/STK second for disk storage of any type. With DSU's, the backup creates a large image file of the backup directly to disk during the night (or whenever your backup windows are). Then during the "quiet"...

My company bought one to test out for our remote offices. We love it and will be sending it out to all our remote offices around the globe. Small, inexpensive, RAID protected, iSCSI (no new switching required) and built by HDS. Sweet...

We're talking less than 100 mailboxes in the message store so I don't think we need a finely tuned structure other than separating out the log files." There's a acronym that I like to use when it comes to SAN design that has been very successful for me - KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. In...