3310 disk array as JBOD for ZFS use?

[goony]

Has anyone success in using a 3310 RAID disk array as a JBOD?

I wanted to offer all 12 (SCSI) drives in my 3310 disk array to the operating system so that I could experiment with ZFS - creating mirrors, raidz, etc. and test the performance. If I had a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) box, I would be all set, but the 3310 has a RAID controller.

In the 3310 controller, it lists setting a drive to NRAID instead of RAID0, RAID1, RAID5, etc. Well, I tried this and it did not work. I read the fine print in the latest 3310 manual and it said that the firmware no longer supports this. (Funny, why then do they leave that as a choice?)

I logged a call with Sun tech support... so far, the information from them is "it can't be done".

I have a lot of 3310's with RAID controllers... it will be hard to convince someone to spend money to replace them just to get JBOD functionality to use with ZFS.

Thanks!

 

[goony]

Confirmed... cannot be simply done.

Rumor has it that if the I/O board and midplane are replaced, then it can become a JBOD unit. I'm not against doing that, but by the time I buy the few parts I might be able to get a whole (used) JBOD 3310 box.

The 3310 is a "mature" product... I'm just going to look on the used iron market for a 3310 JBOD.

 

[SamBones]

I don't know the 3310, but if you can create single drive LUNs, that should do it. I would expect them to have to be NRAID (No RAID?), but if Sun says it can't be done, I'd believe them.

 

[goony]

I don't know the 3310, but if you can create single drive LUNs, that should do it. I would expect them to have to be NRAID (No RAID?), but if Sun says it can't be done, I'd believe them.

I'm thwarted from creating a LUN for each individual disk.

It won't let me do a single drive... NRAID (as a raid type) doesn't work, and it insists that I select a raid level - if I select only one disk with any raid level, it complains about their not being enough disks.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Goony

 

[SamBones]

Well, what if you made LUNs as two drive RAID0 pairs. That is, if you have 12 drives in the 3310, make 6 LUNs of RAID0, using two drives each. That should give you the same amount of usable space, and the largest number of LUNs for ZFS use.

It's a compromise. It's not really JBOD, but close enough for testing purposes. From the Solaris view, each LUN is just a drive, so it should be functionally the same as a 6 drive JBOD array for testing purposes.

 

[goony]

I resisted making striped pairs because things in "test" have a habit of finding their way into production (in my shop).

It's a gut-level reaction (to avoid stripes), but maybe with ZFS it wouldn't be so bad. Ultimately, I'd like to have ZFS manage each drive at its own native level without any help from a RAID controller.

Thanks!

 

[SamBones]

Well, stripes should give you better performance since you have two spindles turning for each "drive". And I don't think you can take the RAID controller out of the picture with this array. You're kind of stuck unless you get another array.