New SAN Purchase Questions

[LanMan116]

Hello All,

I am a bit new to the SAN world and could use a few tips and questions answered. We are jus about ready to install VMware and the SAN is necessary to get that done. That being said, i have a few questions concerning the SAN. I'm a bit curious about the CIFS support. I was under the impression that it was sort of required unless you were using Linux. I have some SAN's that have it as part or the cost adn somt that sell it as an Add-On. Any thoughts on that one. I thought in order to do Snapshots that would be a requirement. Also, would i be wasting money if i filled a cabinet with all SAS drives even though i didn't really need SAS drives. Most of what i have is minimal file and print services but have a small Exchange box adn a small SQL box as well. In the IBM N series box you have to fill the whole cabinet with the same drives. I was looking at the IBM adn The EMC AX-4. Any thoughts or ideas are always welcome. Thanks for the time.

Perry

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

On N-Series, for snapshots you do not need cifs.Snapshots are takn at a volume level, and can be automatically scheduled or taken through remote shell with scripting.
If you want to use the box as a fileserver, it can integrate within your Active Directory and behave as a true server.In this case you need a CIFS license.
If you are going to run SQL server and exchange, ( esp SQL ) ,you will need fast drives.Do not put your SQL on SATA, on your performance will suck.FCAL or SAS drives the choice.You do not have to fill the whole box with drives.You fill it up with the amount of space that you need appr. need.There is a minimum of drives required ( for parity and spares ).You cannot mix drives from different types into the same shelf / diskloop.

Hope this clarifies some things

rgds,

R.

 

[LanMan116]

R,

Thanks for the reply. I get most of what you are saying but could use some clarification. The first cabinet in the N series requires SAS drive so that is what i have to go with for starters. That will give me enuf space for a while. 60%of what i have to put on the SAN is going to be misc word and Excel files as well as PDF so my guess is that CIFS is requred. If i were just going to put on Exchange and SQL would CIFS be required? One last question, With the snapshot feature, are you able to restore files at the file level from a snapshot or do you have to restore the whole snapshot? Any info is really appreciated. Thanks alot for your time.

Perry

 

[RMGBELGIUM]

If just Exchange and SQL , no cifs is required ( as you would be using iscsi or FCP which is blocklevel protocol )
With the snapshot feature it will allow you to do a single file restore.( If snaprestore license is present )
Regarding the SAS drives, I have seen configs where there were no internal sas drives, and just had a diskshelf ( sata or fcal ) attached through fiber to the onboard fiberchannel ports.So I do not think it is mandatory to use SAS.

rgds,

R.

 

[w33mhz]

It is a little more money but I suggest Equallogic they offer iSCSI solutions that has the snapshotting built in along with data replication. Only bad thing is that if you want to add storage you have to buy another head not just another tray. If you want to get more for your money I have seen some 10K SATA drives out there now. With the iSCSI you don't have to buy the Fiber HBA's for each machine either, you just need an IP address to connect, although it will be best if you dedicate a couple TOE NICs for the connections.

 

[jacksingh]

While N series and Equallogic are viable options, they also require $$$. If you are looking for something that is reliable and could work for you out of box I would suggest look at WUDSS platform by Microsoft. WUDSS is an enhanced version of WSS. I think Microsoft currently recommends 4 vendors for WUDSS based appliances. There are decent 10K SATA HD's that you can use and save on cost further. The enterprise SATA drives are as good as any SAS drives.

 

[xmsre]

The enterprise SATA drives are as good as any SAS drives."


In terms of reliability? Maybe.
In terms of performance? No way. SAS is very close to FC SCSI in terms of performance delivering nearly the same IOPS/spindle. SATA delivers less than a third for a given spindle speed. For Exchange and SQL, spindle count is driven primarially by the performance requirement. You'll use far more spindles in SATA than you would in SAS; so many more that they won't fit in your enclosure.

 

[jacksingh]

The OP mentioned in his post he doesn't really need SAS drives and my response was in regards to that. Obviously the performance on SAS compared to SATA is much better. Reliability wise SATA 10K RPM Enterprise drives are almost as good as SAS.