SAS / SATA RAID to Fibre?

Does anyone make a standalone 1U or 2U rackmount device that does RAID 5 and
6 for SATA or SAS drives, and exposes the logical drive upstream by fibre
channel?

I'm wanting to use one of these per server, so space is an issue and a full
on RAID controller with added separate cabinet for SAS or SATA is a) too
expensive and b) too big.

--
Will

On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:41:36 -0700, Will wrote:
Does anyone make a standalone 1U or 2U rackmount device that does RAID 5
and 6 for SATA or SAS drives, and exposes the logical drive upstream by
fibre channel?

Lots of companies do! My personal favorite is the NexSan SATABlade
(http://www.nexsan.com).. 8 drives in 1U, supports all the usual RAID
levels (0,1,0+1,4,5,6). I've got one with 8 500gb's in it; works great.

I'm wanting to use one of these per server, so space is an issue and a
full on RAID controller with added separate cabinet for SAS or SATA is
a) too expensive and b) too big.

Makes good sense!

--
nc

"Nate Carlson" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:41:36 -0700, Will wrote:
Does anyone make a standalone 1U or 2U rackmount device that does RAID 5
and 6 for SATA or SAS drives, and exposes the logical drive upstream by
fibre channel?

Lots of companies do! My personal favorite is the NexSan SATABlade
(http://www.nexsan.com).. 8 drives in 1U, supports all the usual RAID
levels (0,1,0+1,4,5,6). I've got one with 8 500gb's in it; works great.

Nexsan costs a fortune. I'm looking for something that is commodity.


I'm wanting to use one of these per server, so space is an issue and a
full on RAID controller with added separate cabinet for SAS or SATA is
a) too expensive and b) too big.

Makes good sense!

As long as the enclosure doesn't cost five times what the server itself
costs.

--
Will

On Jun 18, 2:51 pm, "Will" wrote:

Nexsan costs a fortune. I'm looking for something that is commodity.

Well, a SATAblade is probably as cheap a fiber RAID array as you're
ever going to find.
The cost could probably be reduced somewhat by buying smaller/cheaper
drives.


As long as the enclosure doesn't cost five times what the server itself
costs.


Keep in mind that fiber channel technology IS expensive, across the
board.
It is not really for the hobbyist.
What are you planning on using it for?



--
Will

On Jun 18, 2:51 pm, "Will" wrote:

Nexsan costs a fortune. I'm looking for something that is commodity.

Well, a SATAblade is probably as cheap a fiber RAID array as you're
ever going to find.
The cost could probably be reduced somewhat by buying smaller/cheaper
drives.


As long as the enclosure doesn't cost five times what the server itself
costs.


Keep in mind that fiber channel technology IS expensive, across the
board.
It is not really for the hobbyist.
What are you planning on using it for?



--
Will

"Knut" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Jun 18, 2:51 pm, "Will" wrote:

Nexsan costs a fortune. I'm looking for something that is commodity.

Well, a SATAblade is probably as cheap a fiber RAID array as you're
ever going to find.
The cost could probably be reduced somewhat by buying smaller/cheaper
drives.


As long as the enclosure doesn't cost five times what the server itself
costs.


Keep in mind that fiber channel technology IS expensive, across the
board.
It is not really for the hobbyist.
What are you planning on using it for?

Pretty hard to compete against Compaq and Dell SCSI to RAID cabinets selling
for $200/each on eBay and the drives in trays going under $100/each.

A typical install for us would be two separate fibre cards in a server, each
connected to hard RAID in a dedicated fibre array, then mirrored across the
arrays using Windows software mirrors. Extremely redundant configuration,
and it's very convenient to take each array offline for maintenance with no
effect to service levels. But each one of those arrays is 4U high, and
the SCSI drives are energy pigs.

I would very much like to convert these installs over to SATA (for low
utilization servers) and SAS (for database and high utilization server), but
to get back space and also to save energy. But I'm not going to spend
$3K per cabinet to get back $400 in energy costs. And experience shows it
does commoditize given time.

--
Will

Will wrote:
And experience shows it does commoditize given time.

Your experience with Fibre Channel must be limited ;-)

--
Nik Simpson

"Nik Simpson" wrote in message
...
Will wrote:
And experience shows it does commoditize given time.

Your experience with Fibre Channel must be limited ;-)

Well, some aspects of fibre commoditized. You can certainly get the 1 Gbps
fibre switches for next to nothing. 2 Gbps still holds a premium, but the
smaller port-count 8 and 16 port Brocades are not going to break any
budgets.

I'm starting to see fibre to SATA JBOD cabinets go used under $1K each, but
still haven't seen that happening with RAID.

On a low-utilization server, most people would simply stick in a few SCSI
devices on the server and use a hardware RAID controller. I'm trying to
build additional layers into the system so hardware RAID is done off the
computer and there are no single paths of failure from the adapters, the
fibre networks, or the RAID boxes. None of our applications have more than
10 simultaneous users, so performance really isn't a primary consideration.
And we are not generating $100K of revenue every hour on these things and I
have to cost justify what is basically a convenience and a way to increase
service levels from one nine (99.9%) to two nines (99.99%).

What I want may not exist and that's okay, just checking.

--
Will

In article ,
am says...

"Nik Simpson" wrote in message
.. .
Will wrote:
And experience shows it does commoditize given time.

Your experience with Fibre Channel must be limited ;-)

Well, some aspects of fibre commoditized. You can certainly get the 1 Gbps
fibre switches for next to nothing. 2 Gbps still holds a premium, but the
smaller port-count 8 and 16 port Brocades are not going to break any
budgets.

I'm starting to see fibre to SATA JBOD cabinets go used under $1K each, but
still haven't seen that happening with RAID.

On a low-utilization server, most people would simply stick in a few SCSI
devices on the server and use a hardware RAID controller. I'm trying to
build additional layers into the system so hardware RAID is done off the
computer and there are no single paths of failure from the adapters, the
fibre networks, or the RAID boxes. None of our applications have more than
10 simultaneous users, so performance really isn't a primary consideration.
And we are not generating $100K of revenue every hour on these things and I
have to cost justify what is basically a convenience and a way to increase
service levels from one nine (99.9%) to two nines (99.99%).

What I want may not exist and that's okay, just checking.


Infortrend, Xyratex & Promise (the 3 leading white box RAID manufacturers)
make 12-16 bay, single & dual controller, SAS/SATA-4Gb Fibre Channel RAID
enclosures that integrators (like us) use to make RAID to customer's specs
Nexsan makes a good box but it's a little bit more $$ & I don't think
they have 2Gb, not 4Gb Fibre like most of the others
We even have a line of inexpensive / white box SAS JBOD enclosures
that are used as either expansion boxes for RAIDs or to connect PCI
based boards to

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/ . | 310-544-9439 / 310-544-9309 fax . . . o
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iSCSI/NAS/SAN/RAID from EMC, HP, Equallogic, Quantum, OverLand Storage

Will wrote:
"Nik Simpson" wrote in message
...
Will wrote:
And experience shows it does commoditize given time.

Your experience with Fibre Channel must be limited ;-)

Well, some aspects of fibre commoditized. You can certainly get the 1 Gbps
fibre switches for next to nothing.



Not because they are a commodity, it's because they are obsolete, a
rather different phenomenon.


2 Gbps still holds a premium, but the
smaller port-count 8 and 16 port Brocades are not going to break any
budgets.


Still not commodity, just very small, and even then when purchased new
they are expensive compared to say 1Gbit Ethernet which *IS* commodotized.


I'm starting to see fibre to SATA JBOD cabinets go used under $1K each, but
still haven't seen that happening with RAID.


New, or on Ebay?


On a low-utilization server, most people would simply stick in a few SCSI
devices on the server and use a hardware RAID controller. I'm trying to
build additional layers into the system so hardware RAID is done off the
computer and there are no single paths of failure from the adapters, the
fibre networks, or the RAID boxes.

You might do better looking at iSCSI for this type of application.
--
Nik Simpson