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#1
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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 |
#2
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SAS / SATA RAID to Fibre?
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 |
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SAS / SATA RAID to Fibre?
"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 |
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SAS / SATA RAID to Fibre?
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 |
#5
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SAS / SATA RAID to Fibre?
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 |
#6
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SAS / SATA RAID to Fibre?
"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 |
#7
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SAS / SATA RAID to Fibre?
Will wrote:
And experience shows it does commoditize given time. Your experience with Fibre Channel must be limited ;-) -- Nik Simpson |
#8
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SAS / SATA RAID to Fibre?
"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 |
#10
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SAS / SATA RAID to Fibre?
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 |
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