-
RAID Stripping/Partition/LUN Question
Hi all,
We have 4 x 16bay Infortrend units. We have always had them stripped as 2 x 8 disk Raid5 (128k) stripes and partitioned (3 partitions per slice) on the RAID then each set of Partitions per slice mapped to each port of the controller (we have all single controller units). As that is how they were originally supplied.
This yields around 200mb for the 2gb chassis and 300mb ish for the 4gb chassis. Which is fine for the FCP stations we have a ProResHQ workflow.
I am upgrading the 2gb sata RAID that serves the graphics stations (10 AE seats).
Currently we have single 2gb fibre connection from the switch to the (mac pro 2,1 3ghz, 10.6.8 OSX server). which shares a LAG over a 6 port small tree GB card to 2 x netgear 748TS switches.
I would like to increase the performance of the file sharing server by substituting a 4GB Raid as the storage for the server and 4gb fibre card running both ports (is there special zoning required to utilise both ports)
Would a single 16drive Raid5 128k stripe be advantageous over the 2 x8 disk slices for file serving purposes not editing?
We run 10 fibrejet seats as our san software.
I have all the cards etc so it not a question of new purchases just configuration.
I am not an expert at all of this but can configure all of the gear, so thanks for any advice.
regards,
Clayton
-
2 Replies
-
Because FibreJet is a volume-level solution, you must manage lots of partitions and volumes. As a result, each file gets stored on a small partition, itself resting on just a few disks. Of course, the 2Gb pipe for your file server is also a bottleneck for your LAN clients.
Using a file-level based SAN like Xsan or metaSAN you could stripe-across all your partitions into a single logical unit. In this case, every file would end up being stored across all drives, which would significantly reduce seek times and improve responsiveness.
However, this in itself wouldn’t help with the file server. With Xsan, you would still need to rely on a “fat pipe” for your single file server in order so it can deliver good performance to your LAN clients. However, using metaSAN, you could either go the traditional server route or run metaLAN on your LAN clients. When using metaLAN, all your LAN clients would automatically “connect” to a grid made up of all your 10x SAN members (that would now behave as a unified cluster of server). This mean that your metaLAN clients would now have the equivalent of 20Gb access to the storage (10x 2Gb FC) and 10Gb access over Ethernet (10x 1GbE) instead of the current 2Gb FC on one side and 6x ports trunked on the other… And metaLAN doesn’t put a burden on your SAN workstations as the intelligent load balancing algorithm always tries to dispatch data through workstations that are less loaded.
As you can see, the infrastructure is only one aspect to consider. The other aspect is how data can be managed and distributed in the most efficient way.
But certainly going with a 4Gb connection to your storage over two ports will allow you to better take advantage of your trunked lines (zoning is recommended, but not required on Mac). Regarding your RAID question vs. slice configuration, I don’t think you will see a tremendous difference. In the end, you should have more speed with 16x drives in a RAID 5, just because you are only dedicating one drive to parity, instead of two. But this said, you might get more performance out of two controllers working in parallel instead of one… In reality, only someone who is intimately familiar with this exact model of Infortrend RAID would be able to tell for sure.
Bernard
Bernard Lamborelle
bernard at tiger-technology.com
http://www.tiger-technology.com
514-667-2015 -
Hey Bernard,
thanks for the advice, I did a few tests and your were right there is little difference in the speed.
The dual 4gb link has helped though.
regards,
Clayton
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up