[Clayton Botkin]

Hi Chris,
Geez you guys are such experts up here… I’m just a guy trying to get beyond NAS and I’m studying like heck to understand all this. Thanks for the response.
I’m just running a simple small-office network with consumer stuff. Netgear managed switch with 4-Netgear NV+ NAS units each with 4- 1TB Seagate “ES” drive. 16TB storage. I did up the mem sticks to 1Gig in all 4 units. This NAS solution is great… I love it. But, it’s not appropriate for the 200Gig statistical databases I’m pushing around. Plus the SAS-stats software is typically loaded onto university sites, and frankly either at companies or at universities… it’s never fast. Why – i think for the same reason I dealing with here. Never enough SAN/fiber/iSCSI drives with ‘direct connections’. Mostly always via a ‘connection’ or lan or something.
I think my need is beyond the NAS drives.
The IO is sequential I think — the software loads huge data as it courses through the code that we execute. The data (SAS-stats) system is designed to run sequentially — top record down to bottom. I believe the IO is the same.
The PCs are simply a Win7 Ultimate – high-end i7 4-core – 6-Gig ram… the other one is dual Xeon – 12Gig ram… they are “fast” – and the larger Ram does help. Your discussion on CACHE and file level protocols is wonderful… I need to study to understand this better.

I do agree that once I solve one bottleneck – there will be another (I believe that with 10x increase from direct connect SAS/Fiber then the next issue will be Ram – and I am planning a newer PC-server box with multi-XEON that will allow up to 48 Gig Ram).

But, I’ve worked on this issue with the SAS-CaryNC guys and they tell me directly that I’m IO bound (due to NAS) and SAS/fiber is best.
My real challenge is how to get something (small) direct connected to one PC for reasonable (non-corporate) money.

Any directions or ideas help — and Thank You !

[Clayton Botkin]

Hi – and thanks for the fast response… You are no-doubt a master of your technical world. This SAN/fiber/SAS world is new to me. I am actually a focused scientist type – trying to make a small 2-3 person consulting biz work. The ‘budget’ will literally be ‘out of my checkbook’. My skills and linkage to complex and very large datasets begun ‘in a university’… but that was years ago.
I’m clearly in over my head trying to learn SAS/fiber/SAS. I’m dealing with 2 PCs running Win7 ultimate (ugh-I know). But, I’m doing real intriguing modeling… on 200 gig files with the SAS-stats software. Statistical Analysis System. I’ve worked with the SAS-CaryNC tech team to learn enough that the software first makes a huge shadow copy of the database as it begins to process. Most data I/O are sequential. My PC-NAS storage system is great for holding all my research and files etc. (4-Netgear NV+ each holding 4- 1TB Seagate “ES” enterprise drives — but, only spinning 7-8k fast).

I’ve been directly told that I’m I/O bound as I try to get the software to
process these large 200G files. –> Enter direct attached SAN/fiber/SASi or something.

Thank you for the company/product suggestions… it has made for worderful reading/learning… great stuff. Now… recall… I’m a simpleton. I need to sift through this to try to purchase a card and a neat-o new cable of somekind – fiber ? SASi ? – and a new cage of SAN or SAS drives. I have a good handle on ‘standard’ NAS hot-swap drives… but, no idea about SAN.

I can see that the card possibly could be < $1000 (LSI/ATTO) – in the 6GB/1 port or 2 port flavor. I’m fine purchasing a new cage/box for a set of drives. But, need more specifics since I’m just so new to this. My budget may be just $5K… for connecting one PC directly. Is this possible? I’m even ok with something secondhand – but, I do see the latest product connect cards are boasting 6G throughput.

Thank you very much for your time.