Results 1 to 18 of 18
Thread: Host using SANs
-
11-18-2009, 08:04 PM #1Disabled
- Join Date
- Jul 2002
- Posts
- 16
Host using SANs
I am curious for those hosting companies that are out there using SANs what type of disks are you using SATA or SAS or FC drives. The next question is if you are using SATA/nerline SATA what raid levels are you using?
-
11-18-2009, 08:13 PM #2Uptime Aficionado
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
- Location
- /usr/bin/perl
- Posts
- 971
SAS in RAID-DP
Ask me about CloudCentrum (coming soon) -- The complete, turn-key cloud software solution
-
11-18-2009, 08:40 PM #3Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Jun 2002
- Location
- PA, USA
- Posts
- 5,143
We use several iSCSI SANs over the last 2.5 years.
1. Dell/EMC Ax150i - 12 x SATA 7200 rpm drives. Used for web servers, RAID5 works perfectly fine.
2. Dell PowerVault MD3000i - 15 drives, can mixed SATA and SAS drives. We used this for mail/database servers using SAS 15K drives in RAID10.
3. Dell EqualLogic PS5500E - 48 x SATA 7200 rpm drives in 4U (GREAT!). With the high amount of spindles, these SATA drives actually gave the same IOPS as 16 x 15K SAS drives. So we used this for web, mail, database serveers. Currently RAID10 is setup on this array. Although due to the high number of spindles we don't actually see much performance difference between RAID10 and RAID50. We can change the RAID level from RAID10 to RAID50 down the road if we need the capacity.Fluid Hosting, LLC - Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure: Cloud Shared and Reseller, Cloud VPS, and Cloud Hybrid Server
-
11-18-2009, 09:05 PM #4WHT Addict
- Join Date
- May 2009
- Posts
- 142
What kind of performance were you getting on the MD3000i? I tested a similar product, the Jestor 416is with 16 SATA drives, and it was simply worthless. Tried different switches, jumbo frames, and could not get decent performance. We ended up switching back to internal arrays. Have stayed away from iscsi products ever since.
-
11-18-2009, 09:46 PM #5Newbie
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Location
- Zurich - Switzerland
- Posts
- 28
We also use both several FC and iSCSI SANs over the last 4 years.
EMC Ax150 FC - 12 x SAS 10k rpm drives. (No more used in production)
EMC AX4 FC - 12 x SAS 15k rpm drives. We used this for VMware ESX servers using drives in RAID5.
EMC Clariion CX3-40. Can mix both SAS and SATA. This is the best in performance we have ever used. We're using this machine for our VMware ESX Hosting.
HP DL380G5 and HP DL380G6 with LeftHand. The performance depends from what kind of server you build it from, but it gives you a lot of features like Mirroring/Clustering across different Storage and different Datacenters. We use this solution for Disaster Recovery solutions across different DC or for iSCSI storage for dedicated servers.
At the and the best is the CX3-40 for performance, but the LeftHand SAN wins on EMC2 for its features.
-
11-18-2009, 09:54 PM #6Newbie
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Location
- Zurich - Switzerland
- Posts
- 28
I forgot to say that on EMC CX3-40 we have 5000 IOPs and peak at 30000.
On the LeftHand we are "only" getting 1500 IOPS and peaks at 8000.
It's not too mutch but CX3 is FC and LeftHand is iSCSI.
@forasse. Did you used TCP offload NICs ?
-
11-18-2009, 11:04 PM #7Web Hosting Evangelist
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
- Posts
- 452
We currently utilize several iSCSI SAN's within our environment, mostly the PS4000 and PS6000 with 15K SAS drives configured in a RAID10 array. The replication feature built in with the EqualLogic platform is simply amazing.
Antony Mascarenhas How can I help? antony_m@zysek.com
Zysek Technologies Pvt. Ltd. - Indian Datacenter ¦ Hyderabad & Mumbai
Web Hosting · Virtual Servers · Dedicated Servers · Colocation · Managed Services
-
11-18-2009, 11:12 PM #8Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Jun 2002
- Location
- PA, USA
- Posts
- 5,143
I am always suspicious with quoted IOPS number, especially when cache is involved. I would propose using 100% random IO operation when quoting IOPS and compare one product over another.
If my calculation is correct, typically a 15K rpm ~4.5 ms drives will give you ~250 IOPS assuming 100% random operation. Assume RAID0 (fastest IOPS on any raid level), then 16 drives (Typical) 15K rpm drives would yield a physical limit of 4000 IOPS. .
So to get 30000 IOPS, one must ask:
1. how many drives?
2. what kind of drives?
3. what RAID level?
4. what's the assumption read/write ratio?
5. what's the assumption % random IO operation?
6. is your cache disabled? are you sure you are not benchmarking your cache?Fluid Hosting, LLC - Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure: Cloud Shared and Reseller, Cloud VPS, and Cloud Hybrid Server
-
11-18-2009, 11:13 PM #9Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Jun 2002
- Location
- PA, USA
- Posts
- 5,143
Fluid Hosting, LLC - Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure: Cloud Shared and Reseller, Cloud VPS, and Cloud Hybrid Server
-
11-18-2009, 11:16 PM #10Web Hosting Evangelist
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
- Posts
- 452
@FHDave
We utilize the EqualLogic platform for snapshots and replication over WAN to our second location.Antony Mascarenhas How can I help? antony_m@zysek.com
Zysek Technologies Pvt. Ltd. - Indian Datacenter ¦ Hyderabad & Mumbai
Web Hosting · Virtual Servers · Dedicated Servers · Colocation · Managed Services
-
11-19-2009, 05:33 AM #11Newbie
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Location
- Zurich - Switzerland
- Posts
- 28
This SAN is based on nearly 1 hundred of 15k rpm disks with FC Interface.
The CX3 40 can support up to 240 Disks, but on this Storage you probabibly run out of Processor resources sooner the Disk speed bootleneck.
I can suppose that all the IO is random becouse there's many esx servers connected with different VMs each.
-
11-19-2009, 02:09 PM #12Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Jun 2002
- Location
- PA, USA
- Posts
- 5,143
Fluid Hosting, LLC - Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure: Cloud Shared and Reseller, Cloud VPS, and Cloud Hybrid Server
-
11-19-2009, 02:10 PM #13Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Jun 2002
- Location
- PA, USA
- Posts
- 5,143
Fluid Hosting, LLC - Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure: Cloud Shared and Reseller, Cloud VPS, and Cloud Hybrid Server
-
11-19-2009, 02:12 PM #14Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Jun 2002
- Location
- PA, USA
- Posts
- 5,143
BTW, for those using FC, I wonder if you think it's worth it? For me the complexity is far more than desired. Besides, iSCSI SAN can now (or starting to) adopt the 10Gbps ports, more than double the 4Gbps FC ports. And the use of ethernet makes iSCSI much more expandable in the future than FC, IMHO.
Fluid Hosting, LLC - Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure: Cloud Shared and Reseller, Cloud VPS, and Cloud Hybrid Server
-
11-19-2009, 03:41 PM #15Newbie
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Location
- Zurich - Switzerland
- Posts
- 28
No, we're not comparing with the same spindles.
LeftHand SAN is running with 8 or 16 SAS Disks.
As far as I see on those SAN, the interface speed like 4Gbps or 10Gbps is not so important like Controller processors.
EMC2 CX3 is anything but cheap, but it gives you more troughput becouse it use multiple controllers.
And yes it worth the price only if you host high quality services or very important application that need high availability and better performance.
-
11-19-2009, 04:02 PM #16Web Hosting Guru
- Join Date
- Nov 2007
- Location
- West Palm Beach, FL
- Posts
- 275
I can comment if you like. We also have an MD3000i -- all 15K 450GB SAS disks in RAID-6. We've filled out capacity on the unit and have close to 120 clients in production with good performance. What do I consider "good"? We directly compared our performance with those of our competitors who use a range of products/methods from RAID-10 on a local server to large Enterprise class SANs. Our performance is as good and in many cases better. Granted, workloads vary and so do how clients ultimately use the VMs. Nearly all of our machines are WEB workloads with some light SQL.
The MD3000i was a fantastic entry into the SAN market. We are still very happy with the purchase, BUT.. it does have its pain points. Reporting (specifically performance) is nearly non-existent. Expanding LUNs is painful (operations can take 12-14 hours in our case). Management features can be lacking. No advanced features like replication or thin provisioning. Bang for the buck though, if you're just starting to get into SAN and/or iscsi it's a great value as long as you understand the limitations.
The MD3000i did teach us though that our next SAN implementation didn't have to be SAS. We've purchased some Equallogic units that are all SATA. I think most people simply assume they have to have SAS when SATA is generally fine for their application. I really think this carries over from (it did in my case) feeling they'd never run SATA in a server, so why use it in a SAN. We were able to determine that our existing implementation would easily run on a PS6000e SATA box.
For us, FC really wasn't an option. IMHO, unless you're running very heavy SQL loads (large dedicated clusters) it isn't generally needed in the "hosting" space. The cost and additional network infrastructure are prohibitive and the additional performance wasn't warranted. YMMV.
We just received our first PS6000e I'm really looking forward to building out our next cluster. We anticipate having a couple PS6500's shortly as well. I think the Dell EQ boxes are really the way to go for iscsi.
Good luck -Last edited by AI-Wayne; 11-19-2009 at 04:14 PM.
Applied Innovations (www.appliedi.net)
Microsoft Gold Certified Hosting Partner, ASP.net Featured Host.
Specializing in Windows Hosting since 1999.
-
11-19-2009, 04:07 PM #17Newbie
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Location
- Zurich - Switzerland
- Posts
- 28
█ ENGINE NETWORKS - Blade Dedicated Server - VMware Cloud Hosting - Colocation
█ Multiple datacenter, Geneva, Zurich, and Milan
█ Since 2005 in the market - http://www.enginenetworks.net
-
11-19-2009, 05:03 PM #18Web Hosting Master
- Join Date
- Jun 2002
- Location
- PA, USA
- Posts
- 5,143
In that case, it seems your LeftHand is performing bettern than the CX3-40. Even if you have 16 drives on your LeftHand array, that's about 6 times less than what you have on CX3-40, and only <4 times less in IOPS.
As far as I see on those SAN, the interface speed like 4Gbps or 10Gbps is not so important like Controller processors.
EMC2 CX3 is anything but cheap, but it gives you more troughput becouse it use multiple controllers.
And yes it worth the price only if you host high quality services or very important application that need high availability and better performance.Fluid Hosting, LLC - Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure: Cloud Shared and Reseller, Cloud VPS, and Cloud Hybrid Server
Similar Threads
-
Winchester SANs still around?
By Jeremy in forum Colocation, Data Centers, IP Space and NetworksReplies: 2Last Post: 08-22-2009, 11:59 PM -
Rackspace sans bandwidth?
By mripguru in forum Colocation, Data Centers, IP Space and NetworksReplies: 2Last Post: 09-29-2005, 08:29 PM -
Sans Font
By m2k961 in forum Web Hosting LoungeReplies: 2Last Post: 10-21-2003, 07:31 PM -
New Sans/FBI Top 20 list
By Deahost in forum Web Hosting LoungeReplies: 3Last Post: 10-03-2002, 07:51 PM