How do you RAID 1 Intel P3700 SSDs

ochadd

ochadd

[H]ard|Gawd
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I'm working on a new SAP server build that would be well served using a single P3700 for the main database. I'm not willing to give up redundancy though. Is there a NVME U.2 controller that allows hardware RAID 1 using the 2.5" form factor?
 
Doesn't exist so far as I'm aware. There really aren't any NVMe controllers anyway at least in the retail channels. Any expansion cards that have U.2 ports merely route the PCIe signal from the slot to the connector. Some use PLX chips, but aside from that, it's on the chipset to support RAID functionality.
 
I think I saw this feature mentioned in some of the reviews of the new Skylake Z170 chipset. Intel RST RAID support for multiple M.2 and SATA Express (U.2) drives. I think 3 drives max on the new chipset?

That's the closest I've seen, I suppose something similar will show up on the server side soon.

Edit:
Though if it were me, I'd probably not mess with RAID, and set up a DB mirror on a 2nd server/VM with the 2nd 3700 instead.
 
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JBark said:
I think I saw this feature mentioned in some of the reviews of the new Skylake Z170 chipset. Intel RST RAID support for multiple M.2 and SATA Express (U.2) drives. I think 3 drives max on the new chipset?

That's the closest I've seen, I suppose something similar will show up on the server side soon.

Edit:
Though if it were me, I'd probably not mess with RAID, and set up a DB mirror on a 2nd server/VM with the 2nd 3700 instead.
Click to expand...

If you do an IRST RAID with the P3700 the CPU load will consumer 8 cores easy. There would be 0 point to having such a card since the card or cpu will throttle the whole system. Its simply too fast for something like that unless you have insane CPU power. Additionally, why not go do regular back ups? You could have a 2nd P3700 and have the first P3700 do an Ancronis image every hour or something if that concerned.

Again i am basing this off this source http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-dc-s3500-raid-performance,3613-4.html
It is using 70% of 4 cores in a JBOD but i don't know if that type of CPU usage is applicable to RAID 1 or not. You might not have any issue but the review does not mention CPU usage in any other tests and I can't find that online easily from my prior searches. Others on this forum says those number exist but I spent a few hours reading a bunch of sources and found no figures.

Also how would IRST RAID not work unless its Z170? Its just a software RAID...what a I missing?

ERRR nm SAP server...too mission critical to even loose an hours worth of work derp derp.
 
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Yeah the downtime per hour is more than most annual salaries. I've got good backups. The server will have dual 3ghz hex core CPUs, 128 GB of memory, and redundant PSUs. Each PSU is connected to a separate UPS and it's all backed by a diesel generator and ATS.

The problem is the SAN infrastructure can't handle the IO demand and this one application generates more demand than everything else (22 VMs) combined. Doesn't make sense to throw an all SSD SAN expansion at a single machine. If I pull this workload off everything else will scream.
 
OS on 2/more SATA/SAS SSDs in RAID1/5/6.

Your apps on the P3700s raided by the OS.
 
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