Fibre Channel SBOD, Need Raid Controller

J

jaw4322

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May 26, 2010
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Hello

Looking for a a little help. I have 2 16 Drive 300GB 15K FC SBOD SAN Drives, that I want to use as video storage within a server environment. I currently have the 2 SANs daisy chained together and then connected to my windows 2003 server via fiber to an ATTO FC card. I'm using the windows 2003 Raid 5 setup, and its sooooo slow. I get only 5MB/s writes.

I guess I need to know the best solution for an external raid controller or another way that will give me the best speed at a low price, of course. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

Joe
 
who makes your current JBOD enclosures? I would not recommend ATTO FC HBAs, I would use QLogic. Additionally, software RAID-5 will be TERRIBLE in comparison to a real FC RAID controller. Additionally, each enclosure is not a SAN of it's own. It's a matter of just using the correct nomenclature, really, but us SAN guys can be sticklers. :D

Are the drives that you're using true FC drives, or are they SATA/SAS with FC interposers? or are they SATA/SAS and just in a FC backended enclosure? Do you have a FC switch environment, or is this direct attached to your server? How many HBAs and how many ports do you have on your server? Is the server booting from a LUN on the FC disk, or is it booting from another source?

Do you have a Visio for this environment? get me model numbers and product pages for as much as you can. I know ATTO cards and enclosures are well respected in the video editing world, but in a true SAN environment, I would not recommend them.
 
Hello, thanks for the reply. Busy day. These are made by Xyratex, they are the RS-1602-FC-SBD. Basically its currently setup like this SAN (4Gb)--Fiber (LC-LC) (Daisy chain)-- SAN (4Gb) ---Fiber (LC-LC) --- Direct connect to Server (Atto 4Gb Fiber card) That's it no other HBA's, etc. http://www.xyratex.com/products/storage-systems/storage-RS-1600-F4.aspx

The drives are SATA 2 15K 300GB 3Gb with each connected to independent FC interfaces. 16 drives per chassis. The server does not boot from these drives. I basically used windows 2003 and created a raid 5 with all the drives, and shared the folder on my network.

I understand what your saying about the Atto cards, but i have never had a problem with them. Just something I picked up for a good price. I appreciate the help.

Thanks

Joe
 
I am very familiar with the Xyratex boxes. The last place I worked has an OEM agreement with them (my company badged the product as our own, but it was Xyratex). Xyratex makes RAID ESMs for most of their enclosures. It just replaces the JBOD controller that's already in the box to a true RAID controller. All of the internal passive midplane and connections are there, and in use, it's just that currently, there's no intelligence.

Contact Xyratex directly or a local reseller to find out how much these units cost. I'd estimate about $2500 each, and you'll need two. Also, if you just have one FC HBA, it's time to get another one, when you do this uplift, and also consider a small QLogic 8port 4Gb switch, as well. As far as I know, there are very few exceptions to not having to use the Xyratex FC RAID controller modules to enable RAID on these JBODs. Notable exceptions: NetApp Gateways, IBM SVC boxes, and LSI SVM boxes. NetApp, being the cheapest, will still be $35k for the hardware, and about the same for the software to enable FC mode, CIFS sharing, and gateway modes.

FYI we stopped OEM'ing Xyratex, because although they were low cost, they were also low quality. Beyond 2 years, we had such a number of failures that the components were no longer financially viable to stock, for repairs. You may have better luck.
 
Thanks for the info. I really appreciate it. However, is there no windows based Hardware/Software FC Raid controller, that's cheaper? I was just thinking there has to be a way to control these drives other than buying what Xyratex offers. If Windows can create and control the drives, why cant some kind of PC Raid hardware and/or Software do it?
I know these drives are used by video broadcast servers(particularly Harris), that just use software on a windows xp platform, and get better than 150MB/s writes (network FTP transfers). This is obviously a specialized app,but their environment is pretty much the same setup, where you can directly connect the drives to the server(s), or use a FC switched environment. Their software basically lets you create virtual drives that the video servers use, and there's no special hardware. Just their software running on windows xp.

This is Harris branded Xyratex storage. http://www.broadcast.harris.com/productsandsolutions/Servers/StorageSolutions/3100Series.asp

Thanks again.
 
Last edited:
WOW....good find...I'll have to verify they will work, but that would be a great deal. Thank you for the info Nitro. I'll keep you updated.

Thanks
 
jay2472000 said:
Im confused, 10 Tb of storage that cost as much as this and only transfers at 5MB/s ????
Click to expand...

Well its not setup properly and he is using Windows RAID5, anything with Windows RAID5 is going to suck.
 
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