HP StorageWorks 60 Modular Smart Array (MSA60)

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kenned3

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Anyone familiar with these? What is a good way to connect one in JBOD mode for ZFS use?

I've heard LSI card work, but will they allow all 12 drives to be accessible?

I see these fairly cheap on ebay and would like to get one for a backup to my main system but am concerned with how to connect and have all 12 drives exposed to solaris 11.1.

Thx.
 
I have one attached with an HP SAS HBA which is based on the LSI2308 chip. I see all 12 drives.

The SAS Expander firmware can only be updated with a HP SmartArray card, much like the standalone HP SAS Expander card.

I haven't tested with over 2tb drives, so I can't vouch for their stability. My 2tb Seagate drives, both SATA II and III, have been rock solid.
 
lizardking009 said:
I have one attached with an HP SAS HBA which is based on the LSI2308 chip. I see all 12 drives.

The SAS Expander firmware can only be updated with a HP SmartArray card, much like the standalone HP SAS Expander card.

I haven't tested with over 2tb drives, so I can't vouch for their stability. My 2tb Seagate drives, both SATA II and III, have been rock solid.
Click to expand...

Would you happen to know what card you have? Do you have it connected via one cable to the MSA60?

I was considering : SAS SAS9200-8E but worry about accessing all 12 drives. Would like to make sure it works before i pick it up.
 
I've only used the MSA60 with HP SmartArray cards... But in theory...

The innards of the MSA60 are just a RAID channel expander built onto the backplane for the hot-swap drives... It's been a few years since I've been inside one, but I don't think there was really anything else (no intelligence) in the box... So long as you connect to the MSA60 from a 4ch SAS card, using the appropriate SAS cable, etc... all the drives should be accessible.
 
kenned3 said:
Would you happen to know what card you have? Do you have it connected via one cable to the MSA60?

I was considering : SAS SAS9200-8E but worry about accessing all 12 drives. Would like to make sure it works before i pick it up.
Click to expand...

Not off hand but it is just a run of the mill SAS card. I use one cable to connect to the MSA.

The SAS9200-8e will likely work great!
 
It should work fine with any LSI SAS card.

You will want to be sure that the firmware is current - or at least recent.

I'll leave it for others to confirm >2tb support - but I believe it should be OK.

There is one downside to it if you are after performance. The expander in the backplane will only connect SATA drives at SATA-II speeds (300MB/s). This isn't a big problem for rotating drives when dealing with them one at a time. But the enclosure only has a single 4-lane mini-SAS connection to the backplane. ZFS performance depends a lot on concurrent IO and shoving 12 drives worth of IO down a 4x300MB/s link creates a significant bottleneck.
 
PigLover said:
It should work fine with any LSI SAS card.

You will want to be sure that the firmware is current - or at least recent.

I'll leave it for others to confirm >2tb support - but I believe it should be OK.

There is one downside to it if you are after performance. The expander in the backplane will only connect SATA drives at SATA-II speeds (300MB/s). This isn't a big problem for rotating drives when dealing with them one at a time. But the enclosure only has a single 4-lane mini-SAS connection to the backplane. ZFS performance depends a lot on concurrent IO and shoving 12 drives worth of IO down a 4x300MB/s link creates a significant bottleneck.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your clear reply.

I'm actually not after performance, most of the time it will probably be idle. Its going to be more for a backup of my main unit. Once you reach a certain size backups are problematic and so i will just zfs send/receive what i need.

This unit is relatively cheap and convenient as i can chain a few of them together (keeping in mind the performance issue you mention).

Most of these "expanders" seem to behave the same which is why my main storage unit has multiple SAS cards and no expander.

Never dealt much with any external storage units and appreciate the advice.
 
kenned3 said:
Thanks for your clear reply.

I'm actually not after performance, most of the time it will probably be idle. Its going to be more for a backup of my main unit. Once you reach a certain size backups are problematic and so i will just zfs send/receive what i need.

This unit is relatively cheap and convenient as i can chain a few of them together (keeping in mind the performance issue you mention).

Most of these "expanders" seem to behave the same which is why my main storage unit has multiple SAS cards and no expander.

Never dealt much with any external storage units and appreciate the advice.
Click to expand...

If you are just after a backup solution it should be fine. Even performance could be OK depending on your application - you just won't set any multi-drive array speed records with it.

One more thought: don't forget that it was designed to live in a data center. The fans are not quiet. Not good for home if running 7x24 and in a small office you'd need an out-of-the-way closet to stash it in.
 
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