Comments on: Replacing a VMware ESX SAN

By: Tdimaggio

Tdimaggio — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:07:25 +0000

Gotcha….Actually, you can stripe a LUN on an MSA1000 over more then 3 disks but because of the lack-luster redundancy on that particular SAN, it’s too risky to do. I went from an MSA1000 to a NetApp 3020C and was in the same boat. 3 spindles per LUN. Check out running ESX on NFS as well….performance is equally as good as fiber channel *IF* you have multiple ESX servers accessing the same LUN – the sweet spot seems to be 5…no SCSI reservations, and you save a ton by not needing HBA’s and fiber switches.

By: Texiwill

Texiwill — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:53:17 +0000

Hello,

Actually not, I now have more spindles per LUN than before. The old HP MSA did not support meta-luns so there were only 3 spindles per LUN on the primary drive tray. There was also a major loss of performance going to the secondary and tertiary disk trays. Overall we have an increase in performance with the new SAN and better disk technology.

Everything depends on the # of spindles per LUN and where or how they are connected.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
AstroArch Consulting, Inc.

By: Tdimaggio

Tdimaggio — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 22:13:35 +0000

Enjoy the decrease in performance going from 42 spindles to 12. THAT’S a gotcha.