I can't comment much on the other vendors' most current offerings, but
iSCSI is anything but bolt-on for the filers. NetApp has the lion's
share of iSCSI deployments worldwide.
FAS270 (including clusters) running iSCSI configurations supporting
Exchange, SQL, and all varieties of other applications are going in all
over the place.
With a FAS270c, tiered storage (mixing FC & SATA) is possible, with
certain conditions. All secondary shelves are either SATA OR FC. From
the system configuration guide:
Caution 2: While both types of disk shelves can connect to the filer, if
there is an existing DiskShelf14mk2 FC connected to the FAS270/FAS270c,
then any additional expansion shelf must be a DiskShelf14mk2 FC. If
however, you do not have an expansion shelf connected to the
FAS270/FAS270c, then you can choose to connect to a loop of
DiskShelf14mk2 AT or a loop of DiskShelf14mk2 FC, but not both. The
FAS270/FAS270c does not support both types of disk shelves on the same
loop.
________________________________
From: owner-toasters(a)mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com]
On Behalf Of Raj Patel
Sent: Wednesday, 22 November 2006 8:40 a.m.
To: toasters(a)mathworks.com
Subject: iSCSI SAN Queries
Hi,
We're in the preliminary scoping phase for a low/mid-range iSCSI SAN
solution. I was wondering if anyone had any positive or negative
real-world experiences with -
NetApp 270c
HDS AMS200
EMC CX320
At the moment the NetApp is the most familiar to me as I have used one
of their NAS boxes before and the simulator provides a pretty good
indication of how it works. However the iSCSI seems a bit of a 'bolt-on'
and its not clear if it will handle tiered storage as well as the other
vendors (then again does it matter?).
The HDS & EMC are unknown quantities (other than what I can glean from
the web).
Any feedback concerning ease of use, expansion, licensing, snapshot
mechanism (the EMC seems clunky from their literature but I don't know
if that's the case in operation).
Also does anyone have any iSCSI 'gotchas' ? Is a TOE one of those 'nice
to have but not really necessary' things on a modern server or should it
be factored into the solution ?
Cheers,
Raj.
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