On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Cotton, Randall <recotton@uif.uillinois.edu> wrote:
Just to clarify: for me, raid group size = aggregate size - that is,
I'll only have one raid group per aggregate.

It would have been clearer if I asked for benchmarks of performance vs
aggregate data disk count. My apologies.
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The answer would be the same.

More = better.   Just..remove "raid groups" from your question regarding performance.   Its # of disks.

This doesn't seem to me an unreasonable thing to expect might be
available somewhere.
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Well, it is.

More = better.

A system..any system, will have capabilities defined by limitations in multiple areas.

You'll run out of processing power (controller) or storage (disk) depending on how you prioritize what you need to do, with what you want to budget for.

 
And it seems to me it's my professional
responsibility to at least try to seek it out before recommending how we
should (re)configure our boxes rather than being content to take a stab
in the dark 8-)
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Any reason to leave performance on the table by not configuring all of what you bought in a reasonable manner?

A single RG of 22 disks, or two of 11, or...I dunno.  

You're not exposing your goals.   Dunno what you bought, dunno what you NEED to do with it, dunno what you WANT to do with it.




 



Randall

-----Original Message-----
From: toasters-bounces@teaparty.net
[mailto:toasters-bounces@teaparty.net] On Behalf Of Jeff Mohler
Sent: Sunday, October 30, 2011 10:38 PM
To: Peter D. Gray
Cc: toasters@teaparty.net
Subject: Re: Is there a graph somewhere of performance vs raid group
size?

It's because of two things.

1). Rg size is not directly tied to performance itself.  The total
number of data drives per _aggregate_ is.   A system with four 4+2 rg's
in an aggregate and a system with a single 16+2 aggregate are within a
verrrry narrow margin of each other performance wise.  The only
difference being slightly more overhead for every additional raid stripe
to manage In the 4(4+2) example.  Raid groups do not drive io.  They
provide resiliency.

2). What value do you want? (not directed to Peter, just in general)  I
could lay it out in zebras per railroad car..but that's not your
workload, is it?

Top Down:
1] Aggregates provide physical performance.
  -Size them for either throughput in MB/sec, or Physical IO's/sec.
One is a want, the other is a need.    Your business planning determines
that relationship.
2] Volumes provide user space to do work in.  The workload within them
is generally limited by the capability of the aggregate layer beneath
them.
3] Raid groups provide firewalls of data protection in the multi-family
unit called the aggregate.  They don't inhibit the entry or exit of
workload into it as long as the block everyone lives is in constructed
and managed responsibly as you add units to it. (reallocate,
etc..because sometimes the tenant workload leaves a mess behind)
4] Your unique dataset with YOUR unique workload applied to it will
result in...a unique result in every metric you could possibly measure,
and want NetApp to provide a blanket answer to.

..see the problem with "we can't really say..."?   I mean other that
more = mo-better.






Sent from my iThingie

On Oct 30, 2011, at 18:30, "Peter D\. Gray" <pdg@uow.edu.au> wrote:

> Surely there is no sensible answer to this question, which is why
> netapp refuse to quantify.
>
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