+--- In our lifetime, Brian Tao taob@nbc.netcom.ca wrote: | | Multiple RAID-4 sets mean multiple parity drives (and thus better | survivability for multi-disk failures on one Netapp), faster | reconstruction times, fault isolation (shelf failures, shelf module | failure, etc. affect only their RAID set), and the ability to rip out | a bunch of disks without affecting other data.
I understand the benefits. I just don't care for having 5 4GB slices which you have to manage (ala auspex).
Yes, being able to run snapshots for selected volume sets would be cool. No need to snapshot my logs :)
| Mirroring would be nice. A double-drive failure is my biggest | fear on a large RAID. Actually, that takes second place behind NVRAM | failure. =8-{ ;-)
Not having experience either of these in the 2+ years I have used NetApps, I have lost that fear. Perhaps it is naive.
| 99.5% uptime means a 3.6-hour outage every month. That's not so | hot. ;-) There are some applications where absolute 100% uptime is | the goal. A Netapp still has a number of single points of failure | that can cause a service outage: read cache RAM, CPU, NVRAM, shelf, | motherboard, network interface, disk controller, etc. Granted, most | of these faults cause only very short outages, but some companies want | protection against every conceivable failure (or as close to it as | technically feasible).
Absolutely. Financial institutions are among the first that come to mind as needing 100% uptime and fault-tolerance.
(knock on wood) my outages have been quite limited. And they usually last no more than 10 minutes (usually due to silly mistakes).
Alexei