Rene,

Generally speaking, AT shelves are best suited for backup systems and nearstores, for archiving data. The performance for a production system is noticably lesser on AT shelves. But it also depends on what sort of production you're speaking of; if it's static data with mostly read operations, you might be able to get away with using AT. But if you're doing database stuff, or heavy read/writes, then AT will not be the best idea.

-----Original Message----- From: René Bormann [mailto:bormann@bbtel.de] Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 11:04 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Are DS14MK2 AT-FC Shelfs usable in iSCSI / CIFS / NFS Environments?

Hello Toasters,

we got an offer of DS14MK2 AT-FC Shelfs and now asking ourselfs if these are just for backupsystems like R200 or also for production with FAS920c.

Can anybody throw us some pro / cons?

Thanks,

Rene

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Hi Rene,

It's a subtle point, but it is important to recognize what the shelves you have are. If you have DS14MK2-AT shelves with AT-FC or AT-FC2 controllers, they are supported on R150 and R200 systems only.

If you have DS14Mk2-AT shelves with AT-FCX controllers, those are supported on your FAS920c and can be used with iSCSI/CIFS/NFS etc..

Hope this helps,

Doug Coatney Principal Software Engineer Storage Systems Team

NetApp 408.822.3708 Direct 408.822.4579 Fax dougc@netapp.com www.netapp.com

-----Original Message----- From: René Bormann [mailto:bormann@bbtel.de] Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 8:04 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Are DS14MK2 AT-FC Shelfs usable in iSCSI / CIFS / NFS Environments?

Hello Toasters,

we got an offer of DS14MK2 AT-FC Shelfs and now asking ourselfs if these are just for backupsystems like R200 or also for production with FAS920c.

Can anybody throw us some pro / cons?

Thanks,

Rene

--

Telefonkonferenzen zum Festnetzpreis!

Einfach kostenlos Konferenzraum anfordern

  http://www.talkyoo.net

---

René Bormann Geschäftsführer

BB Tel GmbH Jungfernstieg 30, 20354 Hamburg Register: Amtsgericht Hamburg, HRB 86074 Geschäftführer: René Bormann

Tel: +49 (0) 1805 - 65 777 777 * Fax: +49 (0) 1805 - 65 777 799 *

http://www.bbtel.de

• (bbtel.de 14ct/min)

** (es entstehen die Kosten, die ihre Telefongesellschaft zu einer Hamburger Festnetz-Rufnummer berechnet.)

---

On Aug 4, 2008, at 8:04 AM, René Bormann wrote:

Hello Toasters,

we got an offer of DS14MK2 AT-FC Shelfs and now asking ourselfs if these are just for backupsystems like R200 or also for production with FAS920c.

Can anybody throw us some pro / cons?

As others have mentioned, the biggest difference between SATA vs FC, is that SATA disks are not suited for high performance workloads where transaction times matter.

What hasn't been mentioned is that in NetApp's implementation, SATA firmware updates require downtime, about 70 seconds. This means that not only are SATA components ill suited for high performance, they not a good fit for high uptime.

In spite of the lower performance and availability characteristics I use them liberally for primary CIFS, NFS, FCP, and iSCSI across at least 12 clusters. Its a matter of setting expectations for downtime, being able to monitor workload and ready to migrate to FC if needed.

-=--=- gerald villabroza <geraldv at stanford.edu> technical lead, its storage, stanford university