topic Re: MSA 2042, setup SSD Tiering in HPE MSA Storage

MSA 2042, setup SSD Tiering

Stepas76 — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 09:43:18 GMT

Hi, I'm setting up my first MSA 2042. I wanted to activate the auto tiering capabilities. I have already activated the license. I am following the white papers ... I created the first virtual pool in RAID6 with 12 600GB SAS disks, then I created a second virtual pool (always under the controller A) with the two SSDs, with a RAID1.

Now .. I must also create a new volume with 397GB SSD space or do not have to create anything?

Thank to all

Re: MSA 2042, setup SSD Tiering

oli_4 — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 06:21:47 GMT

this is the setup, you should have 2 pools which ara A and B then create virtual groups in each of those pools, virtual groups will built with SSD and SAS respectivelty. how many SSD and SAS disk do you have ? and what are their specs

Re: MSA 2042, setup SSD Tiering

giladzzz — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 08:15:53 GMT

in order to use auto tiering capabilities you must create a virtual pool (there can be only 2 virtual pools one on controller A and one on controller B)

I understand that you have 12 disks of 600GB and 2 SSD disks so your option is to create one virtual pool A in it you have the first virtual disk group of 12 SAS disks and then add to it a virtual disk group with the 2 SSD disks. this will be your performance tier.

if you want to split activity between 2 controllers you need more SSD disks and then to create two virtual pools with 2 virtual disk groups in each pool.

Regards

if this helps give a KUDO

Re: MSA 2042, setup SSD Tiering

Stepas76 — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 10:48:57 GMT

this is my situation :

POOLS :

VOLUMES :

Question : I must create a new Volume with the HDD SSD Capacity (400GB) for the auto-tiering feature ?

In the picture, the 4 volumes came all from SAS HDD.

Thank !

Re: MSA 2042, setup SSD Tiering

oli_4 — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 14:42:55 GMT

your configuration looks fine, remember the Auto-tiering allows you to offer a pool on which you will now build volumes, the concept is very different from linear volumes.

You are not creating volumes directly on the SSD or SAS disk, but you create volumes on the pool which is built with a mix of SSD and SAS. the auto-tiering will take the responsabiility to move data between SSD and SAS itself accoridng to performance requires by your workload. keep in mind that we are talking about "Auto-Tiering"

i would advise you create another pool B, and balance data (volumes between ) those 2 pools (A,B) and avoid using only one pool.

Re: MSA 2042, setup SSD Tiering

sakirh — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 22:35:49 GMT

Hi there, looking your answers regarding tiering and asking for information. You said: "...then add to it a virtual disk group with the 2 SSD disks. this will be your performance tier.". My questions:

1. Can one ssd disk be selected for performance tiering? When I tried to Add disk group to a pool I am offered only RAid1, 5, 6 or 10 for Virtual Group. (For Read Cashe I can select one disk)

2. It looks I have to commit twlo SSD's and have RAID1 (minimum) to get performance tiering in that group. Correct?

rgds

Re: MSA 2042, setup SSD Tiering

SUBHAJIT KHANBARMAN_1 — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 06:20:50 GMT

Your understanding is correct.

In order to get best performance using SSDs on the MSA 1040/2040, use a minimum of 4 SSDs with 1 mirrored pair of drives (RAID 1) per controller.

RAID 5 and RAID 6 are also good choices for SSDs, but require more drives using the best practice of having one Disk Group owned by each controller. This would require 6 SSDs for RAID 5 and 8 SSDs for RAID 6. All SSD volumes should be contained in fault tolerant Disk Groups for data integrity.