topic Re: Create one Volume over multiple P2000 Enclosures ? in MSA Storage

Create one Volume over multiple P2000 Enclosures ?

M_S — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 05:17:43 GMT

We have three MSA P2000G3 connected via iscsi to a Proliant DL380 running CentOS, each MSA has ~20TB Diskspace configured.

Our Customer now wants all this Storage combined to on big (~60TB) Volume.

Is this even Possible ?

Re: Create one Volume over multiple P2000 Enclosures ?

Johan Guldmyr — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 07:50:59 GMT

Hi, I'm unsure if this is possible unless you have some disk-shelves connected behind a P2000. Anyway, if it was possible you'd want to have a dedicated link between the P2000 G3s so that that traffic don't interfer with traffic to the CentOS..

You could create a software-raid or LVM on the CentOS pretty easily though to combine several LUNs/disks.

Re: Create one Volume over multiple P2000 Enclosures ?

M_S — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 09:22:21 GMT

Hi Johan, thanks for the answer.

By "some disk-shelves" you mean additional Hardware besides the Proliant and the P2000 Enclosures ?

I've also thought about a Software RAID but for me this would be another Layer ontop of this somewhat "unreliable" configuration.

The user wants space and speed, though a RAID 0 over all enclosures might sound good, but imo this would be a very risky setup, but i haven't convinced him yet ... ;)

Re: Create one Volume over multiple P2000 Enclosures ?

Johan Guldmyr — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 09:46:06 GMT

With "some disk-shelvse" I meant connecting for example MSA70 behind a P2000 controller.

Re: Create one Volume over multiple P2000 Enclosures ?

M_S — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 09:03:42 GMT

What we have is three times this :

HP P2000 G3 iSCSI MSA Dual Controller LFF Array System (BK830A)

Each Array System/MSA/Enclosure (whats the correct name?) has two iscsi controllers, 12 hdds and is connected over a dedicated switch to the Proliant.

Re: Create one Volume over multiple P2000 Enclosures ?

Torsten. — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:30:35 GMT

Volume managers like LVM are able to do this, but what should be the reason why?

If 1 P2000 fails, 60TB data are gone!