Recommendations on array's

[Doug_3]

We have an HP9000 which acts as a database and app server. Our 12H autoraid is the primary bottleneck. Can anyone offer a succinct recommendation (pros/cons) on an Fiber Channel array that can be had on the re-furbished market for reasonable $$$ ?

I am leaning towards an FC10 using raid 1+0 for the database and leaving all the applications on the 12H, but other vendors or systems would be fine.

Thoughts or critiques welcome!

tia
Doug

[harry d brown jr · Accepted solution]

I use the FC10's and they perform rather well, especially for the cost. I haven't had (knock on wood) a failure in 1.5 years (so far). One of my FC10's are shared between three servers. Two use the primary ports and one uses the secondary port.

You can probably also find va7400's but they are much more expensive.

live free or die
harry

[A. Clay Stephenson]

For the money on the used-market FC10's are hard to beat but the new VA7400's are very nice.

The other thing to consider is another 12H; those things are dirt cheap on the used market now. I know this sound nuts but the vast majority of 12H's are tuned terribly and use only one primary path. You can be very pleasantly surprised at their performance if you follow two simple rules:

1) Each VG should be comprised of 2 equally sized LUN's with alternating primary/altername paths. Each LVOL within this VG should be stripped across both LUN's typically in 64K chunks. This fully utilizes both external SCSI data busses.

2) Allocate no more than about 60% of the 12H as LUN's to keep it in RAID 1/0 all the time; a little less is even better.

Following these 2 rules can make a huge difference and a lot can be said fore one of the AutoRAIDS greatest virtues - when a drive fails, remove the old one; throw in a new one; and walk away.