MSA1000

[enkoopa]

I've got an MSA1000. I have two questions.

1) Is it true the MSA1000 is only Ultra/160?

2) Could I use the SCSI ports instead to connect to a DL580G3's Smart Array and get Ultra320 speeds? (Essentially using the MSA1000 as an expensive disk shelf)

Thanks,
Greg

[Heironimus]

Yes, the MSA1000 runs its drives at U160.

I do not think that the MSA1000 is designed for use as a simple drive shelf. That port is connected to the internal SCSI controller for adding a second drive shelf to the MSA1000.

[enkoopa]

Would there be any way to disable the MSA1000 controller and use a servers? Guess not?

[Uwe Zessin]

No, sorry. The 14 slots are connected to the first two SCSI busses of the MSA1000 controller modules. The external ports go to the remaing two SCSI busses of the MSA1000 controller modules. (Yes, an MSA1000 controller has 4 SCSI busses.)

You would need a 'dummy card' to replace an MSA1000 controller module to re-route the internal SCSI busses. I don't think that such a thing exists in this universe ;-)

However, there is a 'small brother' of the MSA1000 called the MSA500. It uses a different controller module and a different I/O module which allows external U320 connectivity.

Maybe you can get these components from somebody who did an MSA500-to-MSA1000 upgrade.

[Heironimus]

I think the MSA500 internal bus is also U160, and you'd need to go down to the MSA30 if you really want an external drive shelf. But you really don't want that.

The spindles aren't going to hit U320 speeds anyway. You'll only get that if the data is coming out of cache. The controllers on the MSA1000 have a much larger cache module than the drives (assuming you bought it) and anything coming out of the controller cache should be at fibre speeds.

[enkoopa]

I benchmarked an array on the MSA1000 and got completely *horrible* speeds compared to the array right inside the 580. I figured I might be just as well with a SCSI disk shelf.

You think the MSA1000 should perform better then that? It's currently powered off, should I go build an array and check again?

[IBaltay]

Hi,
check, whether you have cache enabled in the MSA1000 controllers pls, because otherwise all your reads/writes are going directly to the HDDisks which is much slower then cache...

[enkoopa]

Cache is enabled. There is 256MB cache on it.

I've just made a 4-disk RAID5 array with the same disks as the 4-disk RAID5 array in my DL580.

I'll benchmark the array tomorrow, once it is done parity initialization.

[enkoopa]

Alright parity is finished and cache is enabled. Here's the lowdown using ATTO to benchmark the hard disk.

DL580G3, 4x147GB in RAID5, ESXi, VM running windows 2003 - I get around 100MB/sec write speeds, 140-150MB/sec read speeds (peaks at 196)

Same machine but with the VM moved over to the MSA1000 array (4x147GB RAID5).. write, ~70MB/sec, read ~55-50MB/sec.

Unfortunately the MSA's write is slower and the reads are almost 3 times slower.

Do you think using an MSA30 attached to the DL580 via SCSI I could keep those similar speeds? Perhaps the Smart Controller in the DL580G3 is just better then the rather out-dated MSA1000?

MSA1000 has latest firmware.. 5.02 or is it 5.2... active/passive.

Thanks for your help,
Greg

[IBaltay · Accepted solution]

Hi, maybe you could try also the active/active MSA 1000 controller firmware upgrade to see the IOPS improvement