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Re: 1 GbE versus 10 GbE - when and why?

 
TMTech Tony
Occasional Contributor

1 GbE versus 10 GbE - when and why?

I have a 2-node P4500 G2 (the 7.2 raw kind) with the 10 GbE NICs installed (on both nodes).  I may be about to greatly expand my number of nodes (potentially from 2 to 8) and I'm wondering if it makes sense to have 10 GbE on the SAN nodes when I have that many nodes.  My reasoning is that if data writes and reads are being distributed over 8 nodes, I potentially have 80 Gbps of bandwidth -- and that just seems like overkill.  Pricing of 10 GbE equipment (cables, cards, switches) is running roughly 10 times more than 1 GbE, so this isn't just an academic question for me.

 

I think I would still want 10 GbE on my blade system backends (Flex 10 E modules on HP C7000 chassis) since I'm going to have a lot of aggregate data access coming through there.

 

What do y'all think? 

 

Tony

3 REPLIES 3
TMTech Tony
Occasional Contributor

Re: 1 GbE versus 10 GbE - when and why?

So... did I say something stupid?  Or does nobody have an opinion on this?  Or is this the first time that anyone has thought of this question - ???

Paul Hutchings
Super Advisor

Re: 1 GbE versus 10 GbE - when and why?

I'd have thought a lot of it comes down to the iSCSI clients?

 

If they're Windows you get to use the DSM MPIO module so you can benefit potentially from all those nodes and bandwidth.

 

If it's VMware or something other than Windows you're always going to be limited by each volume being served from a single gateway node, so 10gbps may be a significant benefit.

bryan_hadzik
Frequent Advisor

Re: 1 GbE versus 10 GbE - when and why?

The san modules usually can't output more than 2 gigs since there is only 12 drives. Save your money and buy more disk. 10gig on the recieving side is good if you will have 8 modules.