IDE disk based arrays?

[George_Dodds]

Is there such a thing as an array with ide disks that can be used on an L class server?

I have 2 L class servers that i need to attach about 700 gb of external storage to.

We have spare SC10 array's but the price of 72gb scsi disks is too expensive to be able to justify it.

Thats why i'm wondering if there's any ide disk based array's that i could use?

thanx in advance.

George

[George_Dodds]

just looking at it i'd need 1TB for both machines.

I know Dell do the PowerVault 725N NAS but it can only be connected via fibre.

I have A5158A 1GB hba fibre cards in these servers, i wonder if they would work ok together?

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Not sure. See http://www.dell.com/us/en/esg/topics/esg_nas_main_storage_2_nasto_725n.htm . I did not find hpux in the list, so suppose it's not tested solution.
About FC: sooner or later you will have to move to FC. And one more good point of view: you have HP servers, and better to have HP storage - it's simple and faster because one manufacturer and one service provider. For your needs I would look to VA disk array family
Eugeny

[George_Dodds]

It seems as if the dell is just a glorified pc.

So i doubt very much if you can put unix filesystems directly onto them, i bet you have to use samba or something similar.

I need something like the sc10 that uses ide disks.

[George_Dodds]

I dont have much faith in HP tp HP compatibilty.

We've got a HP 1/9 autoloader that HP are struggling to get the dman robtics to work with our L class server.

I have to manually move the tapes around!

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

Hi,
I use an IDE-based disk array on a A-class server and it works whitout any problem. I can se no reason why this should not work on a L-class server. The host don't know anything about the array internal (IDE or not), it just see the disk as a ordinary (but very large) SCSI-disk.

[George_Dodds]

Hi Leif

What array are you using?

Just called HP and they dont do any ide disk based solutions.

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Leif,
of course it is not dependant on which backend configuration disk array has. It depends on can disk array controller handle specific hpux identification requests - for example which mode to use - volume set (where you can have 32K LUNs) or target mode (8 LUNs only). I would not buy disk array with hpux not listed as supported OS
Eugeny

[George_Dodds]

You've raised a good point Eugeny.

This array would hold an informix database as well as normal filesystems.

This setup is just going to be an offsite cold spare, but it will need to work!

Anybody got any ideas on an ide array that will work happily with hpux and informix?

[Leif Halvarsson_2 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I use a disk from Fibrenetix disk called Zero-D 400 with six 80GB IDE drives.

http://www.fibrenetix.co.uk/

I am not sure if exact this model is avilable today, It is about 2 years old.

Of course I can give no gurantee for what works in your enviroment but I have used this disk for 2 years on HP-UX and Solaris , also for booting, Oracle database etc. and never seen any problem that I can relate to the disk (I use this disk for testing, temporary configurations and as spare part).

[e4services]

George,
look at two hardware ATA RAID controllers: the SuperTrak100 and Escalade 6400 and then firmware RAID cards like the Promise FastTrak100 and LSI MegaRAID i4 Four-channel ATA/100, processor-based RAID solution and the MegaRAID ATA 133-2 Dual-channel ATA/133 RAID solution