MSA1000 and Secure Path

[dewitte64]

I have an MSA 1000 attached to two hosts (not a cluster) and I want to install a second HBA in each of the two hosts. I purchased the HA kit for redudancy and I am at the point of installing Secure Path. I've also read several horror stories here. Do I even need secure path? Can windows manage the second HBA without it? What is the advatage of secure path? and finally - will I get double the throughput with two HBA's or are they strictly for failover purposes?

[Uwe Zessin]

Windows does not know how to deal with multiple paths and will configure two devices instead - not a good thing. The advantage of Secure Path is that it taps between the SCSI drivers and the file system and acts as a filter. If the active path goes down, Secure Path switches transparently to the standby path.

You will not get double throughput, because the MSA1000 uses Active/Standby controllers - only one controller is doing all the work. If Secure Path requests a failover for one logical disk, all of them are failed over, because the controller roles change.