[zfs-discuss] ZFS and HW RAID
Hello folks, I am sure this topic has been asked, but I am new to this list. I have read a ton of doc¹s on the web, but wanted to get some opinions from you all. Also, if someone has a digest of the last time this was discussed, you can just send that to me. In any case, I am reading a lot of mixed reviews related to ZFS on HW RAID devices. The Sun docs seem to indicate it possible, but not a recommended course. I realize there are some advantages, such as snapshots, etc. But, the h/w raid will handle most¹ disk problems, basically reducing the great capabilities of the big reasons to deploy zfs. One suggestion would be to create the h/w RAID LUNs as usual, present them to the OS, then do simple striping with ZFS. Here are my two applications, where I am presented with this possibility: Sun Messaging Environment: We currently use EMC storage. The storage team manages all Enterprise storage. We currently have 10x300gb UFS mailstores presented to the OS. Each LUN is a HW RAID 5 device. We will be upgrading the application and doing a hardware refresh of this environment, which will give us the chance to move to ZFS, but stay on EMC storage. I am sure the storage team will not want to present us with JBOD. It is there practice to create the HW LUNs and present them to the application teams. I don¹t want to end up with a complicated scenario, but would like to leverage the most I can with ZFS, but on the EMC array as I mentioned. Sun Directory Environment: The directory team is running HP DL385 G2, which also has a built-in HW RAID controller for 5 internal SAS disks. The team currently has DS5.2 deployed on RHEL3, but as we move to DS6.3.1, they may want to move to Solaris 10. We have an opportunity to move to ZFS in this environment, but am curious how to best leverage ZFS capabilities in this scenario. JBOD is very clear, but a lot of manufacturers out there are still offering HW RAID technologies, with high-speed caches. Using ZFS with these is not very clear to me, and as I mentioned, there are very mixed reviews, not on ZFS features, but how it¹s used in HW RAID settings. Thanks for any observations. Lloyd ___ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
[zfs-discuss] ZFS HW RAID
Hello folks, I am sure this topic has been asked, but I am new to this list. I have read a ton of doc¹s on the web, but wanted to get some opinions from you all. Also, if someone has a digest of the last time this was discussed, you can just send that to me. In any case, I am reading a lot of mixed reviews related to ZFS on HW RAID devices. The Sun docs seem to indicate it possible, but not a recommended course. I realize there are some advantages, such as snapshots, etc. But, the h/w raid will handle most¹ disk problems, basically reducing the great capabilities of the big reasons to deploy zfs. One suggestion would be to create the h/w RAID LUNs as usual, present them to the OS, then do simple striping with ZFS. Here are my two applications, where I am presented with this possibility: Sun Messaging Environment: We currently use EMC storage. The storage team manages all Enterprise storage. We currently have 10x300gb UFS mailstores presented to the OS. Each LUN is a HW RAID 5 device. We will be upgrading the application and doing a hardware refresh of this environment, which will give us the chance to move to ZFS, but stay on EMC storage. I am sure the storage team will not want to present us with JBOD. It is there practice to create the HW LUNs and present them to the application teams. I don¹t want to end up with a complicated scenario, but would like to leverage the most I can with ZFS, but on the EMC array as I mentioned. Sun Directory Environment: The directory team is running HP DL385 G2, which also has a built-in HW RAID controller for 5 internal SAS disks. The team currently has DS5.2 deployed on RHEL3, but as we move to DS6.3.1, they may want to move to Solaris 10. We have an opportunity to move to ZFS in this environment, but am curious how to best leverage ZFS capabilities in this scenario. JBOD is very clear, but a lot of manufacturers out there are still offering HW RAID technologies, with high-speed caches. Using ZFS with these is not very clear to me, and as I mentioned, there are very mixed reviews, not on ZFS features, but how it¹s used in HW RAID settings. Thanks for any observations. Lloyd ___ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
