> Which build/version of OpenSolaris/Nevada are you
> using for this?
> Presumably something recent, as the globalSAN
> initiator has, in the past,
> had issues with the Solaris iscsi target.
> Regards
> Nigel Smith

SXCE snv_93, on a Sun Blade 2000.  System has an LSI SAS 3800x SAS controller,
with a couple of 1TB Seagate SAS drives, mirrored.  I simply shared out a zvol 
that
was a bit bigger (multiple of 128KB) than the Mac's drive.  (don't recall 
whether
I'm using Sun's or LSI's driver, could check if needed)  System has 2 1.016 GHz
CPUs and 8GB RAM.

The Mac Mini is running 10.5.4 (latest Leopard update), and the globalSAN
initiator is whatever the free one on their web site was as of a few days ago.


There are a couple of ongoing annoyances:

1) it certainly seems slow (although the Wifi isn't helping, I'm hoping it will
get faster if I string some Cat 5 cable), notwithstanding that the SAS drives,
for sequential I/O at least, are much faster than the internal 10K RPM FC/AL
drives.

2) the Sun Blade 2000 experiences definite "pauses", maybe 5 seconds or so,
during which nothing but the mouse cursor (which has an assist, such that 
anything
short of a hard lockup won't keep it from moving crisply) visibly responds; and
even audio (HAL saying "I am completely operational, and all my circuits are
functioning perfectly", when e-mail arrives) is interrupted or lost.  This only
happens when Time Machine on the Mac is pounding out data to the Sun at
whatever passes for full blast.  I haven't looked at TCP retries and such (in 
case
the WiFi is causing problems), although I will if I remember.  I suspect it has
to do with how zfs schedules it's intent log flushing or something like that, 
but
I don't know for sure.  If anyone has a DTrace script they'd suggest for 
tracking
down the cause of those pauses, I'd be interested.  I don't think the behavior
would be acceptable in many cases, although I'll grant that not everyone uses
the same system simultaneously as a workstation and as a storage server.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org
_______________________________________________
storage-discuss mailing list
[email protected]
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/storage-discuss

Reply via email to