================================================== ORIGINAL MESSAGE (Wed, 9 Apr 2008 02:37:23 -0700): ================================================== I have a limited budget, and two A1000 storage arrays that I'd like to keep using as long as possible. Question 1: I know that the Raid Manager software is no longer supported under Solaris 10, but I was wondering if anyone had ever downgraded an A1000 to a D1000 via a controller swap. As these arrays would probably be dedicated to databases, I would run UFS on them rather than ZFS. I know some people have copied the Raid Manager from a Solaris 9 install, and then disabled the unneeded RDAC and amdaemon to get an A1000 to work under Sol10, but I'd rather go the simpler route of turning them into D1000's. D1000 controllers look to be inexpensive from dmgi.net. Question 2: Has anyone tried 300GB drives in the A1000? I know Sun officially supports 147GB drives (eg, the Fujitsu MAW3147NC they resell); I'd like to try the 300GB equivalent MAW3300NC if possible. ================================================== SUMMARY: ================================================== The consensus is that downgrading the A1000's to D1000's via a controller swap should work. As far as using 300GB drives, there might be an excessive heat issue, although one respondent was using them in a D1000 with no problems. If I could afford to refill the A1000s with 300GB drives, though, I'd probably have enough of a budget to replace the arrays entirely. So I'm still hoping to scrounge enough money for a new array. In the meantime I'll probably do the D1000 controller swap and get a few 147GB drives to hold me until I can replace the arrays. And to respond to a few other comments from below: I had thought about using the Raid Manager tools under Solaris 9 then moving the array to Solaris 10, but it looks like I would have to do any array management/diagnostics under Solaris 9 (eg, healthck), so I don't think that's feasible for me. I was intending to use UFS instead of ZFS for maximum performance for databases (MySQL & Postgres), but after reading this article - http://dimitrik.free.fr/db_STRESS_BMK_Part2_ZFS.html - it appears that recent versions of ZFS can be tuned to meet/exceed UFS performance. And I was also a bit hesitant initially to delve into the 'xml rat hole' of the services management framework of Solaris 10 , but so far it's been a plus for me; it makes managing dependencies much easier. Plus Sol10 has ZFS and Zones, which I'm starting to rely on. ================================================== THANKS TO: ================================================== Markus Mayer Ric Anderson Rich Teer Dean Ross-Smith Willi Burmeister Graeme Burke ================================================== RESPONSES: ================================================== What I can tell you ist that we have one such array. I was able to make one raid5 from all drives in the array under solaris 9 and use that in solaris10 without any problems. As for the 300 gb drives, I have no expierence there. -------------------------------------------------- Check the heat output for the 300s vs the 147s before jumping there. Also, IIRC, the A1000 required a thinner drive than some other applications, making the drives for that beast more expensive. The folks at dmgi.net may be able to tell you about using the 300GB drives as well. Don't forget UFS has a 2T limit, so 7x300GB will put you over the top. If I had a choice, I'd stick with Solaris 9. The tools work and the startup isn't buried in that xml rat hole that Sun calls a "framework". -------------------------------------------------- > Question 1: I know that the Raid Manager software is no longer > supported under Solaris 10, but I was wondering if anyone had ever > downgraded an A1000 to a D1000 via a controller swap. As these arrays No probs there; the controller is the only difference between the A1000 and the D1000. > would probably be dedicated to databases, I would run UFS on them > rather than ZFS. I know some people have copied the Raid Manager from WHy's that? WHy not ZFS or raw partitions? (Unless, of course, we're not talking about Oracle here!) > Question 2: Has anyone tried 300GB drives in the A1000? I know Sun > officially supports 147GB drives (eg, the Fujitsu MAW3147NC they > resell); I'd like to try the 300GB equivalent MAW3300NC if possible. It's SCSI so if the power and cooling requirements are met, the disks will work. -------------------------------------------------- Hi Steve- budget wise, I've been in the same boat as you. Have you considered dumping the a1000's and going to something new? I'm guessing you have about a $10k budget. that's two a1000's populated w/12 300gb drives @$400 each and two d1000 controllers. That totals about $10k before tax and about 7.2TB raw storage. What about buying a sata-based array? Partnersdata.com is a company in San Diego that has 16 disk sata scsi arrays for your budget. 16x500GB gives 8TB raw. The arrays have dual power, dual controllers w/scsi out and 1 GB cache on the controllers. I have three of the 8 disk arrays (2 fibre and 1 scsi) here and they work fine under solaris. I'm an existing customer of partners so I'm going off my discounted rate ($9k includes the array and two scsi controllers and cables) before tax/shipping so you may be able to work out a deal. I don't get a kickback from partners but an array like this may get you out of those old a1000s. -------------------------------------------------- > Question 1: I know that the Raid Manager software is no longer > supported under Solaris 10, but I was wondering if anyone had ever > downgraded an A1000 to a D1000 via a controller swap. Yep, we have done that with two of our A1000. Worked without any problems. > Question 2: Has anyone tried 300GB drives in the A1000? We didn't try that, but I don't see why these should make any problems. -------------------------------------------------- Steve Edberg wrote: >Hi - > >I have a limited budget, and two A1000 storage arrays that I'd like >to keep using as long as possible. > >Question 1: I know that the Raid Manager software is no longer >supported under Solaris 10, but I was wondering if anyone had ever >downgraded an A1000 to a D1000 via a controller swap. As these >arrays would probably be dedicated to databases, I would run UFS on >them rather than ZFS. I know some people have copied the Raid >Manager from a Solaris 9 install, and then disabled the unneeded >RDAC and amdaemon to get an A1000 to work under Sol10, but I'd >rather go the simpler route of turning them into D1000's. D1000 >controllers look to be inexpensive from dmgi.net. This is exactly what we did as far as the controller swap. Things work fine. I was glad to get rid of the A1000 controller, I was not a fan. >Question 2: Has anyone tried 300GB drives in the A1000? I know Sun >officially supports 147GB drives (eg, the Fujitsu MAW3147NC they >resell); I'd like to try the 300GB equivalent MAW3300NC if possible. We are using seagate drives: SEAGATE-ST3300007LC in the D1000, not A1000. No problems here. -- +--------------- my people are the people of the dessert, ---------------+ | Steve Edberg http://pgfsun.ucdavis.edu/ | | UC Davis Genome Center sbedberg@ucdavis.edu | | Bioinformatics programming/database/sysadmin (530)754-9127 | +---------------- said t e lawrence, picking up his fork ----------------+ _______________________________________________ sunmanagers mailing list sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org http://www.sunmanagers.org/mailman/listinfo/sunmanagersReceived on Tue Apr 15 15:15:07 2008
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