[Pc_Support] 3Ware Escalade 8000, 9500S and 9550SX -- WAS: Drives, RAID, backups oh my!

[Bryan J. Smith]

Damien McKenna <dmckenna at thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> RAID-1.

The 3Ware Escalade 8006-2LP (64-bit @ 33/66MHz) would be ideal.
The 3Ware Escalade 7006-2LP (32-bit @ 33/66MHz) is okay too.

> I was figuring reusing the several 40gb IDE drives we already have,
> or should I bank on getting replacement drives too?

Well, drives are cheap these days.

> I should mention that these servers will all be running Windows
> Server 2000 (maybe 2003, depending on the budget).

And NT5 is NT5 -- be it NT5.0 (2000) or NT5.1 (XP/2003).
The network, storage, etc... drivers are the same.
The only change is for video (as usual).

> Unfortunately the RAID-1 cards would be going in the DL320's which
> only have two drive bays, i.e. no hot-spare.  How does that affect
> things?

Not much, you just need to replace the drive before the second one
fails.  The array stays up, and other than the 3dm2 manager barking
or sending you e-mails, the system thinks everything is fine.

> A few follow-up questions:
> Would having the OS partition (Windows Server 2000 or 2003) running
> on RAID-5 be too much of a load on the drives?  If it would be I'd
> get another two drives per DL380 and set them up as RAID-1.

If you want RAID-5, get an Areca ARC-11x0 (PCI64/-X) or ARC-12x0
(PCIe).  They blow away 3Ware's performance.

> It seems the SmartArray 5i is a fully hardware-driven RAID card
> after all.  The user manual is at
> http://docs.hp.com/en/225852-001/225852-001.pdf but it doesn't say
> what the controller chip is.

Yes, as I mentioned.  It's a slouch Intel IOP30x (i960) last time I
checked.  An old 3Ware Escalade 7006-2LP in a 32-bit slot will slap
it silly.

> Would there be much of a problem running Ultra320 drives on an
> Ultra160 controller?

No, although don't put more than 2-3 drives on each channel.

> Our current DL380 has only one processor (P3/1266MHz), would it be
> worthwhile adding the second processor or should we not worry about
> it - the appropriate CPU kits are on ebay for under $100.  On this
> note, the DL380 uses the ServerWorks ServerSet III HE-SL chipset
> and not a crappy Intel chipset.

Yes, I know, it's a very good design.



-- 
Bryan J. Smith   Professional, Technical Annoyance
b.j.smith at ieee.org    http://thebs413.blogspot.com
--------------------------------------------------
I'm a Democrat.  No wait, I'm a Republican.  Hmm,
it seems I'm just whatever someone disagrees with.