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

[Damien McKenna]

> Damien McKenna <dmckenna at thelimucompany.com> wrote:
> > 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.

Would there be much point given that they're throw-away setups running
RAID-1?  Also, given that these are going to be fixed-installation
drives, would there be any advantage of SATA over PATA?

> > 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).

Yeah, I'm not worried about that and more the recovery procedure.

> > 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.

Alrighty, simple enough then.

> > 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.

The RAID-5 would be for the DL380's (SCSI), not the DL320's which will
be RAID-1.

Also, are PCI-X cards compatible with PCI-64bit/66MHz slots, I thought
they were different?

> > 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.

Ah crap.  Any suggestions on a better SCSI-RAID card then?

> > 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.

Okily, that pretty much means a limit of 3 drives in RAID-5 with an
optional hot-spare, which would be fine.

> > 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.

So I'll budget for that then.

Let me give you an idea of what my current thoughts are:

DL380 #1 (file storage):
 - dual processor with 1gb RAM
 - 3x 72gb SCSI as RAID-5 on SmartArray 5i with optional hot-spare
(depending on whether they want to spend the extra).
 - would need to buy the drives

DL380 #2 (email):
 - dual processor with 1gb RAM
 - 3x 36gb SCSI as RAID-5 on SmartArray 5i with extra hot-spare.
 - have two drives and will get more as part of buying the other DL380

DL320's:
 - single processor, 512mb+ RAM
 - 2x 40gb IDE as RAID-1 on 3Ware 7006-2


Thanks Bryan.

Damien