HP MSA20 SATA Array

[texasjohn]

I have an HP DL380 G4 with an MSA20 (Part # E05EMJI4K) attached. I have an internal 6i card with 69GB RAId 5. I would like to know if I can use the MSA20 for guest systems.

[dominic7]

It should work though I believe direct attached scsi arrays are officially unsupported.

[davidbarclay]

I believe direct attached scsi arrays are officially unsupported.

I don't believe that is the case. When you think about it, whats the difference between the SmartArray 6i controlling internal disk or external disk?

So long as the controller is supported, you have a supported configuration IMHO.

Dave

[BenConrad]

texasjohn, check the compatibility guides. Don't run production on equipment that is not in the guides.

The 6i controller does not have an external connection to run an MSA20. Also, the MSA20 has a controller with it's own cache (unlike a MSA30) so that can make things tricky.

Ben

[kriewald]

I'm running a DL380G3 with SA6400 and MSA20 (12x250GB) without any problems since a year. Course of the SA6400 it's not a performance hit

[wcrahen]

It will probably work, however SATA disks are technically not supported.

[BenConrad]

SATA disks are supported in ESX, as long as they are presented to the server as SCSI devices. The Smart Array 64xx <> MSA20 presents SATA disks to the server as SCSI devices.

[chad_sanders]

Yes they are supported but in a lab environment only IMHO. There is no reason to run production servers on SATA drives, they were meant for cheap disk to disk backups. You will be fine if you are talking about web servers and maybe file servers depending on how large, but if you try it with databases, or like Exchange/ Citrix you will not be thrilled with the performance. We had this similar setup and quickly moved away from it once we started growing our ESX cluster. Just as a side note I found that SATA's did not report things such as drive failures accurately which would sometimes take the Array down and require a hard reboot. Good luck.

[BenConrad]

I'm not sure I would want to run production on a MSA20 either.

However, running production on SATA drives that sit behind a VMWare certified SAN is just fine as long as you have enough IOPS available and the workload is appropriate.

Ben

[davidbarclay]

I agree with you Ben, they are supported if presented by a supported device. It may not be suitable though, depending on needs.

We frequently use SATA for tier 2 storage and it is supported and works well for what it is designed todo.

Dave

[marcwolf]

Hi.

I need a little information. I am on a budget (like most IT departments) and I am trying to make a VM environment to support sme servers

I have managed to purchase som HP Proliant DL380G4 and a MSA20. These units are still in transit.

I am interested in connecting the DL380's to the MSA20  and use the MSA20 as the datastore. Any suggestions - My budget is really limited to second hands equip.

Take Care

Dave

[maxnipi]

Hi,

I'm using MSA20 as a datastore linked to DL380G4 (smart array 6400 controller) in ESXi environment without problems.

Regards

Max