IBM V3700 with VMWare

[LibertyX]

I need urgent info regarding what units need to be purchased in order to implement a storage environment using the Storwize V3700 units.

We are getting conflicting information with regards to the amount of expansion units we will need to setup our SAN system. What we want to have is as follows;

2x Host servers – running VMWare

Fibre connectivity between the hosts and the controller,would we require a switch between the hosts and the controller?

1x Storwize V3700 Controller unit – populate this unit with 24 x 600Gb 15K 2.5” HDD’s (used for SQL DB’s)

1x Storwize V3700 Expansion unit – populate this unit with 12 x 2Tb/3Tb 7.2K 3.5” or 2.5” HDD’s (used for Image storage)

This will be configured to use RAID 10 . Is it advisable to configure the entire 24x 600Gb HDD’s into 1 single RAID 10 array or should we split it up into smaller array’s. We want the best performance possible from this unit. Is there a limit on the amount of HDD’s that can be configured in a RAID 10 using this system?

We have been getting conflicting information that we will need to have 3x expansion bays as the RAID is setup better by having to read in a top down arrangement across multiple expansion bays. This doesn’t seem right to me. If we go this route then I will end up having the following setup which seems a waste.

2x Host servers – running VMWare

Fibre connectivity between the hosts and the controller,would we require a switch between the hosts and the controller?

1x Storwize V3700 Controller unit – populated with 10x 600Gb HDD’s

1x Storwize V3700 Expansion unit – populated with 10x 600Gb HDD’s

1x Storwize V3700 Expansion unit – populated with 10x 600Gb HDD’s

1x Storwize V3700 Expansion unit – populated with 12x 2Tb/3Tb HDD’s

Not to mention we will most probably need an additional cabinet.

Please advise urgently with concrete supporting info.

Thanking you,

[rcporto]

Fibre connectivity between the hosts and the controller,would we require a switch between the hosts and the controller?

You can direct attach, but you will need a module with fibre channel ports on V3700.

This will be configured to use RAID 10 . Is it advisable to configure the entire 24x 600Gb HDD’s into 1 single RAID 10 array or should we split it up into smaller array’s. We want the best performance possible from this unit. Is there a limit on the amount of HDD’s that can be configured in a RAID 10 using this system?

The recommended size based on IBM documentation, for RAID 10 is 8 disks per array, see: IBM Knowledge Center BUT note that you cannot create 3xRAID10 arrays with 8 disks, since you need reserve at least 1 disk for spare.

1x Storwize V3700 Controller unit – populate this unit with 24 x 600Gb 15K 2.5” HDD’s (used for SQL DB’s)

1x Storwize V3700 Expansion unit – populate this unit with 12 x 2Tb/3Tb 7.2K 3.5” or 2.5” HDD’s (used for Image storage)

The above configuration should work, but remember the spares disks... so if you need really 3xRAID10 arrays with 8 disks, you should add another expansion with at least 1 disk for space... anyway you can create 2xRAID10 with 8 disks and 1xRAID10 with 7 disks and mark the last disk has spare, but this configuration is not the best, since you will have array with different sizes. For the 7.2K disks, you should use at least the RAID 6, to provide double parity, so you can create a single array with RAID 6 and 10 disks.

The ideal configuration will be:

1x Storwize V3700 Controller unit – populate this unit with 24 x 600Gb 15K 2.5” HDD’s (used for SQL DB’s)

1x Storwize V3700 Expansion unit – populate this unit with 10 x 2Tb/3Tb 7.2K 2.5” HDD’s (used for Image storage) + 1 x 600Gb 15K 2.5” HDD’s (HOT SPARE for 15k disk) + 1 x 2Tb/3Tb 7.2K 2.5” HDD’s (HOT SPARE for 7.2k disk)

3xRAID10 with 8 x 600Gb 15K 2.5" HDD's

1xHOT SPARE with 600Gb 15K 2.5" HDD's

1xRAID6 with 10 x 2Tb/3Tb 7.2K 2.5” HDD’s

1xHOT SPARE with 2Tb/3Tb 7.2K 2.5” HDD’s

[LibertyX]

Thank you Richard,

Will take these all into consideration, thanks for reminding me about the HOT Spare, forgot about adding that into the setup. Would 1 HOT Spare be enough to have for more than 1 array or should we rather assign 2 HSpares if we were to have say 2 RAID 10's.

[rcporto]

The IBM default recommendation is 01 (one) hot spare drive for every 23 disks from the same drive class. Since you will have 24x600GB disks, you can think about 2xhot spare for the 600GB disk... anyway, the 2TB/3TB disks can be used as hot spare for the 600GB in case there is not sufficient 600GB hot spare disks. To read more about, see: Storwize V7000 Spare Disk Policy (Anthony's Blog: Using System Storage - An Aussie Storage Blog)

[dangnp]

Hi Richard,

     Can I use IBM V3700 with RAID10 config shared disks for Oracle 11G RAC + ASM? I configured the IBM V3700 but there only one node can see the storage at a time. If two nodes access the same time, they create double dir or file without alert.

     Could you give me a way to pass this issue?

Thanks,

Dang