A Sun storage product I would like to see really soon
Ever since the September 2005 introduction of Sun's Galaxy servers (the X4100 and X4200), and more recently the T2000 CoolThreads server, I've been convinced that Sun needs to add an entry-level, SAS-based, direct attached, JBOD drive array to their storage portfolio. The array would be 1U high, and hold up to 8 SAS disks, that are presented as two external UltraSCSI320 busses. The user would be able to connect the two busses together to have 8 disks on one bus, or, for performance and redundancy reasons, have 4 disks on each of two busses. In other words, an 8 disk, SAS based, version of the StorageTek 3120 SCSI array. Of course, the array would also have two hot swappable PSUs.
A fibre attached variant of this array could also be introduced, as could a 2U version with a 16 drive capacity.
With the availability of low cost, high performance servers like the X4200 and T2000, I think a matching drive array would sell like hot cakes--especially if they're priced right. I think Sun's current entry level S1 is over priced at $3695 (list) for what amounts to a case, PSU, and a couple of disks. I think if Sun could introduce an array like I described above for $1995 entry price ("small" model: dual PSUs and two 73 GB 10000RPM SAS disks), they'd be on to a real winner.
Here's a picture of my hypothetical array I mocked up in The GIMP:
I think a Sun X4200 + an UltraSCSI320 HBA + one of these arrays, using ZFS on Solaris or OpenSolaris would be really cool. What do you think?
posted by Rich Teer @ 17:39
8 comments
8 Comments:
Amen! I'd be perfectly happy with SATA drives also. Think X2100 with 4 SATA drives.
-M @unixville.com
I'm not the worlds greatest fan of the 2 1/2" SAS drives - it doesn't add nearly enough storage.
What I'd really like to see was support for more sata drives instead. I'd suggest doing machines with 3 or 4 sata hotswap trays in 1U or like some of the larger machines that have turned up lately supporting anywhere from 12 - 40 sata drives in a minimum of space - a box like that with zfs and iscsi would be really useful.
/Mads
You just presented what I'm looking for and I'm probably not the only one...
Looking for another type of machine I bumped into this one:
http://www.rancho.com/Products.aspx?ID=67&Model=MiniStor4-1-1U
MiniStor4-1 is a 1U rackmount SAS JBOD enclosure supports upto 8 x 2.5" dual port SAS or SATA drives with full redudancy.
Seems to be more or less what you're looking for.
/Mads
Go buy an Apple XRAID
The Rancho MiniStor4-1-1U is indeed exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. The only problem (for me) is that it doesn't have a Sun logo on it, which also rules out the Apple XRAID... (Whereever possible, all my computer HW comes from Sun.)
Agreed. We just bought two T2000s and had to end up getting a StorEdge 3320 (SCSI) as the only option. It was $16k even at the educational discount -- we have to buy from the edu price list, and that was really the only choice for external storage that wasn't *really* huge.
It would've been nice to be able to buy about four or five of your mythical SAS units instead, and end up with a ton more storage, for the same price.
And yeah, to the guy that said "buy an XRaid" -- fine, if you're hooking it up to an Apple and paying for Apple support. Some of us want support contracts on stuff that we expect to keep running for at least 5 years.
Oh, and yeah, I am having fun with the T2000s ;)
Sorry to revive an old thread, but whats the standard for putting raid cards into these servers?
Adaptec seems to be the only option for PCI-X low profile SAS or SCSI raid cards with external connectors, but the SAS cards are months away from being ready to ship. The Adaptec SCSI raid cards work for basic arrays, but forget more advanced setups like RAID10 or any type of HA setup. Am I missing something, or is the only option to have raid control outside of the server?
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