On Sat, 24 Jan 2009, River Tarnell wrote: > > i have a system connected to a StorageTek 2530 SAS array (12 disks), on which > i > want to run ZFS. in the past, when using ZFS on an external array, i would > simply create one LUN on the array and create the ZFS pool on this; but for > various well-documented reasons (e.g. checksums, disk failure) this is usually > frowned on. > > so, my question is: what is the best way to use this storage with ZFS? is it > feasible to export 12 LUNs from the array, one for each disk, or will this > impact performance? (the array has no JBOD mode, and anyway i want to keep > using the array's nvram cache.)
Please make sure to read my write-up of how I configured a StorageTek 2540 array (FC version of same hardware) for use with ZFS. It can be found at "http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/zfs-discuss/2540-zfs-performance.pdf";. The 2530/2540 do not have "JBOD mode" but it is still possible to configure the hardware to behave as a JBOD. The CAM interface is a bit tedious and slow to configure but once it is done, the rest of the configuration is in ZFS's hands and is quite speedy. Creating and destroying ZFS pools is extremely fast so you can easily test many "what if" scenarios before you make your final decision. It has been a year now, but I am still not regretting anything about my ZFS setup. Then again, I have not experienced any disk failure or even a hickup which needs to be diagnosed. It seems that the primary maintenance issue will be with identifying the physical disk which failed if ZFS detects a problem, but the 2540 array does not. Based on what I have heard, performance with the 2530 likely exceeds performance with the 2540 a bit when using ZFS. Bob ====================================== Bob Friesenhahn bfrie...@simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/ _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
