This post is more than 5 years old
5 Posts
0
38092
Two PS4000 Equallogic arrays
Hi,
I have one PS4000 array today, set up with 8x 300 GB SAS disks. This is set up with RAID 50 and 2 hot spare disks. Now I need more diskspace, and since 8 new SAS discs cost almost the same as the new array with 8 SATA discs I decided to buy a new array.
I have devided my volume on the existing EQL into 4 different volumes that are presented to the ESXi hosts in VMware.
The new array is going to be set up with RAID 6, will I be able to add the space on EQL2 to the existing volumes on EQL1? How does this work?
Today everything is set up with redundancy, two controllers, 2 switches etc..
Any Idea how much time I'll need to set of for this job?
Any help would be higly appriciated.
Thanks
DELL-Joe S
7 Technologist
7 Technologist
•
729 Posts
1
March 21st, 2011 08:00
Jazsko,
Hi, I’m Joe with Dell EqualLogic,
First off, VMware doesn’t recommend expanding volumes. They recommend creating the new larger datastore, then moving the VM’s over to them (vmotion).
Also, although its possible, we don’t usually recommend mixing different drive technologies in the same pool (i.e., SAS and SATA) unless it's absolutly necessary. There are some performance trade off's that would need to be concidered.
For the best practices when configuring a storage pool:
1. Do not mix arrays with different drive speeds within a single pool unless they are running a unique RAID policy
2. Do not mix arrays with different drive technologies (SATA, SAS, SSD) within a single pool unless they are running a unique RAID policy.
3. Do not mix arrays with different controller speeds (1GbE, 10GbE) within a single pool unless they are each running unique RAID policies.
Take a look at this document for further details: for the best practices when configuring a storage pool:
http://attachments.wetpaintserv.us/rP8fcTzwQW9Kth8bzSLtUw610645
And this one for basic pool design (Section 3.2):
http://attachments.wetpaintserv.us/K2rieX6WedD_OVUmA2Xhmw1894185
Regards,
Joe
DELL-Joe S
7 Technologist
7 Technologist
•
729 Posts
1
March 28th, 2011 09:00
Jazsko,
Yes, that would work.
Regards,
Joe
Jazsko
5 Posts
0
March 22nd, 2011 02:00
Normal 0 21 false false false NO-BOK X-NONE X-NONE
Hi,
Thanks for the answer Joe.
I have been discussing this with a colleague. We basically have one default pool, and 4 volumes. One is production. We thought when the new box arrives, transfer everything to that box, increase the volume space on production to the maximum, and transfer production server back to the 1-st array. The second could be running with the other 3 volumes.
Would this be a solution?
A.W
63 Posts
0
August 25th, 2011 03:00
Hi Joe,
how about EqualLogic Firmware version 5.1? with 5.1, can we mix different drive in the same pool with different RAID policy?
Hairyman81
8 Posts
0
January 4th, 2012 16:00
I have a PS4000X and a PS4100E running firmware 5.1.1 both a running a unique RAID policy (4000-RAID 50, 4100-RAID6) and it seems to work fine for me in production. have not upgraded to firmware 5.1.2 yet
DELL-Joe S
7 Technologist
7 Technologist
•
729 Posts
0
January 6th, 2012 06:00
Yes, mixing different drive technologies (i.e., drive speeds, such as SAS and SATA) in the same pool with unique RAID Policies is supported. Also, if you haven’t seen these, you may want to review the following located here: www.equallogic.com/.../documentcenter.aspx.
Once on the page, select the “Tech Support” Tab, in the list, find the document titled “Dell EqualLogic PS Series Architecture: Load Balancers” you will find discussion on both the “Capacity Load Balancer (CLB)” and “Automatic Performance Load Balancer (APLB)”. Both of these utilize mixed pool scenarios.
You may also want to review the “Using Tiered Storage in a PS Series SAN” document as well.
- joe