Hardware RAID options on a Poweredge R720

Question

Hi,

I'm looking at buying a Poweredge R720 with 11 SAS 2.5 inch 900 GB drives and 5 SAS 2.5 inch 146 GB drives with a Perc H310 RAID controller.

What I'd like to do is the following:

Setup config as the following

RAID 10 - using 10 of the 900GB drives, with the 11th as a hot spare

RAID 1 - using 2 of the 146GB drives, with 1 hot spare

RAID 1 - using the remaining 146GB drives

Can someone tell me if this is possible with the drives, controller and RAID options I'm looking at?

Thanks

theflash1932 · Accepted Answer

Is 500 a typo ... did you mean a 900GB hot-spare?  If so, then yes.  If not, then know that any hot-spare must be at least as large as the smallest disk in the array to be eligible as a hot-spare.  Any hot-spare for LUN's 1 and 2 must be a 900GB or larger SAS drive.

Daniel My · Answer

Hello ettringite99

I don't see any issues with it. With the 16 drive configuration you will be full populating it. The controller will support all of the RAID levels and the number of arrays you are wanting to create.

I would recommend that you go with a PERC H710 rather than the H310. The performance and caching capability of the H710 versus the H310 would be quite noticeable using this many drives. If there will not be a lot of drive utilization then the H310 will be fine.

Thanks

[Edited to correct controller models to PERC 8 rather than PERC 7]

ettringite99 · Answer

Dan, I'll be using the H310, not H200. Can you see any problems with this?

Daniel My · Answer

Dan, I'll be using the H310, not H200. Can you see any problems with this? That was a typo on my part. I meant to type H310. The H200 would not support the configuration. Thanks

ettringite99 · Answer

Cheers for the tip Dan, I guess I'm going to have to thoroughly test this, the system will be an emergency system only, which means either none or around 3000 users will hit the server at once.

Dev Mgr · Answer

The R720 doesn't support/offer the H700, but it does have the H710 option. I'd highly recommend an H710 over an H310 if you could run into situations where you need to have 3000 users on the system.

ettringite99 · Answer

Hi guys,

Thanks for your previous comments, just 1 other question. I've revised my storage design a little:

raid 10 using 5 x 900 GB disks - LUN 1

raid 10 using 5 x 900 GB disks - LUN 2

raid 1 using 2 x 146 GB disks - LUN 3

raid 1 using 2 x 146 GB disks - LUN 4

This leaves :

1 x 500 GB hot spare

1 x 146 GB hot spare

Is it possible with the H310 to share the hot spare across different raid sets (i.e have LUN1 & 2 be able to use hotspare 500GB) if needed?

If not, would another controller resolve this?

Unfortunately the kit has already been ordered, but I need to determine whether or not to change it? I was planning to do some bench mark testing as I need to squeeze out 700 iops - which will determine whethere I need to go back to client and them back to Dell.

Dev Mgr · Answer

Also;

raid 10 using 5 x 900 GB disks - LUN 1

raid 10 using 5 x 900 GB disks - LUN 2

Raid 10 requires an even number of drives. You'll have to recheck your intended setup (unless you meant to say raid 5).

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

Hardware RAID options on a Poweredge R720

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