[mythtv-users] The Bigger... Disk contest, Fall 2007 edition

Robert Eden rmeden at yahoo.com
Mon Oct 22 01:28:13 UTC 2007


On 10/18/2007 1:08 PM, Mailing Lists wrote:
> Given that major companies like IBM and SUN now support SATA in their
> SAN devices, I think its safe to say that reliability has come way up on
> these drives. 
As another poster pointed out, Sun says you should only use the SATA 
drives for "online storage" not "database" or "Front Line Applications". 
(paraphrased, but the 3511 docs had that in 3-4 places).

To that I say bull-crap. It's a disk controller.  I ask for a block just 
give me a friggen bock don't tell me what I can put on it!!!

I think what we really have is Marketing not wanting the SATA arrays to 
cut into FC array profit margins.  Marketing wants them available for 
folks who ask for them, but try and push folks to the FC hardware.

Personally, at work I'm running multiple Sun  3511 (SATA) arrays... no 
problems.  Reliability?  Give me a break.  I'm pretty sure the FC/SATA 
controllers are similar if not the same. What are the odds 2 drives 
failing before the spare disk is synced up?   The SATA version was $10k 
cheaper and had 5x the raw capacity.  Yes the drives are slower, but 
with a 10 (or maybe 12, I forget) wide RAID 5 and small stripe size, the 
bottleneck will be the controller, *NOT* the drives.  (I try and use 
part of the drives for mainline stuff (to avoid track stepping)  and the 
reset for backups/archives at night).

I have lost a few  T3 volumes (FC) array due to controller problems 
corrupting the RAID set.  I've also lost many FC disks.. they do seem 
less reliable.  My concern is not disk failure, but controller firmware.

Robert


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