Larger vs Smaller Drive Bays

Stinky Grinch · RAID 5 Joined: 21 Feb 2007 Posts: 16

So I'm pricing out drive bays for an xsan project. Last time I built out a larger system xraid was the only game in town....

I see that I could get 16TB promise drive bays. However I could also get 48TB or 32TB active storage drive bays.

Coming from the thought of it's better to have more drives spinning for bandwidth, I'm thinking about the 16TB promise bays. Other than using less rack space is there any advantage or disadvantage to the 48TB or 32TB Active bays? Would have at least 9 clients on the SAN for starters editing HD footage.

Also anyone know if there are any issues with using an active san pair of MDC with promise raids? Would be going with (3)16TB promise raids with (2)16TB expansion bays.

mark raudonis · Xsan Master Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 123

We have multiple Active Raid units attached to our X-SAN. They've performed flawlessly over the past few years.

Mark

JSamuel · Xsan Master Joined: 05 Jan 2011 Posts: 177

Stinky Grinch · RAID 5 Joined: 21 Feb 2007 Posts: 16

Say I wanted to build a 60 some TB SAN

If I got (5) 16TB Promise bays VS getting (2) Active 32TB bays, Would I not have better performance from more spinning drives I would get from the 5 Promise bays?

Or is this a non issue? If it's a non issue I would go Active all the way.

Thanks!

mark raudonis · Xsan Master Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 123

dear Stinky,

First of all, take a bath! Anybody who goes by the name "Stinky" should be
ashamed of themselves!

Secondly, I think it's a moot point. I've always gone for the max number of gb/enclosure. Larger drives equal higher capacity. Less Air conditioning, smaller fibre switch, etc. There's plenty of other considerations here.

Go with the Active units.

Mark

JSal · Been around the blocks Joined: 10 Apr 2010 Posts: 23

The more drives is not necessarily better. It depends on how your luns and controllers are distributed amoung your affinities. That said while generally more spinning disks means better performance, the data density of the larger volume HDDs tend to allow for better throughput. I suspect if it was a question of say a 32 drive x 500gb set vs a 16drive x 2tb set, both spinning at 7200rpm, the 2tb set would win handily, at least on sequential read/writes.

Also what Mark said. Cooler, cheaper.

Stinky Grinch · RAID 5 Joined: 21 Feb 2007 Posts: 16

Sounds good, active it will be then! That's for the input. Mark, I'll hop in the shower right away! Cool