SAN Setup for diskgroups | SQL Server Performance Forums

SQL Server Performance Forum – Threads Archive

SAN Setup for diskgroups

Hi
I have a customer which needs new hardware for running sql 2000 and later 2005. I have recommended dual dual-core xeon with 2MB L2, however he leans towards itanium. Does anyone have a case comparison with the two architectures?
Secondly they are running a SAN with approx 40 spindles in pool where the diskgroups are striped along the disks. The groups can run RAID 1 or RAID 5 on top of the SAN
The san is not dedicated
Our normal requirement are 10 spindles in RAID 10 (write goes to 20% in peak),raid 1 for logfiles.
How should they setup the SAN to get the same performance?
the current single core Itanium 1.6GHz is really old and not competitive with the latest dual core platforms at the 1-8 socket level
unless of course, you need 64-bit and must be on SQL2000 the new Itanium dual core coming out soon, with the HP zx2 or sx-2000 chipset will have best of class performance at 4 sockets and up,
the new Xeon socket coming out in a few months will be competitive. most itanium systems i have seen in production are 8 socket or more,
many were not properly configured for what the application needed, and probably under performed a 4-socket I would recommend starting with an evaluation of the new 2-socket Xeon 51×0 line for now,
second choice would be the Xeon 50×0 line, which is probably what you mentioned.
this probably has best all around performance except for a few special cases that favors Opteron SAN tend to have poor sequential performance and cannot benefit from high queue depth operation, for 40 disks, try to have 3 FC ports.
it is bad enough that the SAN is shared, if the disks are shared as well, make no warranties on their performance level
Hi
They have 3 FC ports, and i meant the xeon 50×0 line. Thx for the advice. Since they have mirror on top of shared disks will it perform as a RAID 1+0 drive?
every seems to like to talk raid performance
but few actually seem to bother to verifiy see my reponse on testing your storage performance
http://www.sql-server-performance.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15183 if the performance meets your needs, no need to argue
if not, make sure you are not the one that will get blamed
Hi
well the problem is that once they have bought the hardware it seems very hard to get it changed, and if i only set up IOPS, throughput and server requirements, they’ll ask their hardware vendor which has its own approach

this is why you need to spec the performance requirements before the hw is purchased
also, if the system performance is adequate, whats the point of arguing
if not, then state that you cannot make service level guarantee because of the hw deficiency
]]>