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A REFERENCE GUIDE FOR OPTIMIZING DELL™ MD1000 SAS SOLUTIONS 

VER A00 

PAGE 24 

 

5/06/2005 

Figure 8:  Controller Tasks Drop-down Menu With the Import Foreign Configuration and Clear 
Foreign Configuration Tasks Displayed  

 

 

Upgrading from Dell OpenManage Array Manager  

Dell has discontinued the release of Dell OpenManage Array Manager. Server Administrator is a 
replacement for Array Manager. Customers wishing to take advantage of SAS technology must 
upgrade their Array Manager installation to Server Administrator. Server Administrator also 
provides Linux support which was not offered with Array Manager.  

Note:

 OMSA

:

 Server Administrator does not support NetWare. Existing NetWare customers may 

continue to use their Array Manager licenses for existing systems, but additional licenses will not 
be granted for new systems.  

Note:

 Server Administrator does not provide support for Fibre channel arrays.  

The following sections describe the considerations for upgrading to Server Administrator. 

Virtual Disk Preservation  

You can preserve assigned virtual disk names when migrating from Array Manager to Server 
Administrator. To do so, you must not uninstall Array Manager prior to installing Server 
Administrator. If Array Manager is uninstalled prior to installing Server Administrator, the virtual 
disks are renamed. Irrespective of whether Array Manager is uninstalled, Server Administrator 
identifies and manages the virtual disks created with Array Manager.  

Summary of Contents for PowerVault MD1000 SAS Solution

Page 1: ...A Reference Guide for Optimizing the Dell PowerVault MD1000 SAS Solution Authored By SAS Solution Team April 2006 rev A01 ...

Page 2: ... 2006 Dell Inc All rights reserved Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Inc is strictly forbidden Dell the Dell Logo PowerVault PowerEdge and OpenManage are trademarks of Dell Inc Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and na...

Page 3: ...res 15 Capacity Requirements 17 6 DELL OPENMANAGE SERVER ADMINISTRATOR 19 Managing the PERC 5 E Controller and the PowerVault MD1000 Storage Enclosure 19 Using the Create Virtual Disk Wizards 19 Reconfiguring Virtual Disks RAID Migration and Capacity Expansion 20 Moving Physical Disks and Virtual Disk Configurations Disk Roaming and Disk Migration 21 Importing Migrated Virtual Disks 22 Upgrading f...

Page 4: ...varying levels of importance In general the effectiveness of a given storage solution should be measured using the following attributes Reliability The solution remains functional and ensures that data is unaltered Availability Data remains accessible by the application Serviceability The hardware has easy access to assemblies components allowing easy maintenance and replacement Redundancy The har...

Page 5: ...ailable today Many businesses rely on SCSI physical disks to help deliver extremely cost effective and reliable storage In fact SCSI physical disks have advanced over the years offering increased performance and more sophisticated features with each iteration However given the inherent limitations of its parallel architecture the current version of SCSI physical disks U320 or Ultra320 will be the ...

Page 6: ...ant changes to keep in mind about SAS SAS continues to use the SCSI command sets for driver software compatibility SAS is not backwards compatible with Parallel SCSI 2 Recommended Maintenance for your Dell PowerVault MD1000 SAS Solution Dell strives to provide the best possible customer experience for all of our enterprise server and storage products Proper maintenance of your solution is essentia...

Page 7: ... functionality provides extra security availability and redundancy by automatically replacing a failed disk in a RAID group and allowing the rebuild of the degraded array to begin immediately Dell PERC controllers support Hot Spare functionality and it is recommended whenever possible See section 5 for details Document your configuration and keep the documentation current Documenting your configur...

Page 8: ...d interconnect technology The E in PERC 5 E stands for External because the PERC 5 E controller supports only physical disks that attach to a server externally The PERC 5 E controller offers Intel IOP333 I O processor based on Intel XScale Microarchitecture 256MB of customized DDR2 400MHz Error Correcting Code ECC cache memory 3 Gbps maximum speed for each SAS lane Two external x4 by four SAS port...

Page 9: ...ault MD1000 Storage Enclosure Details Enclosure Modes The enclosure can be set to either unified or split mode through the use of a two position switch located on the front panel of the enclosure The enclosure can be configured into the selected mode only at power up Any changes to the mode switch made while the enclosure is powered on will not take effect until the enclosure is powered off and ba...

Page 10: ...the other server s physical disks Note Split mode does not support daisy chaining Note A system with a single EMM set in split mode will function properly but the server will only be able to see the physical disks that are connected to the EMM Dual Hosts Figure 3 Split mode configuration Daisy Chaining Multiple PowerVault MD1000 Storage Enclosures In unified mode up to three enclosures may be dais...

Page 11: ...atures and Capabilities Regardless of the topology the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure provides a set of common features and capabilities World Wide Name WWN Assignment The SAS standard requires that all devices on a SAS domain have a unique address called a World Wide Name or WWN The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure complies with the SAS standard For more information on WWN assignment plea...

Page 12: ... The PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure works in conjunction with Dell OpenManage Server Administrator to set trigger thresholds that warn the user when these variables exceed safe operating levels The enclosure will automatically power down when these environmental variables exceed a critical threshold level in order to avoid potential equipment damage Both local visual indicators e g LEDs and a...

Page 13: ...pabilities as listed below Redundancy Capabilities Management Redundancy With two EMMs installed the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure s internal enclosure functions on the PowerVault MD1000 such as temperature regulation LED control and alarm control are maintained in the event of an EMM failure However even with dual EMMs installed enclosure status will not be reported to the host in the event...

Page 14: ...s not connected to the enclosure the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure has an embedded thermal shutdown feature This is activated by the SES processor in either of the following cases o Either of the backplane temperature sensors detects temperature below 2 C 28 4 F or above 60 C 140 F o Temperature sensor on an EMM detects temperatures below 2 C 28 4 F or above 65 C 149 F The PowerVault MD1000 ...

Page 15: ...controller are listed here Virtual Disk Initialization PERC 5 E controller is capable of performing initialization on the virtual disk s by either writing 0 s to a portion of the physical disk fast initialization or to the entire physical disk full initialization Full initialization guarantees that any legacy data is cleared and all sectors are healthy Background Patrol Read Background Patrol Read...

Page 16: ... receives all data from host for the write transaction Write back caching is faster than write through caching The main advantage of write back caching is improved performance since the controller does not have to wait for an acknowledgement from the physical disk before proceeding The battery backup unit for the controller is required to enable write back caching For more details on write back ca...

Page 17: ...process can be initiated manually or automatically Dell recommends choosing the automatic rebuild option to prevent running in the degraded mode for an extended period of time Mixed Size Physical Disk Within RAID 10 or RAID 50 When mixing physical disk sizes in RAID 10 or RAID 50 the controller will not coerce the larger virtual disks to match the size of the smallest virtual disk PERC 5 E control...

Page 18: ...al connectors N A External Connectors 2 RAID Levels Supported 0 1 5 10 50 Cache Size DIMM 256MB DDR2 Write Cache Options Write Through Write Back Read Cache Options Read Ahead No Read Ahead BBU Battery Life Up to 72 hours Maximum Number of Virtual Disks Controller 64 Maximum Number of Physical Drives Virtual Disk 32 Form Factor Full Height Half Length PCI Adapter card I O Processor IOP Intel IOP33...

Page 19: ...and enclosures virtual disks physical disks and the connectors SAS ports and or SCSI channels that comprise the topography of all attached storage The PERC 5 E controller and the PowerVault MD1000 storage enclosure are represented in Server Administrator s tree view You can select the PERC 5 E object and the PowerVault MD1000 object to display the status and to provide access to PERC 5 E controlle...

Page 20: ...virtual disk configuration on the selected physical disks and completes a fast initialize Reconfiguring Virtual Disks RAID Migration and Capacity Expansion Server Administrator supports RAID migration and capacity expansion with the Reconfigure Virtual Disk wizard This wizard enables you to change a virtual disk s RAID level or increase its size by adding one or more physical disks The possibiliti...

Page 21: ...nfiguration so that you can confirm or reject the changes Moving Physical Disks and Virtual Disk Configurations Disk Roaming and Disk Migration Disk roaming refers to physically moving a disk from one cable connection to another or from one backplane or enclosure slot to another on the same controller The PERC 5 E controller recognizes the relocated physical disks and logically restores the physic...

Page 22: ... of the virtual disk data must be present If the virtual disk is using a redundant RAID level the additional redundant data does not need to be present For example if the foreign configuration contains one side of a mirror in a RAID 1 virtual disk then the virtual disk is in a degraded state and can be imported On the other hand if the foreign configuration contains only one physical disk that was...

Page 23: ...k with a Foreign State The Server Administrator displays the Import Foreign Configuration task when the controller detects a foreign configuration If you have an incomplete foreign configuration which cannot be imported using the Clear Foreign Configuration task erases the foreign data on the physical disks ...

Page 24: ...nistrator does not support NetWare Existing NetWare customers may continue to use their Array Manager licenses for existing systems but additional licenses will not be granted for new systems Note Server Administrator does not provide support for Fibre channel arrays The following sections describe the considerations for upgrading to Server Administrator Virtual Disk Preservation You can preserve ...

Page 25: ... O size KB MB I O Profile read write and random sequential access mix Latency Performance is the overall ability of the solution to read and write data to the disk The performance requirements are usually determined by the type of application being utilized Different applications have different performance requirements For example a database or e mail server has mostly random disk access operation...

Page 26: ...Recommendations RAID Level Application Concatenated 0 1 10 5 50 Email Web Database or On line transaction processing Streaming Media File Archival File User File Stores General RAID Configuration Guidelines RAID 0 RAID 0 is generally not a recommended solution due to lack of data redundancy and protection However it may be utilized in situations where this is not required and maximum storage capac...

Page 27: ...acity than a RAID 10 solution with a decrease in performance and data protection This should be used in situations where greater redundancy and data protection is required as well as a reasonable storage capacity Concatenated This solution is not recommended due to lack of data protection and redundancy and no performance gain Note For more details on RAID configurations see the Dell Getting Start...

Page 28: ... of redundancy and data protection Note While these configurations are not recommended they can be configured and utilized Web Servers Web severs are usually high traffic systems where read operations are the most common disk activity as web pages are requested by users They can be intranet sites with minimal internal company traffic or global internet portal sites that receive hundreds of thousan...

Page 29: ...ted This solution is not recommended due to lack of redundancy and data protection Note While this configuration is not recommended it can be configured and utilized Database or Online Transaction Processing Servers Database servers can range from simple workgroup databases like Microsoft Access with a few hundred users to mission critical enterprise databases like Oracle or SQL Server with thousa...

Page 30: ...AID 0 Concatenated These are not recommended due to lack of redundancy and data protection Note While these configurations are not recommended they can be configured and utilized File Servers File servers can be used for file archival or more dynamic storage where files are changed added and deleted on a daily basis These servers range from workgroup to the corporate level Storage capacity is a ke...

Page 31: ...ons which do not require high storage capacity Not recommended RAID 0 Concatenated These are not recommended due to lack of redundancy and data protection Even for long term archival storage which is intended to be a backup of important files it is not a recommended solution Note While these configurations are not recommended they can be configured and utilized User file store characteristics and ...

Page 32: ... as storage needs grow For file servers that can afford some downtime and rely on backups to restore data this could be a solution Streaming Media Servers Streaming media servers are systems that provide web casting video conferencing internet entertainment e g Internet TV or Internet radio and multimedia services These systems generally require a balance between storage capacity availability redu...

Page 33: ... it is recommended whenever possible 8 Summary and Conclusions It is important to understand the characteristics of each storage component in order to assess the performance of the overall application It is also necessary to understand how the storage component is configured since this has a direct impact on the effectiveness of an application Table 8 1 summarizes typical storage recommendations f...

Page 34: ...g provides capacity scalability For added performance enable Write back cache Recommendation targets Enterprise applications which require higher availability than performance In general for all OLTP data protection is of utmost importance File Scalability RAID 5 maximizing storage with some data protection Daisy chaining provides capacity scalability Enable Global Hot Spare for improved availabil...

Page 35: ...to form a single logical volume BBU Battery Backup Unit BIOS Basic Input Output System Cluster Multi initiator Environment with MSCS operating environment HBA Host Bus Adapter non RAID controllers Hot Plug Insertion or removal of device without the need to quiescent I Os PERC PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller RAID Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks or Redundant Array of Independent Disks SAS ...

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