Server Fault Stack Exchange
Server Fault Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [storage-area-network]

A SAN is a Storage Area Network, for providing block-level access to storage subsystems across a network.

SANs provide block-level access to servers across a network. Commonly used SAN technologies are iSCSI and Fiber-channel (sometimes spelled Fibre-channel)

A Storage Area Network is distinctly different from Network Attached Storage (NAS). SAN systems don't provide any file-level access, although some combined (hybrid) systems exist which combine the features of a SAN device with those of a NAS.

905 questions
7
votes
3 answers

When using thin-provisioning with ZFS, how do you make sure you don't run out of physical disk space?

Forgive me if this seems like a fundamental question, but I couldn't really find anything concrete on Google, and I'm not a system administrator by trade. We are setting up a SAN at our office using NexentaStor with an 8-disk RAID Z3 configuration…
Mike Spross
  • 465
  • 1
  • 5
  • 13
7
votes
3 answers

How can I use NTFS and iSCSI and not corrupt my SAN?

I know you can't use multiples NTFS machines/servers with the same SAN iSCSI target without corruption. I have multiple servers, however, that need access to the same data on the same SAN. I do not have Microsoft Clustering Services nor can I use…
johnny
  • 2,268
  • 9
  • 35
  • 54
6
votes
3 answers

diffrence between virtual machine storage and san storage

What is the difference in performance between VM storage that created on SAN and use storage directly on SAN to read and write data? I mean, we have SQL server that is installed on VM-basis and use a virtual hard drive. The VM is on my SAN. Is it…
data
  • 63
  • 5
6
votes
1 answer

How to connect two Dell storage arrays to a to a Dell Poweredge server (daisy chain vs direct)?

I purchased two Dell MD1000 storage arrays together with a Dell Poweredge 1950 server and need help setting them up (I am a complete novice to SAN/iSCSI). The Poweredge server has two SAS SFF-8470 connectors. Should the two storage arrays (which…
Greg
  • 1,557
  • 5
  • 24
  • 35
6
votes
2 answers

SAN, ISCSI and Multipath (MLAG?)

I'm a bit confused regarding the setup of a SAN with ISCSI and multipath. We are upgrading our network to 10Gbit, so there are 2 10Gbit switches that are configured with MLAG for normal ethernet traffic. LAG groups are made on the appriorate NICs,…
inzanez
  • 231
  • 1
  • 6
6
votes
3 answers

zpool autoexpand doesn't change size of pool

We have some old Solaris 10 servers (SunOS name 5.10 Generic_142909-17 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-V490) now connected to our new IBM SAN. These Solaris servers still have mostly UFS file systems. A while back, we added a new 2 TB LUN from the SAN to…
K. McGregor
  • 61
  • 1
  • 2
6
votes
4 answers

SAN system upgrade/design

Greetings, I'm a long-time lurker, first time poster. For brevity, let me ask my question up-front and then give the longer backstory, so you can choose how much you want to read. Short version... We're in need of a SAN upgrade, definitely…
Matt
  • 304
  • 1
  • 3
  • 12
6
votes
3 answers

Shared Disk in modern data center (SAN, virtualization, etc)

I'm a developer...treading here on foreign terrain. Please pardon any naivete. I work on an application that stores data both in a database and the filesystem. Context: Clustering and Network Shares In the past when we ran the application clustered…
user50460
  • 315
  • 1
  • 2
  • 8
6
votes
3 answers

With 200TB of needed storage, is a SAN a good idea?

My employer has, what I consider to be, a lot of data. We currently have about 10TB of data on our NAS, which is about its capacity, and we would have more data on it if we didn't constantly move data onto external hard drives and DVDs in order to…
Zell Faze
  • 343
  • 2
  • 5
  • 15
6
votes
8 answers

Can you use your own drives on Dell PowerVault MD3000i?

I would like to use my own drives in the Dell PowerVault MD3000i. Does anyone know if you are able to? We are looking at different SANs for our VM farm and would rather be able to replace a drive in 10 minutes. This will also reduce the cost of…
Chris
6
votes
1 answer

SAN Performance Slow

I have an iSCSI HP P2000 loaded with 12 x 300gb DP SAS drives. This is connected to 2 DL385 servers with 64gb RAM running XenServer. The SAN network is multipathed via 2 gigabit switches (4 x copper links from the P2000 to each switch, then each…
fukawi2
  • 5,327
  • 3
  • 30
  • 51
6
votes
4 answers

What would cause IO Wait on a SAN?

I understand IO wait when I see it on a server, it means that the CPU is blocked while I wait for the IO to catch up [source]. I am trying to understand why a SAN stats would show a high IO wait - does this indicate that the SAN CPU is blocked by…
Robert MacLean
  • 2,186
  • 5
  • 28
  • 44
6
votes
2 answers

links between switches for iSCSI

We inherited a SAN/vmWare/iSCSI setup with both Dell and HP equipment purchased for it, but not fully setup, and we need to get some additional switches to make it all work. But we're getting different feedback from the vendors on what's needed for…
Gregory Thomson
  • 71
  • 3
6
votes
3 answers

Sparing level on HP EVA 4000

One of the disks of our EVA4000 died today. This diskgroup (all volumes vraid5 with sparing level 1 and almost no space left for more volumes, 1TiB drives) is being rebuilt with "spare space" right now, and it will take at least 15 hours to do the…
Samuel
  • 125
  • 1
  • 7
6
votes
4 answers

Storage Architecture

Related to this question: When building a storage area network, do storage administrators generally create the physical disk arrays based on I/O type (sequential versus random access) and provision LUN's from those arrays to hosts needing that…
joeqwerty
  • 108,377
  • 6
  • 80
  • 171
1 2 3
…
60 61