How much approximately do a shelf of SAS drives and of SATA drives cost?

[netappmagic]

I know I need to ask our sales rep. but, I just wanted to get an rough idea, and then take a step further.

We need to dump about 10TB backup data to the storage, It'd be cheap if we use SATA drive(maybe 1TB drive?), but currently we only have SAS (600GB each). so, I am thinking how much difference between these two shelves, then make the decision from there.

Thanks!

[CHRIS_K_AU]

Sata is very significantly cheaper but remember you need it on its own stack. Do you have flashcache?

[netappmagic]

Yes. I have flashcache on this 3250. Would that have any impact on adding the SATA shelf.

Do I have ports for the shelf and then have its own Stack? Thanks for your message!

[CHRIS_K_AU · Accepted solution]

Flashcache will improve your read performance greatly, I see up to 13000 iops from my sata stack.

You just need free sas ports to dedicate to the sata stack. If you talk to your sales engineer or contact support they can give you the run down on the possible interactions between sas and sata on the same filer; I was warned about performance issues but I've not had a problem even in takeover with 2 sas stacks and a sata stack all being pushed pretty hard.

[netappmagic]

I contacted Supprt, but they could not give me a clear answer other than just sending a few links, and wanted me to figure it out myself. I could not.

I have 2 SAS ports on each filer (2XFAS3250), and two dedicated SAS stacks. Can I use FC ports for SATA stack, or are there any other ports I can use for SATA stack?

[bloehlein]

SAS and SATA shelves can be mixed in the same stack, but it should be limited to one topology change per stack (as per best practice). E.g. SAS -> SATA, not SAS -> SATA -> SAS

Best regards,

Bernd

[CHRIS_K_AU]

Add I recall the shelf connectivity is determined by the model of IOM it uses. I know IOM3 is SAS. Ask your sales engineer if there are FC capable shelves for your FAS.