VMware Solutions Discussions

Storage Design FAS2020

sypen0000
1,883 Views

Hi Guys I was just wondering you some of you could provide me with some guidance.

We purchased a 2020 with no addition disk shelves and no fibre switches.The following are my concerns.

1.

Storage allocation. Because this is a dual controller array and it comes with 12 disks what is the best way to cut up the drives.

My understanding is each controller at minimum requires 3 disk assigned to it to put a root vol, and a hot spare. So this dramatically reduces the available disk space.

Here are some of the ways I have though about configuringing it.

a.

Controller 1 = 8 Disk -> 1 HS + (1 Aggregate with 7 disks 5data + 2 parity)

Controller 2 = 4 Disk -> 1 HS + (1 Aggregate with 3 disks 1data + 2 parity)

In this arrangement I would assume it works in and active standby configuration where all of the data serving would be on controller 1 and controller 2 is simply for redundancy.

b.

Controller 1 = 6 Disk -> 1HS + (1 Aggregate with 5 disks 3data + 2 Parity)

Controller 2 =  6 Disk -> 1HS + (1 Aggregate with 5 disks 3data + 2 Parity)

In this arrangement I spread the load between controllers but I reduce my spindle count which concerns me.

What do you guys recommend or am I completely off base.


2.

Without purchasing Fibre switches to save money, we want to direct attach the 2020 to two ESX servers. What cluster configuration would support this

"Single Image"?

Any help would be appreciated

Regards

1 REPLY 1

netappnasadmin
1,883 Views

It depends upon what type of data you want to keep it is for protected data or unprotected data based up on this issue you can construct your aggregate with Raid4 & Raid DP.

Regarding two connect with ESX host you connect by sharing or exporting the volumes or qtrees by CIFS or NFS.

If you want to share LUN's for ESX box you can use iscsi protocol. By this you can save money instead of buying Fibre channel switches.

Thanks

Naveen.

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