Ideal setup wanted, SCSI or SAN/Fiber
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Ideal setup wanted, SCSI or SAN/Fiber         


Author: Larry Epn
Date: Aug 5, 2008 07:32

We're going to be buying new hardware for a medium sized DB, let's say around
50-100GB within 2-3 years.
It seems like the net price difference is around $15,000 between a tower
server with 10-drives (2 Raid1 OS, 2 Raid1 Logs, 6 Raid10 Data) -vs- a couple
pizza-boxes connected to a SAN with the same drives.
I'm told, however, that a SAN Fiber-Channel setup will not perform as well
as SCSI in the same box.
There are probably 1000 permutations on any of these designs....
In general, I can't say "money is no object", but if there is a good reason
to justify the more expensive setup (especially future growth or possible use
by other servers that would connect to the SAN), then the money would be
there.
Any and all comments/opinions are welcome.
Thanks!
Larry
2 Comments
Re: Ideal setup wanted, SCSI or SAN/Fiber         


Author: mike.mcneer
Date: Aug 5, 2008 12:45

On Aug 5, 9:32 am, Larry Epn wrote:
> We're going to be buying new hardware for a medium sized DB, let's say around
> 50-100GB within 2-3 years.
> It seems like the net price difference is around $15,000 between a tower
> server with 10-drives (2 Raid1 OS, 2 Raid1 Logs, 6 Raid10 Data) -vs- a couple
> pizza-boxes connected to a SAN with the same drives.
> I'm told, however, that a SAN Fiber-Channel setup will not perform as well
> as SCSI in the same box.
> There are probably 1000 permutations on any of these designs....
> In general, I can't say "money is no object", but if there is a good reason
> to justify the more expensive setup (especially future growth or possible use
> by other servers that would connect to the SAN), then the money would be
> there.
> Any and all comments/opinions are welcome.
> Thanks!
> Larry
Can't say I have researched the speed differences in local scsi vs
fiber channel SAN but I would imaine the difference is negilible
although I would like to hear someone prsent that case ...and their
is partitioning and other options to increase i/o performance but ...
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Re: Ideal setup wanted, SCSI or SAN/Fiber         


Author: Andrew J. Kelly
Date: Aug 5, 2008 17:38

Larry,

This is impossible to answer correctly without a lot more info on what you
plan to do with the db and how you will access it. The size of the db tells
us very little or nothing about what you need for storage. That will be more
dictated by usage and things like HA and DR needs. The setup with the
internal drives will suite most people just fine, especially if it will take
2 or 3 years to get to peak usage. By then the hardware is due for
replacement anyway. But if you were trying to do 5K transactions a second it
may not be suitable. Where do you plan on putting your backup files? What
do you intend to do for HA and DR? SAN's and Direct attached storage each
have their pros & cons but you need to decide what you need to support
before you can decide which is the best solution.

--
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
Solid Quality Mentors

"Larry Epn" wrote in message
news:5BAAD152-870C-423D-90FE-26B81BF7036B@microsoft.com...
> We're going to be buying new hardware for a medium sized DB, let's say
> around
>...
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