Possible Duplicate: What is the use-case for NAS on a mid-to-high end storage array? SAN is block level, NAS is file level. Block level means applications access blocks,while in file level they use files. Now, we can also create file system on server operating system for block level storage, so what is the advantage of using file level access with NAS. Please clear my doubts and mistakes. Asked by Drt When using SAN the OS [...]

We are considering adding a SAN. I have two choices right now, the Dell MD3000 and the Dell MD3000i, 15 x 146Gb san drives. Naturally the latest model is more expensive (2x as much), but can someone tell me if the speed difference is considerable to be worth the extra cost? Our DB on Sql Server 2008 r2 is only about 30Gb and not expected to grow much over the next few years. We have [...]

Apologies if this is a stupid question but my only previous experience with SAN technology is using a SAN virtualisation tool (StarWind iSCSI SAN Free). This tool comes with a management interface that allows for iSCSI targets to be configured on the simulated SAN that can then be accessed. My question is basically: How is physical SAN device managed? Is an operating system required to be installed on the SAN device and then managed via [...]

I’m trying to wrap my head around how a SAN works and how it is implemented. If I understand this well, clients wanting to access the storage devices in a SAN need to communicate with the servers via the LAN. When the SAN is implemented with Fibre Channel, these servers are Fibre Channel compliant devices, and internally in the SAN they work with the Fibre Channel Protocol. Both data and communications are supported by Fibre [...]

We are in the process of setting up a new Hyper-V host to replace our existing failing Windows 2003 R2 server. The new Host is running Windows 2008 R2 and inside that we will be running a few Virtual Servers including one which will be used as a file server. Our problem is that all of our documents are currently spread across multiple Apple Time Capsules and client workstations. I want to be able to [...]

I have a v3200 with a 4 port FC expansion card. I am trying to switch one (or all, doesn’t matter) of those ports from target to initiator. When I execute fcadmin config, I get: Local Adapter Type State Status ————————————————— 0c target CONFIGURED online 0d target CONFIGURED online Those are only the onboard ports, and I can’t find a way to make it show me the ports on the card (4a, 4b, 4c, and [...]

I’m using a QNAP-439 Pro II SAN. Full disk encryption is currently enabled. But since you take a 80% performance hit by enabling encryption I’m thinking about disabling encryption on the SAN and offloading it to Windows Server 2008 R2 Machine that I’m currently building anyway. The SAN is operating on 4x2TB disks in RAID6 mode. Unless I’m mistaken (which is why I’m asking here), a RAID drive failure on the QNAP should be handled [...]

I’m working on a project with a client who recently had a large system replacement for a dedicated ERP application. I’m inheriting this hardware setup and want to understand what it means. The server is a ProLiant DL580 G7 (4 x 8-core CPUs, 64GB RAM). The customer has a set of ~500GB of data that historically grows 1-2% per year. The system has plenty of onboard storage in the form of 8 x 300GB 6G [...]

I am in the process of consolidating 6 physical servers running 6 different operating system flavors (don’t ask) into two identical physical servers (Dell PowerEdge 2900), using the free VMware ESXi 4.0 platform. We will install an iSCSI SAN over a 1GbE network, and store all virtual machine images on the SAN. Each physical server would run 3 VMs, and in the case of a physical server failure, we would manually switch over the other [...]

So we just picked up a new PS6100x and I’m wondering if I need to setup the ethernet channels myself or is it automatic? It’s configured in an HA setup; dual controllers connected to redundant cisco switches with a 10GE interconnect. On the controller, I’ve enabled eth0-3, each with it’s own IP 172.16.0.50-53, and a group IP address of 172.16.0.10. Do I need to bond the interfaces on the switch or will the controller take [...]