Is it OK to mix a server w/SCSI drives and a direct attached storage device w/SAS drives?
I have a Dell PowerEdge 2850 server with SCSI drives and I want to buy a MD3000 direct attach storage device that uses SAS drives. I was talking to a Dell rep who said that a server with SCSI drives that attaches to an attached unit using SAS drives "isn't optimal, but will work".
I can't get a clear answer out of this guy as to why it's not optimal. Can anyone explain this to me? I can see where it would hurt performance or anything.
Thank you in advance for the help!
Mike
I can't get a clear answer out of this guy as to why it's not optimal. Can anyone explain this to me? I can see where it would hurt performance or anything.
Thank you in advance for the help!
Mike
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alternatively he might just want you to buy more shiney new dell hdd's :-) whats the extra drive to be used for?
ASKER
We have a setup right now with 3 file servers and we're rapidly running out of space. Instead of buying a fourth new server with all new drives, we figured it would make more sense to get an attached unit where we can offload some of the data from some of the servers onto this sucker. Plus, it's very easy to expand by adding additional drives in the future.
ASKER
Funny you say he may just want to sell us new drives... The first time I talked to this guy a few months back, he told us how great the MD3000 was. Now, Dell's introduced the MD3000i SAN which costs 2x as much and suddenly it's what he recommends. I'm just trying to sift through the data to find what I need and especially explain this SCSI and SAS mixing not being optimal, which sounds like bull to me, but I'm not a storage expert by any stretch of the imagination.
I would say that so long as the connectivity between the new storage and the server is sound, and very fast i would go for that.
The bottleneck is always going to be the connection between any server and that new storage array so I would jump onto the manufacturer of the new drives your looking at and make him convince you its a decent system which can handle the network traffic on your domain especially if your thinking of putting users drives onto the new hdd's
The bottleneck is always going to be the connection between any server and that new storage array so I would jump onto the manufacturer of the new drives your looking at and make him convince you its a decent system which can handle the network traffic on your domain especially if your thinking of putting users drives onto the new hdd's
ASKER
Right now, the server has a Raid 5 with the SCSI drives. The direct attach external has a built in Raid controller and will have 10 drives in their own Raid 5 separate from the Raid on the server.
Thanks!
Mike