darrennelson
asked on
SAN vs DAS
We are out of space. We have 3 seperate servers running SQLServer, 2 on Server2k3, 1 on Server2k. All boxes are Dell PowerEdge variants.
I am looking for a single solution that will expand capacity on all 3 servers. I am a newb in this realm, and I'm wondering if I can use a SAN solution, or would it make more sense to use a DAS solution for each box?
Areas of consideration:
1. Performance
2. Compatibility with SQL Server (it's my understanding that it requires block addressable storage)
3. Price
4. Growth
I am looking for a single solution that will expand capacity on all 3 servers. I am a newb in this realm, and I'm wondering if I can use a SAN solution, or would it make more sense to use a DAS solution for each box?
Areas of consideration:
1. Performance
2. Compatibility with SQL Server (it's my understanding that it requires block addressable storage)
3. Price
4. Growth
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great information, thank you for you time. I was looking into the SAN option after I posted this and realized, even at entry level, its WAY out of budget. It looks like the solution will either be a DAS or simply upgrading the existing drives.
Thanks All
Thanks All
Thanks!
I can't let these go unchallenged...
>iSCSI is still in development with competing technologies and standards. Expect lots of change.
iSCSI is no longer in development, and it is being heavily adopted. There is one standard - iSCSI
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ips-charter.html
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3347.txt
Don't expect lots of change - its an industrry-accepted RFC.
What may happen is the Serial-Attached SCSI may come along and steam-roller all over the top of iSCSI. We'll just have to wait and see on that.
>DAS will give you faster performance
No, and that is one reason why you buy a SAN in the first place. A properly configured SAN is orders of magnitude faster than DAS - because of things like write cache, RAID optimistaions, read-ahead optimisations and so on.
>iSCSI is still in development with competing technologies and standards. Expect lots of change.
iSCSI is no longer in development, and it is being heavily adopted. There is one standard - iSCSI
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/ips-charter.html
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3347.txt
Don't expect lots of change - its an industrry-accepted RFC.
What may happen is the Serial-Attached SCSI may come along and steam-roller all over the top of iSCSI. We'll just have to wait and see on that.
>DAS will give you faster performance
No, and that is one reason why you buy a SAN in the first place. A properly configured SAN is orders of magnitude faster than DAS - because of things like write cache, RAID optimistaions, read-ahead optimisations and so on.
iSCSI if you need an affordable solution for a fewer number of servers (3 is few servers)
If you need loads of performance the local disk is almost always faster than a remote disk
I see iSCSI growing fast on few app servers, you pay a fraction to get a good solution. Remember to buy some iSCSI adapters for your servers as well because IP trafic needs some offloding and processor power.