I am bumping this thread because I too have the same question ... can I put modern 3TB disks (hitachi deskstars) into an old x4500 ? If not, would the x4540 accept them ? -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
On 7/07/2011 3:12 PM, X4 User wrote:> I am bumping this thread because I too have the same question ... can I put modern 3TB disks (hitachi deskstars) into an old x4500 ? > > If not, would the x4540 accept them ?I''d expect they would *work* but whether it would be a good idea or not could be debated and could indeed be a variable answer. My recollection of those boxes is that they had to use enterprise SATA disks in them (as opposed to consumer SATA) to deal with the internal vibration that resulted from having so many disks so densely packed. I recall being involved in a performance issue or two that was related to certain disks in the box going slow as a result of said vibrations. For an amusing example of how vibrations can impact disks, google Brendan Gregg shouting in the datacentre. So - assuming the disks actually work (and I don''t recall there being any specific limitations) on the controllers, and you keep an eye on the disk response times (so you are aware of any disks not performing optimally), you should be OK. Of course - not in a production sense - as doing that without support would just be asking for trouble. ;) Oh - and as a final point - if you are planning to run Solaris on this box, make sure they are not the 4KB sector disks, as at least in my experience, their performance with ZFS is profoundly bad. Particularly with all the metadata update stuff... 4KB sectors almost seem to me to be a stunt be HDD manufacturers to be able to claim more available space for the same device, and to be lazy in the CRC generation/checking arena. And to profoundly impact the time it takes to read or update anything less than 4K. But - then again, maybe I''m missing something. Cheers! Nathan.
On Jul 7, 2011, at 3:33 PM, nathan wrote:> On 7/07/2011 3:12 PM, X4 User wrote: >> I am bumping this thread because I too have the same question ... can I put modern 3TB disks (hitachi deskstars) into an old x4500 ?X4500 uses the LSI 1068e. AFAIK, that HBA does not support disks > 2TB for all possible firmware revs. YMMV, based on the firmware installed.>> >> If not, would the x4540 accept them ? > > I''d expect they would *work* but whether it would be a good idea or not could be debated and could indeed be a variable answer. > > My recollection of those boxes is that they had to use enterprise SATA disks in them (as opposed to consumer SATA) to deal with the internal vibration that resulted from having so many disks so densely packed. I recall being involved in a performance issue or two that was related to certain disks in the box going slow as a result of said vibrations.Not quite. The vibration problem was due to mechanical design and that was fixed prior to GA. As for enterprise vs consumer class drives, Sun was not in the consumer business and, to my knowledge, did not bother qualifying consumer-grade disks.> > For an amusing example of how vibrations can impact disks, google Brendan Gregg shouting in the datacentre.Different scenario, of course, but same root cause :-) -- richard
2011-07-08 2:48, Richard Elling ?????:> On Jul 7, 2011, at 3:33 PM, nathan wrote: > >> On 7/07/2011 3:12 PM, X4 User wrote: >>> I am bumping this thread because I too have the same question ... can I put modern 3TB disks (hitachi deskstars) into an old x4500 ? > X4500 uses the LSI 1068e.I think this applies to X4540, and I read that //X4500 uses Marvell/ /88SX6081 (SATA) Mine certainly reports " Marvell serial-ATA #1-#6" in prtdiag, but I failed to get any indication of the chip via command-line. And there was some marketing talk about ZFS being suitable, or even incepted, for commodity hardware, to get the "inexpensive" part back into ra*I*d.> AFAIK, that HBA does not support disks> 2TB for all possible firmware revs. > YMMV, based on the firmware installed.And yes, this applies to any controller in general ;) //Jim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20110708/39af0da2/attachment.html>
> > On 7/07/2011 3:12 PM, X4 User wrote: > >> I am bumping this thread because I too have the > same question ... can I put modern 3TB disks (hitachi > deskstars) into an old x4500 ? > > X4500 uses the LSI 1068e. AFAIK, that HBA does not > support disks > 2TB for all possible firmware revs. > YMMV, based on the firmware installed.On our X4500 from 2006, we loaded it with 46 of the 3-TB Hitachi DeskStar 7K3000 series drives without any problems so far. We set it up with 5 raidz2 vdevs (each vdev has 9 drives) and 1 spare for about 94 TB of storage (using about 25 TB so far.) No errors in 3 months. Monthly zpool scrub. ...> As for enterprise vs consumer class drives, Sun was > not in the consumer business and, to my > knowledge, did not bother qualifying consumer-grade > disks.Our X4500 server from 2006 came from Sun loaded with Hitachi Deskstar drives (500G). They had a Sun sticker and S/N on them, but they also said "Deskstar" and had HDS7250 printed on them. As far as I could tell, these were not "enterprise" grade drives. -Doug -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
> Oh - and as a final point - if you are planning to run Solaris on this > box, make sure they are not the 4KB sector disks, as at least in my > experience, their performance with ZFS is profoundly bad. Particularly > with all the metadata update stuff...Hitachi deskstar uses 512byte sectors Vennlige hilsener / Best regards roy -- Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk (+47) 97542685 roy at karlsbakk.net http://blogg.karlsbakk.net/ -- I all pedagogikk er det essensielt at pensum presenteres intelligibelt. Det er et element?rt imperativ for alle pedagoger ? unng? eksessiv anvendelse av idiomer med fremmed opprinnelse. I de fleste tilfeller eksisterer adekvate og relevante synonymer p? norsk.
Did your x4500 cope with 3TB disks without any modifications? I heard the BIOS does not support >2TB disks? -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
> Did your x4500 cope with 3TB disks without any > modifications? I heard the BIOS does not support >2TB > disks?We had no problems with our Sun X4500 supporting 3TB disks. (We bought a single 3TB drive to test on the system to make sure before buying 45 more!) Over the years, we have updated the firmware for the service processor (it is currently running SP firmware version 2.0.2.5 from 2009.) I think the SP firmware updates the BIOS. Anyway, test first and YMMV. -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 10:12 PM, X4 User <b7075313 at klzlk.com> wrote:> I am bumping this thread because I too have the same question ... can I put modern 3TB disks (hitachi deskstars) into an old x4500 ?I have 8 x 3TB drives (Deskstar 5k3000) attached to a Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 and it works fine. This card uses the same Marvell controller as the x4500. Performance is fine if not slightly better than the WD10EADS drives that I replaced. Of course, the pool was about 92% full with the smaller drives ... -B -- Brandon High : bhigh at freaks.com