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Proliant Drive Trays



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 23rd 06, 11:00 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq.servers
Heimo Hetl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 15
Default Proliant Drive Trays

Are the drive trays of a Proliant DL380, 380 G2, RA4000 and RA4100
interchangeable? Do they fit mechanically, are the backplanes identical?
I've seen white(ish) and black ones...

Did HP/Compaq ever change them? If so, when?

All hints welcome, maybe someone has a link to a timeline/spec
comparison/compatibility list?

Thanks a lot!

cheers
Heimo

(on a beer budget, but still want to buy used-but-decent equipment)

--
You never ask questions when God's on your side.
  #2  
Old November 23rd 06, 05:00 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq.servers
NuTCrAcKeR
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 94
Default Proliant Drive Trays


"Heimo Hetl" wrote in message
...
Are the drive trays of a Proliant DL380, 380 G2, RA4000 and RA4100
interchangeable? Do they fit mechanically, are the backplanes identical?
I've seen white(ish) and black ones...

Did HP/Compaq ever change them? If so, when?

All hints welcome, maybe someone has a link to a timeline/spec
comparison/compatibility list?

Thanks a lot!

cheers
Heimo

(on a beer budget, but still want to buy used-but-decent equipment)

--
You never ask questions when God's on your side.


The newer U2/U3 U320 (metal with black handles) are interchangable across
all the models you have listed, except for the RA4000. That uses the
old-style tongue in groove trays, like the old 1600's, 3000's, 5500/6500.

The systems that use the Ux trays have exposed backplaces, such that the
drives connect directly to the backplane. The RA4000 has the typical slotted
backplane that we are used to from the F and U series storage chassis, where
the drive sits in the tray, and the tray connects to the backplane.

At this point, i wouldnt spend any money an ANYTHING that didnt support the
Ux drives. Im also trying to weed out my old PII/PIII based systems and
bring everything into the P4 Xeon age (or Opteron). My future has SAS
written ALL OVER IT. I just need the funds and sustained revenues to make it
happen.

=)

- LC


  #3  
Old November 23rd 06, 11:54 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq.servers
Heimo Hetl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 15
Default Proliant Drive Trays

NuTCrAcKeR wrote:

[...] drive trays of a Proliant DL380, 380 G2, RA4000 and RA4100


The newer U2/U3 U320 (metal with black handles) are interchangable across
all the models you have listed, except for the RA4000. That uses the
old-style tongue in groove trays, like the old 1600's, 3000's, 5500/6500.


How about the RA4100? New style as well? And what about the current G5
boxes?

At this point, i wouldnt spend any money an ANYTHING that didnt support the
Ux drives. Im also trying to weed out my old PII/PIII based systems and
bring everything into the P4 Xeon age (or Opteron).


I just eBayed a few 360 and 380G2 for use as firewall (routing/packet
filter) and mail (filtering relay) servers for two rather small outfits,
5 and 40 users, respectively. I think that 1.x GHz, some of them dual,
PIIIs will cope with that easily and for some years to come.

My future has SAS
written ALL OVER IT. I just need the funds and sustained revenues to make it
happen.


This reminds me of my next endeavour, setting up centralised storage
(read: SAN) for two MSSQL servers, Exchange and files. Currently, we
have individual ATA (and one SATA) RAID1s, combined with one crappy PIII
running E2K for 40 people. Not surprisingly, all applications are
choking. I'm afraid, I will end up with individual SCSI RAID5s per
server, as all SAN concepts I found will easily break my budget...

=)


Thanks a lot for the information, and may your revenue stream support
your SAS plans!

cheers
Heimo

--
You never ask questions when God's on your side.
  #4  
Old November 24th 06, 07:49 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq.servers
NuTCrAcKeR
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 94
Default Proliant Drive Trays


"Heimo Hetl" wrote in message
...
NuTCrAcKeR wrote:

[...] drive trays of a Proliant DL380, 380 G2, RA4000 and RA4100


The newer U2/U3 U320 (metal with black handles) are interchangable across
all the models you have listed, except for the RA4000. That uses the
old-style tongue in groove trays, like the old 1600's, 3000's, 5500/6500.


How about the RA4100? New style as well? And what about the current G5
boxes?


yes, the 4100 uses the Ux trays. The G5's I have seen have variable storage
options (depending on the model). For any G5 deployment, I would spec a SAS
configuration.



At this point, i wouldnt spend any money an ANYTHING that didnt support
the
Ux drives. Im also trying to weed out my old PII/PIII based systems and
bring everything into the P4 Xeon age (or Opteron).


I just eBayed a few 360 and 380G2 for use as firewall (routing/packet
filter) and mail (filtering relay) servers for two rather small outfits,
5 and 40 users, respectively. I think that 1.x GHz, some of them dual,
PIIIs will cope with that easily and for some years to come.

My future has SAS
written ALL OVER IT. I just need the funds and sustained revenues to make
it
happen.


This reminds me of my next endeavour, setting up centralised storage
(read: SAN) for two MSSQL servers, Exchange and files. Currently, we
have individual ATA (and one SATA) RAID1s, combined with one crappy PIII
running E2K for 40 people. Not surprisingly, all applications are
choking. I'm afraid, I will end up with individual SCSI RAID5s per
server, as all SAN concepts I found will easily break my budget...


are you looking at doing any clustering ? With 2 SQL servers, I certainly
WOULD! Shared local storage is a requirement (this can be on a SAN), and I
have built and deployed many clusters using RA4000s, including several for
myself with my own equipment.

Part of your performance problem is that you are using ATA drives whose RAID
controllers *typically* do not have hardware based X/OR parity engines on
them. They rely on drivers and the OS to do the parity calculation which
slows things down. The same is true of most entry level SATA raid
controllers as well. The fact is that RAID1 on these things gives you
redundancy, but not performance.

How much storage do you need for your (i assume) 4 servers? What is your
budget? I can probably help you come up with a functional alternative that
you can afford, and from a performance standpoint, will obliterate what you
are using now.

- LC


  #5  
Old November 24th 06, 10:44 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq.servers
Heimo Hetl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 15
Default Proliant Drive Trays

NuTCrAcKeR wrote:

yes, the 4100 uses the Ux trays.


Thanks! This makes
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...35580&sspagena
me=ADME:B:AAQE:1 look like an error, especially after looking at
http://din-tech.e717.net/product/ra4000.htm.

are you looking at doing any clustering ? With 2 SQL servers, I certainly
WOULD!


One is SQL2K, the other a 2K5, as applications require it this way.

Part of your performance problem is that you are using ATA drives whose RAID
controllers *typically* do not have hardware based X/OR parity engines on
them. They rely on drivers and the OS to do the parity calculation which
slows things down. The same is true of most entry level SATA raid
controllers as well. The fact is that RAID1 on these things gives you
redundancy, but not performance.


I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, the current RAID1 setup actually costs
performance, but then, it wasn't me who built it this way.

How much storage do you need for your (i assume) 4 servers?


The two SQLs need less than 100GB each with moderate growth, Exchange a
little less, files maybe a bit more. While the SQLs and Exchange are
being used in a more transactional way - read: random access, files are
more sequential by nature, especially when considering the limited
number of users. So, theoretically, a cheaper, SATA solution would
suffice for files.

So this is why I'm thinking of centralised storage, because individual
redundant subsystems for each machine are neither cheap (in total) nor
flexible.

If I don't take the SAN route, can I share a RAID subsystem among
servers?

What is your budget? I can probably help you come up with a functional
alternative that you can afford, and from a performance standpoint, will
obliterate what you are using now.


Around $4k total... Any advice is greatly appreciated!

cheers
Heimo

--
You never ask questions when God's on your side.
  #6  
Old November 24th 06, 10:30 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq.servers
Jez T
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 101
Default Proliant Drive Trays


"NuTCrAcKeR" wrote

My future has SAS written ALL OVER IT.


Good. Not that there's much choice about it, but that at least shows you
understand the hardware.

Part of your performance problem is that you are using ATA drives whose
RAID controllers *typically* do not have hardware based X/OR parity
engines on them. They rely on drivers and the OS to do the parity
calculation which slows things down. The same is true of most entry level
SATA raid controllers as well. The fact is that RAID1 on these things
gives you redundancy, but not performance.


Nice technical explanation, but beyond most people. Can we please stick to
"SATA is ****". (No offence intended BTW - it's jus that I've seen too manay
people buy SATA just because it's available and cheap)

SATA disks fail about 6 times more frequently than SCSI disks. This makes
the likelyhood of being able to recover a RAID after the failure of a SCSI
disk about 36 times more likely than the likelyhood of recovering a RAID
after the failure of a SATA disk.



  #7  
Old November 25th 06, 12:25 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.compaq.servers
Heimo Hetl
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 15
Default Proliant Drive Trays

Jez T wrote:

Nice technical explanation, but beyond most people. Can we please stick to
"SATA is ****". (No offence intended BTW - it's jus that I've seen too manay
people buy SATA just because it's available and cheap)


No offense intended, either, but I wouldn't second that. I've got a few
ATA and SATA running at home 24/7 for years now with no signs of wear.
Contemporary SATA may give you quite good sustained sequential read
performance which makes them perfectly suitable for standalone, single
user use as is typically encountered in desktop applications. However,
Nutcracker stated - correctly IMHO - that most *typical* (S)ATA RAID
controllers suck in that they rely on host CPU and OS for much of the
calculating load, which severely lowers performance. Also, mostly due to
lower RPMs and an inferior bus protocol, they fall behind comparable
flavors of SCSI in scattered, random access performance.

There are some SATA RAID subsystems, e.g. from Raidsonic, that sport
external SCSI and/or IEEE1394 host interfaces, which by design are not
subject to the former of the two limitations. These systems may be apt
for file servers, but I wouldn't want to use them for transational
databases.

cheers
Heimo



--
You never ask questions when God's on your side.
 




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