1955 and SAS Drive Size

[Richard Ford]

Yeah, I have a PV220S stuck on a PE1850 as my NAS server for NFS.

It uses spliut mode and two channels for a RAID10 with the RAID1  
subsets straddling the two channels.  I got 146MB 15K's in there.   
Speed is sweet and that is where all data lives.

But the actual applciations for the virtual machines, take 10-15GB  
each.  I figure given current trends that a dual cpu, dual core  
server with 8GB of ram, can handle 6 terminal services servers for  
virtual desktops with 2GB ram each.  With ESX3 and ballooning the  
blade will perform nice.

But at 10GB *6 = 60GB.

73GB disk formats to about 66GB.  So it is really tight.  And I have  
no chance of say putting 10 low usage VM's together on one blade.

The 1855 could take 3.5 inchers...  :-(

I guess that soon enough they will make 146gb 2.5 inchers?

Cheers,
RF.


On 18 Feb 2007, at 11:29 PM, epperson at alumni.unc.edu wrote:

> On Sun, February 18, 2007 04:00, Richard Ford wrote:
>> G'Day All,
>>
>> I thought it was just a China thing - but when checking the 1955
>> prices state side - the limit too is 73GB 2.5INCH SAS drives.
>>
>> When I was first scoping the 1955 before I am pretty sure I saw at
>> least 146GB option (4 months ago) and settled for a RAID 1 with 2 x
>> 73GB in our first blades as they were ordered right after the unit
>> was available.
>>
>> However the processing power of those new core2 dual core chips is
>> amazing.  And now I find my limit being disk size to put all the VM's
>> on that I want.  Sorry no SAN - waaaaay too expensive for us at this
>> point in time and I like local storage as it partitions the problems
>> so that there is no SPOF in say an NFS or dodgy cheap SAN/NAS  
>> route...
>>
>> Will Dell sell 146GB 2.% inch SAS drives sometime?  Soon I hope?
>>
> Dunno.  External arrays like the PV 220S are an economical "middle  
> ground"
> between local and SAN storage.  Available now on eBay with 3yr Dell
> warranty for $7K for 14x300Gb, under $3K for 7x146.  These have  
> dual U320
> interfaces.  I agree with you on local storage, but if you can't  
> stuff it
> in there, what are you gonna do?