md 1000 & dell2950

Thu May 31 08:26:51 CDT 2007

Hi,

Here are some tips about NFS that we found out while migrating from old Netapp's to Linux NFS.
As far as NFS software is concerned, you need to tune the number of 'nfsd' server threads depending on the load, the number of clients, the "randomness" of the requests and the I/O speed. 
On the network side, Gigabit Ethernet end-to-end helps, especially if you have equipment that is jumbo frame aware (switches, routers, firewalls, etc..).
Having a good amount of memory also helps, as linux will use it for disk cache and buffers. I'd say 4 to 8Gb of RAM is good for a NFS-only server, also depends on the number of clients.
Running a 64bit version of the OS is also good, especially if you have loads of RAM.

A good starting place for performance-related nfs on linux is http://tldp.org/HOWTO/NFS-HOWTO/performance.html the information is a bit dated, but some of it is still very helpful.

Cheers,

Robert

________________________________

	De : linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com [mailto:linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com] De la part de Shanti kishore Balusu
	Envoyé : jeudi, 31. mai 2007 13:47
	À : Nico_Terrey at dell.com
	Cc : dorababup at gmail.com; linux-poweredge at lists.us.dell.com
	Objet : Re: md 1000 & dell2950

	Hi Nico 

	Thanx for the update.As told before after a series of meetings with Dell tech team we finally decided to go ahead with the below plan..

	1) Each Dell 2950 will be connected to all the 3 md 1000's 
	2) Each md 1000 is having 15 500 Gb Sata Hdd's which will be split into 2 groups.7 disks in one Partition with raid 5 assume it as A & 6 Disks in second Partition with raid 5 assume it as B.The remaining 2 disks out of 15 will be left as hot spare for each of the partition A & B 
	3) So each Md 1000 will have 2 partitions one with 3 Tb & other 2.5 Tb after raid 5.So all the 3 md1000 will give us a total disk space of 16.5 tb
	4) all this space from group A(9.5Tb) & group B(7.5Tb) will be accessible from both the 2 dell 2950

	5) If at all due to any reason one the dell 2950 go's down or crashes we will not be able to access the disk pools connected to that particular Dell 2950.This is one disadvantage with this design.So we have to make sure that neither of the dell 2950 go's down.. 

	We are setting up a NFS servers on both the Dell 2950's so i am looking at some pointers related to fine tuning.This storage area will be used for storing flv files.writes are very less & reads r high.once a user uploads a flv file he cannot change it.it can only be accessed by others..

	ie most of the time writes are very very less when compared with reads.

	Please let me know the precautions & fine tuning parameters to be done for the above setup.

	Thanx & Regards
	Santhi Kishore Balusu
	On 5/31/07, Nico_Terrey at dell.com <Nico_Terrey at dell.com> wrote: 

		Hi Santhi,

		at the moment its not possible to create a SE600W HA cluster with linux.

		Below you find the compatibility matrix (Release Date: May, 2007) for this cluster solution:

		http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/EQP-SE600W.pdf

		So its actually not possible to set up a "supported" SE600W cluster without Windows as OS.

		Regards,
		Nico

________________________________

		From: Shanti kishore Balusu [mailto:kishorechowdary at gmail.com] 
		Sent: Donnerstag, 31. Mai 2007 12:06
		To: Terrey, Nico
		Cc: linux-poweredge-Lists; dorababup at gmail.com 
		Subject: Re: md 1000 & dell2950

		Hi Terrey

		Thanx for the response.we have already disscussed this option with Dell tech team.They said its not possible to create a cluster of this type with using linux OS(ie preloaded Redhat 4 ES).

		we want linux as the OS bcoz all our webservers r running linux.

		As of now we are having one Dell 2950 preloaded with Win2003 attached to 3 md1000's & we were using CIFS file system to mount the shares created on that win2003 server.As we were facing some issues with this type of setup we baught 2 more dell 2950's with 3 md 1000's & we asked dell guys to ship those 2 new  dell 2950 with preloaded Redhat ES.. 

		After a series of meetings with dell tech team they finally concluded that its not possible to create highly availble sollution using the above hardware.we even sugested that we can buy one more md 3000 so that we can build the above proposed sollution by u... 

		we found the above mentioned sollution in this link..

		http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps2q07-20070373-LSI.pdf 

		take a look at the last option where they are using 1 md 3000 connected to 2 md 1000's but in the above pdf the OS is win2003 which we dont want as we are facing lot issues accessing the data using CIFS...

		if possible can u give me ur telephone no or chat id or something like so that we can disscuss this..

		Thanx & Regards

		Santhi Kishore Balusu

		On 5/31/07, Nico_Terrey at dell.com < Nico_Terrey at dell.com <mailto:Nico_Terrey at dell.com> > wrote: 

			Hi,

			its not possible to set up a cluster with the MD1000. Its just possible to buy a MD3000 and cascading 2 MD1000 (for the moment, in the future more will be possible). 

			So you need:

			2x SASe/e for singlepath cluster or 4x SAS5/e for multipath cluster
			1x MD3000 with dual-dual Controller Modules (designed for multipath clustering)
			2x MD1000

			Nico

________________________________

			From: linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com [mailto: linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com <mailto:linux-poweredge-bounces at dell.com> ] On Behalf Of Shanti kishore Balusu
			Sent: Mittwoch, 30. Mai 2007 20:08
			To: linux-poweredge-Lists
			Cc: dorababup at gmail.com
			Subject: md 1000 & dell2950

			Hi

			We recently purchased 2 Dell 2950's with 3 md1000 & we want to build a highly available sollution using this hardware.Below r the details..

			Hardware Details:

			Dell 2950:                              Single Intel Xeon 3 Ghz proc with 4 Gig & with 2 146 Gb 10K rpm SAS drives preloaded with Redhat ES 4
			Md1000:                                15 sata disks each 500 GB with 7200 rpm speed totalling 7.5 TB

			please take a look at the attached image which is having the design diagram..

			we would like to connect all the 3 md1000 to each dell2950 using SAS cables & all these 3 md 1000 should be accessible from each Dell2950.

			If one of the dell2950 crashes due to any reason all the data which is there on 3 md1000 should be available thruough the second dell2950

			Please let us know how this can be done using the above hardware....

			Thanx & Regards

			Kishore Chowdary

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