by using latency as the primary criteria, the APLB does not need to explicitly evaluate any other details of the storage, such as disk type (e.g. SAS vs. SATA), spindle speed, number of disks, or EqualLogic controller type. This makes the APLB a very simple and robust mechanism that does not need to be re-trained when new hardware configurations are introduced to the EqualLogic product line. This also ensures that when unplanned events occur that may influence the ability of certain arrays to serve their workload (e.g., RAID rebuild or bad NIC) that the system automatically compensates.

I hope this will help with your tiering. For me, I will still separate my SATA from my SAS arrays, but will keep 10K SAS in the same pools as my 15K SAS.

Compared to consumer ssd’s it’s fairly low but you need to remember its a 7 disk raid6 set for the ssd’s. And that emlc drives are supposed to give good consistent io and high write endurance (the drives re rated at 7.3 Petabytes).

In sanhq I’ve seen io on the drives of around 2.000 iops a piece.

I’m sure the ps6100s can deliver a lot more 20-25k maybe because you can just make raid10

Then again it’s hard to setup test parameters. I’ve used the 8gb test from vmktree.org/iometer

Just have to check up with equallogic support via diag logs if everything is ready for production.

One thing I thought you might find interesting. It has 5 nic ports on the controller, port 5 is for management, but you can run it like I do with the ps6000 usingg the first 4 ports for mixed traffic.

The odd thing is.. The new vertical port failover mechanism makes port 0 and 1 be active on controller 0 and 2/3 active on controller 1.

At first I thought it was a mistake, but it seems to just work like that .

It allows for failover of if one switch dies, which did not happen on the older series controllers

I am hardware nuts who love to see the chipset and processor on all sort of SAN storage and network appliances.

I saw that 4GB (2 x 2GB) cache on each controller card. Hey, if I were you and still testing this PS6100XS unit and not ready for production, then I will put two 8GB into each controller and test the IOPS again, so you have total of 16GB cache instead of 4GB, four times the caching, but I doubt it will help much, probably 30% more IOPS. Also it may be hard to locate what type of DIMM they use and find a compatible one.

Now I finally saw the new EQL Controller (Type-12) with THE PURPLE SUPER CONDUCTOR! The whole controller board is much larger than PS6000 series. There are three heat sinks, I wonder if those are the processors. (don’t worry, I won’t ask you to open the heat sink and see if there is a Xeon or Opteron inside, lastly I learnt PS5000 is based on AMD Opteron though)

This is new stuff, that Cache to flash using super conductor, something like this, you will no longer restrict to 72 hours of time limit, but data is stored on the flash forever. In additional, is there any more BBU?

I recognize the 2.5” SAS 10K RPM 600GB disk is actually SEAGATE SAVVIO 10K4, it’s the same as my 600GB 2.5” used on R710 but with special EQL firmware. I do know there are people who put their own SATA hard disk into out of warranty EQL box and able to use it, so it seemed EQL will not block non-certified DELL drive (May be still true, may be not). Oh…that Pliant SSD looks cool! I found a single LB400M 400 SSD costs over USD4,000 already, I bet near half of the cost of PS6100XS went to these 7 units of SSD, so you better fully utilize them and make them run to 100,000 IOPS range.

The last picture really shows how slim PS6100 compares to PS6000 underneath. Your new box with 24 flashing lights definitely looks like a charming Xmas Tree.

Oh…I do think your PS6100XS can go a lot higher at least in 20,000 to 50,000 IOPS range, even a single SSD can hit 7,000 IOPS easily these days, you may want to contact EQL for deep investigation.

Last year, they helped me trouble shooting my EQL performance problem over WebEX for almost 6 hours. I truly appreciated the high quality of their technical expertise and professionalism.

BTW, Denmark is really far from where I am now, but you seemed to be just next to me. It’s very nice to share and learn EQL experience with others around the world. I really love this small but warm community.

Finally Denmark Cookies (that Blue Label) is a very popular gift during Chinese New Year in Hong Kong.

I setup 2 machines a virtual and a physical, and i can hit around 7000iops Rand 65

Ive uploaded a few shots, but my camera work is horrid. Most of the stuff is under passive cooling, and im not going to remove any of that.

http://s1185.photobucket.com/albums/z356/DarkingDK/

I did another IOPs test after the array has verified, but im not seeing a huge increase.. around 6500IOPS in random 65%

But i still have a bit to do with network ports etc, im saturating the existing ones.

http://www.sandisk.com/enterprise-storage-solutions/lightning-products/lightning-lb-25-inch

In fact it’s e-MLC (Enterprise Grade MLC)

Btw Darking, may I know where are you from?

Will have sone photos to upload to flickr in 4-5 hours

This is when comparing to my results a year ago with a single PS6000XV (http://www.modelcar.hk/?p=2854).

I am pretty sure when your SSD caching kicks in, you will see at least 38740 or even 100,000 IOPS for RealLife-60%Rand-65%Read. Btw, I got 7,140 IOPS with just a single Crucial M4 128GB SSD recently, it’s really amazing! Think about this, a single SSD can replace 2 units of PS6000XV with 24 15K RPM spindles at only 1/1000 the cost.

Pls try again later and run it say at least 10 minutes as this will ensure the hot data flows to SSD tier. (Fluid Data Technology)

Finally may I know what brand of the EQL 400GB SSD that is? and photos of course.

And I still have one more question that always bothering me, if anyone knows the answer, pls drop me a line.

Is 24 x 10K RPM disks in RAID50 faster than 12 x 15K RPM disks in RAID10?