Comments (2)

By admin, October 26, 2011 10:21 pm

I’ve asked Equallogic Support the following question today, it turns out I had wrong understanding about RAID10 before.

Client enviornment is running VMWare using EQL PS6000XV, 16 15K RPM disks (ie, 14 disks + 2 hot-spares)

In RAID10, there are 7 spindles as RAID10 only ultilizes half the disks, so there are only 7 spindles producing the atual IOPS.

In RAID50, all 14 spindles are used.

I/O pattern is mostly random (30% Read, 70% Write)

Does this mean in this case RAID50 is faster than RAID10 in terms of IOPS as there are 14 spindles in RAID50 compares to 7 spindles RAID10?

Reply from Equallogic’s US Support

The thing to remember here is that with RAID10 it will make two writes, one to each disk.

With RAID50, it will need to make the read/write/parity to all of the member disks in the raidset.

With Read/Write sequential IO, the difference would be minimal. With an environment as you described (virtual environment) where there are many small random I/Os, RAID10 will be quicker.

RAID10 will also be quicker if a drive fails whereas the performance with RAID5/50 is poor when the raidset is degraded and a rebuild is going on.

And of course, the space issue when considering RAID10 or RAID50 is a huge consideration

 

Then, I got an even better answer from a Dell storage expert in Hong Kong

Actually spindle in RAID10 is still 14, not 7; 7 is the capacity oriented view. We still consider using all disks during I/O.

But you may notice that above chart didn’t mention for Read performance? And yes, read performance for RAID 10 and RAID 50 or even RAID-5 will almost the same!  The different will mainly focus on write.

RAID 50 is two RAID-5 and stripe, the RAID parity overhead will still exist across the disks; the more disks you have in the RAID group, the more overhead and performance penalty you have!

In RAID 10, every RAID group consists with two disks only, so overhead and performance penalty is minimum.

 

Comments (0)

By admin, October 26, 2011 12:29 am

這次用了整個星期做研究﹐閱覽過無數網站﹐只挑最經典的和最好看的收。集中火力70年和71年這段﹐最後終于在美國和加拿大找齊了我所有的最喜愛款式。

最後發現各款的黑色還真難找﹐想不到老外對黑色的肌肉車特別情有獨鍾﹐另外郵費貴得完全不想提了。

大功告成﹗YEAH﹗

1/18 Highway61 (H50656) Dodge Challenger R/T  Black 440 with Magnum 500 Wheels 1970

1/18 Highway61 (H50654) Dodge Challenger R/T 426 Hemi Black 1970 (Limited 600)

1/18 Highway61 (H50601) Dodge Challenger R/T SubLime Green 440 1970

1/18 Highway61 (H50691) Dodge Challenger R/T Hemi Orange 440 1971 (Limited 504)

1/18 Highway61 (H50784) Dodge Challenger T/A M3 Panther Pink 340 1970 (Limited 500)

1/18 GMP (GMP1803120) Plymouth SR70 GTX Black Bird Street Fighter 1970 (Limited 500)

Comments (0)

By admin, October 25, 2011 1:28 pm

No more worries using the pre-released or pre-production versions. As usual, it’s recommended to wait for at least another month before upgrade to the latest firmware.

I am going to try the latest SANHQ and HIT/VMware this week for sure.

Equallogic PS Series Firmware, version V5.1.2
Enhanced Load Balancing, VSSA and Thin Provision Stun

SANHQ 2.2
Live View and 95th Percentile Reporting, as well as RAID Evaluator (ie, R10 > R50 performance prediction)

HIT/VMware 3.1.1
Support for VMware Version 5, VMFS 5, Thin Provision Stun, VASA, Datastore Clusters and Storage DRS

Finally, I also noticed the release of a newer version of EqualLogic Multipathing Extension Module (MEM) V1.0.1

Update: Oct 27, 2011

I’ve upgraded the SANHQ to version 2.2 and immediately tried two of the most interesting features,

1. Live View

It does provide very useful detail ONLY when you need it, such as when you suddently found IOPS is abnormal and wanted to find out which volume is causing the problem. However to be honest, I would rather use VMTurbo’s Usage for VM table, it’s much easier and easy to find the bad VMs.

2. RAID Evaluator

I found this is the most useful one in my own environment as I may expand my Equallogic SAN capacity by changing from RAID10 to RAID50, so I definitely need to know the estimated  performance decrease if I do so, it shows me 41%, wow, that’s huge!

I recevied a false alarm email with subject “SAN HQ Notification Alert” immediately after the SANHQ upgrade completed

Caution conditions:

10/27/2011 9:02:44 PM to 10/27/2011 9:08:08 PM

Caution: Controller failed over in member eql (IT DID SCARE THE HELL OUT OF ME)

Caution: Firmware upgrade on member eql Secondary controller.
 - Controller Secondary in member eql was upgraded from firmware version to version V5.0.2 (R138185)
 - Condition already generated an e-mail message. If the condition persists, additional messages will be sent approximately every 6 hours.

Caution: Firmware upgrade on member eql Primary controller.
- Controller Primary in member eql was upgraded from firmware version to version V5.0.2 (R138185)

Comments (0)

By admin, October 25, 2011 12:10 pm

A fter seven years of hard work I am now able to tell you a little brief history and the path that led to the birth of the Huayra, project name C9.

The concept was born in 2003, the year of the introduction of the Zonda S Roadster. As you may recall the early 2000s were prosperous for the world of supercars. The commitment of big car manufacturers have contributed to the rise of extraordinary cars like the Bugatti Veyron, Porsche Carrera GT, Ferrari Enzo, Mercedes McLaren SLR.

This context led us to make several observations concerning the future of the Zonda and what could be a new Pagani. Since the original design of the Zonda was done in the early 90s the first thought was that it was now an obsolete project and we decided to imagine the car totally different in form, dimension, dynamics and technology, all this without losing the essence of our approach, to follow a concept born in the Renaissance where Leonardo da Vinci told us that art and science are disciplines that need to walk alongside. The eternal element air in all its forms, especially wind, became determining in defining the concept and it was a great inspiration, a sit is ever present in our lives: a jet turbine, the silence of a glider… the elegance of the movements the wind creates&hellip but also the violence and force that it can unleash.

The Huayra is made of more than 4000 components (engine and gearbox not included). To create them and put them together requires creativity, patience and passion that I shared with a fantastic young team and with the most competent partner in all sectors.

In defining the size, I immediately thought of a car that would be longer than the Zonda, a track increased by 70 mm, a cabin position shifted 40 mm to the back and even more spacious. The silhouette should be soft, easy to read and form itself from lean and sleek lines that have a clear beginning and an end.

As the style is concerned during these five years we have tried to find the best compromise working on 8 scale models and 2 full scale models, as well as hundreds of drawings without never leaving the original idea and taking meticulous care of the details.

The ideas were of including elliptical shapes reminding of our brand in the front and at the back, keeping the central exhaust as the completion of the line of the canopy, the line starting at the headlight area that continues and ends into the air intake. We also thought from the beginning of active aerodynamics. Flaps that are activated according to the study of results gathered through calculations and aerodynamic testing. The whole car is shaped as a wing so it was necessary to create a high front to reduce the length of the upper part of this wing to counteract lift.

The active suspension in the front and the 4 flaps allow to optimally balance the drag coefficient and downforce.

Mercedes-AMG has created a truly unique and lightweight engine, a twin turbo with over 700 HP and 1100 Nm of torque that perfectly complements the car giving a feeling that has motivated our research: that of the brute force of an airplane taking off.

The main focus was in a power delivery that was linear and not with lag, because that could potentially create safety problems or a continuous operation of electronic driving aids.

Mercedes-AMG already 5 years ago thought about the coming environmental restrictions by creating a 12-cylinder engine that is at the peak of efficiency in terms of CO2 and consumption.

Pirelli has created a very progressive tyre with a exceptional grip in all situations and with low rolling friction. Every aspect of safety was treated taking into account the dynamic by which most accidents with high performance rear engined cars occur.

While developing the C9 we witnessed the evolution of the different models of the Zonda and it showed us that the Zonda wasn’t obsolete as I had originally feared. The Zonda R has been a key laboratory for the Huayra. The team was able to work on many projects at the same time driving on different tracks that occasionally came to meet by sharing engineering concepts, materials, safety and scientific or design studies.

Horacio Pagani

Comments (0)

By admin, October 24, 2011 9:57 pm

最近樓下連續兩晚都有戰神GT-R的到訪﹐分別是那台經常出現黑壓壓的R35 SPEC V和第一次看到的桔紅色R34。

Comments (0)

By admin, October 21, 2011 10:09 am

This is interesting as I have just found the solution, the hotfix is not available for download, you will need to contact Microsoft or your server OEM to get the hotfix, note there are two different hotfix versions besides the 32/64bits, one is for Win7/Win2k8R2 with SP1, one is without.

Symptoms

When deploying or cloning virtual machines from a Windows 2008 R2 or Windows 7 template configured with the VMXNET3 virtual network device:

•The resulting virtual machine’s guest operating system shows the Ethernet network interface as:

- VMXNET Device #2 in Device Manager
- Local Area connection #2 in Network Properties

•The old Ethernet network interface remains present in Device Manager when Show Hidden Devices is enabled.

•The old Ethernet network interface retains its network configuration, preventing the new interfaces from reusing the previous static IP addresses. For more information see Networking Error: IP address already assigned to another adapter (1179).

Note: Upgrading the virtual hardware from version 4 to 7, or upgrading the VMware Tools, may automatically convert Flexible or VMXNET2 virtual network interfaces to VMXNET3. This issue may be observed after such an upgrade.

Also I encountered the following error when trying to open “Edit Settings” after converted the Template to VM.

Call “PropertyCollector.RetrieveContents” for object “propertyCollector” on vCenter Server “VC” failed.

The solution is simple, remove the VM from inventory and add it back again will solve the problem.

Of course, you also need to add back the extra VMX parameters if you are using OEM Windows and make sure devices.hotplug = false is added which prevents hot plug warning in OS.

* Just found out you don’t need to do this if you added the VM to Inventory from Datastore directly as the original VMX contains such information already.

Comments (0)

By admin, October 17, 2011 8:01 am

昨天還跟身邊發生的問題糾纏不清﹐今天一早起床發現問題迎刃而解了﹐高興得直呼“明天會更好原來是真的﹗”。

鑽牛角尖很多時候是解決不了問題的﹐還是早點睡覺為好。

Comments (0)

By admin, October 16, 2011 10:21 pm

今天早上才得知海運大廈Maserati Car Show將會展出最新的GranCabrio Sport和全球只有50台的MC12﹐馬上動身去拍個夠。果然MC12完全把GranCabrio Sport的艷光遮蓋﹐成為全場的焦點所在﹗

Comments (0)

By admin, October 13, 2011 1:42 pm

最近用了整整2個星期的時間瘋狂地研究了好多美式肌肉的歷史和款式。最喜歡的還是那些60年代末期﹐70年代初的那堆經典如Chevrolet Camaro, Pontiac GTO﹑Dodge Challenger/Charger, Plymouth Cuda/Road Runner, Ford Mustang等等。

之前就有啟蒙車模朋友咬牙切齒地說過我遲早都一定會掉進美式肌肉坑的﹐現在還真不幸被“言中”了。

生產美式肌肉車的廠商大多數都是這幾間﹕GMP(金融還嘯後倒閉了﹐太可惜了)﹑Highway 61 (Super Car Collectibles)﹑ERTL和American Muscle Collectibles﹐質量也是按照這個順序﹐以GMP的做工最好。

後來發現這些年來美式肌肉的車模已經出了太多款式﹐越找就越發現美國肌肉車的文化實在太博大精深了﹐只是一般亞洲和歐洲的車模迷們都忽略了美式肌肉的這塊瑰寶。

所以只能挑精的﹐年份定于自己最喜歡的1968到1972年間的款式為主﹐目標明確後﹐就好找了。至少不能是狗腿們﹐一下子就把ERTL和American Muscle Collectibles全部剔除了﹐剩下的GMP和Highway 61裡面挑啊挑﹐最終百裡挑一﹐終于鎖定了以下這3款﹐它們正在運輸路途中。

首先GMP橙色的1970年Pontiac GTO第一版真的要多謝新加坡的Allan大哥割愛。然後另一台黃色的1970 Dodge Challenger R/T 440 Six Pack更是稀罕絕版之物﹐最近更榮升為我的第二最愛Muscle Car﹐第一當然還是67/68年野馬﹐最後盾那台橙色的是2006年Dodge Challenger HEMI概念版本。

另外最近在本地也用極合理的價格收到了另一台銀色的GMP 1972 Le Man GTO Convertible﹐現在只差紅白間GMP的Camaro Street Fighter了﹐以後有機會一定會收。

1/18 GMP (gmp8041) Pontiac GTO Judge Orbit Orang 1970 (Limited 3000, 2001)

1/18 Highway61 (H50469) Dodge Challenger R/T Banana Yellow 440 1970

1/18 Highway61 (H50502) Dodge Challenger R/T Concept Red HEMI 2006

Comments (4)

By admin, October 13, 2011 1:12 pm

Interesting there is a 10 years glass ceiling, it was never mentioned in their web site I guess.

If you open a license file with notepad, you will see that there are two expiration dates: one for support and one for the product. Each license is issued for 10 years, so if your support expires, you can use an existing installation until the product expiration date is reached. You will not, however, be eligible for support and product upgrades.

Thanks,
Andrey Beck
Veeam Software Support