SUMMARY: A1000 vs D1000 comparison

From: Chris Hoogendyk <choogend_at_library.umass.edu>
Date: Thu Nov 14 2002 - 15:58:09 EST
A bunch of good responses. A couple actually had some simple test
results for large file copies (which happens to be our application).

Original question at end.

Thanks to:
  Kevin Buterbaugh
  Tim Chipman
  Paul Galjan
  Dennis Martens
  Wanke Matthias
  Adam Levin

Multiple considerations in the answers:

The hardware in the two are almost identical in most respects. The
A1000, of course, has a hardware RAID controller. However, the D1000 has
two separate SCSI controllers.

Assume both RAID 5:

  Reads: should be comparable

  Writes: the A1000 is more than twice as fast as the D1000

However, if both SCSI channels are connected through a dual channel SCSI
controller on the server, then the D1000 could be faster on reads,
although it would depend on the read pattern. A single large file would
be the same, but multiple reads across both controllers would obviously
be faster.

With the dual channel SCSI, we could configure two RAID 0 and mirror
them. That would be fast, would protect the data, but would have less
storage capacity.

In either case, if the file transfers are going to/from PC workstations,
then the network is likely to be the bottleneck, so speed differences
between the two become almost irrelevent.

Newer devices (e.g. T3) are significantly better, with more up-to-date
RAID controllers and Fiber Channel Drives; but, obviously, cost a lot
more. For some applications and budgets that would be worth looking at,
but with our limited budget and the potential for the network being the
bottleneck, it wouldn't pay off.


---------------

Chris Hoogendyk

-- 
   O__  ---- Network Specialist & Unix Systems Administrator
  c/ /'_ --- Library Information Systems & Technology Services
 (*) \(*) -- W.E.B. Du Bois Library
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst

<choogend@library.umass.edu>

---------------




-------- Original Message --------
Subject: performance diff betw A1000 & D1000
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 17:15:31 -0500
From: Chris Hoogendyk <choogend@library.umass.edu>
Reply-To: choogend@library.umass.edu
Organization: UMass Library
To: Sun Managers <sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org>

If we are talking about a non-critical storage need with limited use but
large size and for which i/o performance is not a huge deal ....

What would you expect to see as a difference in performance between the
A1000 and the D1000 configured maxed out with 12  36GB drives? The
specific application would be file sharing to a PC desktop via samba to
store scanned archival images.

Is the A1000 going to be twice as fast? one and a half times as fast?
25% faster? ...

In either case, it would be attached to an E250.


---------------

Chris Hoogendyk

-- 
   O__  ---- Network Specialist & Unix Systems Administrator
  c/ /'_ --- Library Information Systems & Technology Services
 (*) \(*) -- W.E.B. Du Bois Library
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst

<choogend@library.umass.edu>

---------------
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Received on Thu Nov 14 15:52:05 2002

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