Data centers for large enterprises and small and medium businesses can optimize their data storage architecture by deploying Dell™ PowerVault™ MD1200 or PowerVault MD1220 expansion enclosures that can enhance data availability, scalability, and performance in a cost-effective form factor. The PowerVault MD1200 is designed to optimize storage for applications requiring lots of capacity and moving large amounts of data. The PowerVault MD1220 is designed for high-performance applications such as e-mail and databases that require storage of frequently accessed data. Both enclosures support the Dell PowerEdge™ Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) H800 card. This discussion focuses on features of both expansion enclosures, which option is recommended for specific storage needs, and best practices for optimizing data storage in end-to-end, 6 Gbps Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) environments.

Technical Community - Background Reading

Chat Transcript

Dell-JeffS Okay, let’s get going. A few housekeeping items first. Welcome to the TechTuesday chat. This week's topic is 6 Gbps Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and the Dell PowerVault MD1200 and PowerVault MD1220 expansion enclosures. We have Stefanie, the product marketing manager on hand to help answer any questions you may have. This is an informal chat; feel free to jump in with your questions at any time. If you see a link, right-click it; otherwise, you might get bounced. If you do, just jump back in and select Action, Recent Room History. to catch up
lambertini What is the principal end market for this product?
Dell-JeffS A bit of a light crowd this week, but that's okay; more time for us to try and stump Dell-Stef!
sixth I currently have a PowerVault MD1120 unit using a Dell PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) 6 card and am very happy with it
Dell-JeffS Thanks, Sixth, I was just about to ask if anyone is currently using direct attach storage (DAS)
sixth How about this new PERC card. I haven’t been able to find much information on it
Dell-Stef The target market for the PowerVault MD1200 and PowerVault MD1220 DAS enclosures is for small to medium business (SMB) looking to expand one or more servers, and all the way to large, specialized deployments requiring low-cost gigabits per second and low-cost I/Os per second (IOPS)
sixth Yep, I have a PowerVault MD1120 filled with 24 2.5-inch, 10,000 rpm 146 GB drives. It’s a great system, which leads me to my next question: will this be discontinued? I have in the budget to purchase another unit also
Dell-Stef PERC 6 Gbps controller information on DELL.COM/PERC
lambertini Dell-Stef, with the current focus on energy efficiency and reducing power consumption, what are the features of this product to make this happen?
sixth Ah, that’s what I am looking for. Thanks for the link
Dell-Stef The current plan is to EOL PowerVault MD1120 by mid to late 2010. EOL = end of life
Dell-JeffS Gotta right-click those links :)
sixth Okay, good to know
Dell-Stef The PowerVault MD1220 and PowerVault MD1200 feature 80 plus Silver certification in the dual power supply units
sixth Would a PowerEdge R410 host server work okay with one of these units?
Dell-Stef @sixth, yes, the PowerEdge R410 server supports the PowerVault MD1200 and PowerVault MD1220 enclosures connected to a PERC H800 adapter
sixth Okay, thanks
Dell-Stef 11th-generation Dell server support matrix for PERC: DELL.COM/PERC
Dell-JeffS Also here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/md1200/en/io/iog.pdf
sixth Just a quick question about this whole 3 Gbps SAS and 6 Gbps SAS. Isn’t the limitation at the disk level? So we wouldn’t be able to utilize that 6 Gbps unless you have solid-state drives (SSDs)? Or would that not necessarily be true since it can hold 24 disks, equaling more I/O
Dell-Stef 6 Gbps SAS throughput benefit, over 3 Gbps SAS or Serial ATA (SATA), is seen at 10 to 12 hard disk drives (HDDs). Under 10 HDDs, and 6 Gbps SAS is equal to 3 Gbps SAS in megabits per second
sixth Understood; sounds right to me
Dell-Stef SSDs at 3 Gbps provide an additional IOPS capability, and the new PERC H700 and PERC H800 have a 35 percent increase in IOPS capability. So you can get much better IOPS performance with SSDs (up to four) with the 6 Gbps controller (PERC H700 or PERC H800). This is true for internal server drives
sixth Okay, good to know
Dell-Stef With the 6 Gbps end-to-end solution, 24 HDDs will yield better megabits per second and IOPS performance than a 3 Gbps solution
Dell-JeffS BTW, no need to memorize. :) A transcript of this chat will be posted in a day or two. We actually have some hands on time with the PowerVault MD1200 and PowerVault MD1220 here in the lab. We recorded a couple of videos, and are working on another one now. We attached both the PowerVault MD1200 and PowerVault MD1220 to the same server. FYI, the PowerVault MD1200 has 12 3.5-inch drives and the PowerVault MD1220 has 24 2.5-inch drives. Today we are growing a 5-drive volume to the full 24 with the PowerVault MD1220. Already 1.5 hours and it's half way there
sixth Jeff, when you connected that unit to the same server, I noticed that the unit had two controllers in it. Did you connect each cable to the same card? I couldn’t make that out in the video for certain
Dell-JeffS Good question. I used the redundant path diagram from the manual
sixth Ah, guess I need to read over the manual. Thanks. The redundant path stuff was my next question. I'll take a look at that configuration
Dell-JeffS Used the picture in this blog (at the end): http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/dell_tech_center/archive/2010/01/13/6-gb-sas-jbods-invade-delltechcenter-lab.aspx. What's not clear in that picture is that is one adapter
sixth One adapter. Gotcha. So that PERC card has two ports that can be used simultaneously
Dell-JeffS So, port 1, to controller A “in,” Port 2 to controller B “in,” and “out” on controller 1 to array controller 1, and so on—second array that is
sixth Got it
Dell-Stef The PERC H800 has dual ports and can be used simultaneously in a redundant path. This also automatically enables I/O load balancing that improves performance.
sixth As far as the redundant path configuration, is that all configured automatically? Or is that in the RAID BIOS Dell storage manager
Dell-JeffS It was automagic
sixth Okay, awesome
JeffHengesbach Does the PERC 6/E load balance when both ports are in use, or just offer redundancy?
Dell-Stef When the two cables are connected from the PERC H800 ports to the PowerVault MD1200 and PowerVault MD1220 "in" ports, the redundant path and I/O load balancing feature are automatically enabled
sixth Very nice
Dell-Stef PERC 6/E (with 6.1 or later firmware) also supports redundant path and I/O load balancing
Dell-JeffS Not to sound too silly, but actually was a bit too easy. Not much to demo!
JeffHengesbach If anything like PERC 6/E plus PowerVault MD1000, yeah. Plug and run for the most part
sixth Well, that’s awesome
Dell-JeffS If you can think of anything you'd like to see, let me know and we'll record it. Got to put some content out there so Stefanie will keep giving me these boxes when they come out :)
sixth Well, guys time to jet...thanks for answering my questions!
Dell-Stef Thanks, sixth. Good questions
Dell-JeffS Thanks for joining! And nice follow up on the VMware forum about your blog
sixth Jeff, I'll bring you up to date on my Internet SCSI (iSCSI) issue. Thanks again for your help
Dell-JeffS Currently, we have these demos, showing the unboxing and adding a virtual disk to a system: www.delltechcenter.com/page/dell+powervault+md1200%2fmd1200
Dell-JeffS We'll put the volume expansion one up in a few days; not too much to show there, but it will give you an idea of the time involved and shows volume stays online. We didn't mention scalability…
Dell-Stef With the new 6 Gbps end-to-end solution, the PERC H800 allows for expansion of up to 192 drives in 8 PowerVault MD1220 enclosures
Dell-JeffS Any other questions for Stefanie while we still have her?
JeffHengesbach 192, that's a lot of DAS!
Dell-JeffS I saw a couple of blogs talking about the DAS market. Coming from the storage area network (SAN) world at another company, I was surprised at how big it still is. Microsoft is pushing DAS for Microsoft Exchange environments
Dell-JeffS What about flexibility or enhancements for data tiering?
Dell-Stef For data-tiering flexibility, you can also mix the 2.5-inch (PowerVault MD1220) and 3.5-inch (PowerVault MD1200) enclosures in the same daisy chain off of the PERC H800 adapter
JeffHengesbach The mixing is nice. PERC 6/E didn’t support that (I think)
Dell-JeffS And you can have different disk size speeds in those enclosures?
Dell-Stef Yes, that's correct. PERC 6/E did not support 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch enclosure mixing
JeffHengesbach Can a RAID group span 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives of the same size then?
Dell-Stef Yes, PERC H800 allows RAID volumes to span across 2.5-inch (PowerVault MD1220) and 3.5-inch (PowerVault MD1200) enclosures
JeffHengesbach Not guessing too many Exchange systems will have DAS hanging off of them though—think that is more marketing than anything
Dell-JeffS Here's the Dell TechCenter page on the PowerVault MD1200 and PowerVault MD1220 enclosures, with specifications and important links: www.delltechcenter.com/page/dell+powervault+md1200+%26+md1220
Dell-JeffS I've heard there are some performance documents and reference architectures on the horizon, and we'll link to them when they make their debut
Dell-Stef The PowerVault MD1220 allows for mixing of SSDs, 15,000 rpm, 10,000 rpm, and 7,200 rpm drives in the same enclosure. The PowerVault MD1200 enclosure also allows for mixing both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives (mixed speeds) in the same enclosure
Dell-Stef Microsoft Exchange 2010 is promoting DAS for the two to three copies
Dell-JeffS I didn't realize you could put 2.5-inch drives in the PowerVault MD1200. Why would you do that?
JeffHengesbach Good question
Dell-Stef For one, 2.5-inch SSDs can be used in the 3.5-inch enclosure. And for the low-capacity offerings (15,000 rpm, 73 GB and 146 GB drive) this can be a very power-efficient solution
Dell-Stef Think of the PowerVault MD1200 as the all-in-one Swiss Army knife of the enclosures
JeffHengesbach Nice option for SMBs looking for one shelf to do it all—yup
Dell-JeffS Okay, well, going once, going twice…
Dell-KongY Thank you all for joining us. Thanks, Stef, for joining us and answering questions around DAS
Dell-JeffS I think that'll do it. Thanks for joining us today! Next week's topic is Dell Management Console Powered by Altiris from Symantec
Dell-JeffS Thanks, Stefanie, for all your help!
Dell-Stef Thanks for the good questions. Bye!