tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921684.post5854429832697258216..comments2023-05-12T08:13:38.639+01:00Comments on The Storage Architect: You Sunk My Battleship!Chris M Evanshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05633427140097100466noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921684.post-50656493877704986952008-11-26T17:26:00.000+00:002008-11-26T17:26:00.000+00:00Hi Chris, interesting post.Quite a few years ago I...Hi Chris, interesting post.<BR/><BR/>Quite a few years ago I looked after some Compaq EVAs which in my opinion were years ahead of their time. You could add more disks in to a disk pool and the EVA would re-level data to include to new spindles. This was great but had a draw-back. Performance would nose dive during the re-levelling process. So its an out of hours job usually.<BR/><BR/>As for thin provisioning. Ive done a fair bit of it (the HDS variety) and I dont see many customers looking at it for the space saving benefits. Seeing what a "run" on Northern rck did to our fractional reserve banking system makes me and others very very hesitant to over provision storage. Nobody wants a "run" on their storage pool. The performance benefits are another ting though. Most people are looking at TP for performance and ease of management benefits (in my experience).<BR/><BR/>As for the idea of the controller knowing what is free space on a FAT LUN while migrating to a thin volume..... your got my interest on this one. I assume I will be as cautious as I am about over provisioning but it sounds interesting.<BR/><BR/>NigelAdministratorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07165889343506150456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921684.post-17016485665683744292008-11-13T10:55:00.000+00:002008-11-13T10:55:00.000+00:00VP in the DMX world still has some limitations; fo...VP in the DMX world still has some limitations; for example I think it's still the case that if you add additional disk to your VP pool, it will not dynamically relay-out the existing LUNs and spread across the additional spindles. The initial release of VP was of limited use, it is getting better tho' (at a cost).Martinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12313109408741525077noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921684.post-34207342410786523482008-11-13T07:28:00.000+00:002008-11-13T07:28:00.000+00:00Marc - I merely discussed what was already online ...Marc - I merely discussed what was already online http://www.3par.com/inservtclass/ <BR/><BR/>:-)Chris M Evanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05633427140097100466noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921684.post-87628776749264253942008-11-13T00:01:00.000+00:002008-11-13T00:01:00.000+00:00Stephen (and Chris), the little subtlety with dyna...Stephen (and Chris), the little subtlety with dynamic optimization is that it uses wide striping to re-layout data over the all disks in the system. When you add new drives to an InServ you don't have to specify that you want to use them for specific volumes, you simply run dynamic optimization and it automatically changes the disk layout to include both old and new disk drives. It's not a matter of making larger LUNs (although you can do that) - it's a matter of making more spindles available to increase performance.marcfarleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02869161762163587748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921684.post-4742785917758921382008-11-12T23:53:00.000+00:002008-11-12T23:53:00.000+00:00Hi Chris, thanks for providing folks with a "peek ...Hi Chris, thanks for providing folks with a "peek in" into our future! <BR/><BR/>I just want to make sure readers know that the functionality to convert existing fat volumes to thin volumes is not available. We are not quite there yet, but will be relatively soon.marcfarleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02869161762163587748noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22921684.post-9723295042567454262008-11-12T03:38:00.000+00:002008-11-12T03:38:00.000+00:00As far as I know, as of Symmetrix microcode 5773, ...As far as I know, as of Symmetrix microcode 5773, you can use Virtual Migrator to change RAID protection on the fly and migrate from smaller to larger LUNs. So I think EMC offers about what 3PAR offers in this particular case.<BR/><BR/>But I'm glad Marc and Craig treated you to a rousing game of Battleship!Stephen Fosketthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05969630798623133995noreply@blogger.com