On 04/08/2011 05:20 PM, Mark Sandrock wrote: > > On Apr 8, 2011, at 7:50 AM, Evaldas Auryla <evaldas.aur...@edqm.eu> wrote: > >> On 04/ 8/11 01:14 PM, Ian Collins wrote: >>>> You have built-in storage failover with an AR cluster; >>>> and they do NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, HTTP and WebDav >>>> out of the box. >>>> >>>> And you have fairly unlimited options for application servers, >>>> once they are decoupled from the storage servers. >>>> >>>> It doesn't seem like much of a drawback -- although it >>>> may be for some smaller sites. I see AR clusters going in >>>> in local high schools and small universities. >>>> >>> Which is all fine and dandy if you have a green field, or are willing to >>> re-architect your systems. We just wanted to add a couple more x4540s! >>> >> >> Hi, same here, it's a sad news that Oracle decided to stop x4540s production >> line. Before, ZFS geeks had choice - buy 7000 series if you want quick "out >> of the box" storage with nice GUI, or build your own storage with x4540 >> line, which by the way has brilliant engineering design, the choice is gone >> now. > > Okay, so what is the great advantage > of an X4540 versus X86 server plus > disk array(s)? > > Mark
Several: 1) Density: The X4540 has far greater density than 1U server + Sun's J4200 or J4400 storage arrays. The X4540 did 12 disks / 1RU, whereas a 1U + 2xJ4400 only manages ~5.3 disks / 1RU. 2) Number of components involved: server + disk enclosure means you have more PSUs which can die on you, more cabling to accidentally disconnect and generally more hassle with installation. 3) Spare management: With the X4540 you only have to have one kind of spare component: the server. With servers + enclosures, you might need to keep multiple. I agree that besides 1), both 2) a 3) are a relatively trivial problem to solve. Of course, server + enclosure builds do have their place, such as when you might need to scale, but even then you could just hook them up to a X4540 (or purchase a new one - I never quite understood why the storage-enclosure-only variant of the X4540 case was more expensive than an identical server). In short, I think the X4540 was an elegant and powerful system that definitely had its market, especially in my area of work (digital video processing - heavy on latency, throughput and IOPS - an area, where the 7000-series with its over-the-network access would just be a totally useless brick). -- Saso _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
