[THIN] Re: SATA drives

don't hold back Jeff.  Get it all out.  :^)



On 10/3/06, Jeff Pitsch <jepitsch@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: 

I have to completely disagree with this.  There is nothing slower in a
computer/server than the hard drives.  Can other portions be bottlenecks,
absolutely, but you aren't typically running out of CPU or even memory on a
32-bit system.  why do you think most companies go with 2cpu systems vs 4?
Becaues CPU isn't the bottleneck (typically) in a 32-bit system.  As well,
your arguement falls flat because now we are talking about duo-core dies so
those blades, 1U's, etc are now 4way boxes and can be taken advantage of in
64-bit implementations.

I'm sorry there is no good arguement for going SATA over SCSI in a TS
environment.  It's short sighted and your shooting yourself in the foot
before you even get off the ground.


Jeff Pitsch
Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
Provision Networks VIP

Forums not enough?
Get support from the experts at your business
http://jeffpitschconsulting.com



On 10/2/06, Melvin.Columna@xxxxxxxxx <Melvin.Columna@xxxxxxxxx > wrote:
>
>  But will it be the smallest bottleneck, might the # of CPUs (specially
> in Blade systems) not be another potential bottleneck ?
>
> I was going chime in last week regarding the warranty, maybe Compaq or
> some other only give you a 1 year warranty, but most drives these days (even
> PATA) have 3 or 5 year warranty.
>
> And it is true what Amer said, we had a notorious SCSI HD failure rate
> on our IBM X350, X360 and X365 servers--blame Hitachi.
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On
> Behalf Of *Jeff Pitsch
> *Sent:* Sunday, October 01, 2006 8:16 PM
> *To:* thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> *Subject:* [THIN] Re: SATA drives
>
>
>  Performance drop.  Price is fine, reliablity maybe, but performance is
> much worse than SCSI.  you are putting in a bottleneck that is unneeded.
> You aren't supposed to create your own bottleneck in a TS environment.
>
>
> Jeff Pitsch
> Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
> Provision Networks VIP
>
> Forums not enough?
> Get support from the experts at your business
> http://jeffpitschconsulting.com
>
>
>
> On 9/30/06, Amer Karim <amerk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > wrote:
> >
> > I agree with you wrt to SATA being appropriate dependant on what they
> > are going to be used for, and how.  However, regarding published failure
> > rates and reliability figures - as far as I'm concerned, they're
> > meaningless.  We went through a wonderful period of about 2 years where we
> > were experiencing a failure rate of about 80% (note the missing preceding
> > decimal) on brand new U320 SCSI drives (from various manufacturers) - almost
> > every one of them brand new, and most within 6 to 12 months of use;
> > including one reputation breaking case where every single drive for a new
> > SBS server, 6 drives in RAID-1 and RAID-5 w/ hot-spare, failed the burn in;
> > we RMA'd those, and when we got the replacements, all of those failed
> > again.  By then we had swapped out the system board, power supplies, gone
> > through 4 different RAID controllers because the Seagate chaps were
> > convinced the drives were being blown by the surrounding hardware. We
> > decided to switch to IBM drives instead - and had half of them die on
> > us.  Turned out the problems were being caused by a bug in the drives'
> > firmware.  We're still seeing a failure rate on U320 SCSI drives, both 10K
> > and 15K flavours, which is far greater than it used to be 3 years ago -
> > about 1 in 20 on average, and we've RMA'd more SCSI drives in the last 3
> > years than we did in the preceding 10.
> >
> > Thus, IMO, figures on failure rates and reliability are moot - one bug
> > in a firmware revision and that much vaunted integrity and reputation is mud
> > as far as a client is concerned.  I agree there are some applications where
> > SCSI performance is still a necessity - but I no longer consider them the
> > holy grail, and if a SATA drive goes south I can replace it in however long
> > it takes me to get to the client's site - they're cheap enough, and
> > available enough.  Keeping my clients systems up and running is what they
> > pay me for - and redundancy does a far better job of that than hardware
> > 'reliability' and 'failure' figures.
> >
> > I will also state that up until 2 years ago, I would have, and did,
> > walk away from any client who did not want to spend the money on putting
> > SCSI drives in their servers.  I'm confident enough in the newer SATA/SAS
> > technologies that I now consider them viable, and in certain cases
> > preferable, alternatives to SCSI.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Amer Karim
> > Nautilis Information Systems
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> > Behalf Of Roger Riggins
> > Sent: September 29, 2006 10:30 PM
> > To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: [THIN] Re: SATA drives
> >
> > SATA can be an alternative for SCSI if you want cheaper, but can
> > accept
> > slower and less reliable storage. We found a home for them in our
> > D2D2T
> > solution, but those specs were acceptable for that project. Everyone's
> > requirements are different for every project. Personally, if I'm
> > responsible for the equipment or my reputation is on the line, then
> > I'm
> > going to recommend what I believe to be the best. If I have to
> > compromise integrity for price, then I make sure that management
> > understands that. I keep an "I told you so" in my back pocket. :)
> >
> > Check this out--
> >
> > Seek times:
> >
> > SAS Barracuda ES: 8.5/9.5
> > SAS NL35: 8.0/9.0
> >
> > SCSI/SAS Cheetah 15k: 3.5/4.0
> > SCSI/SAS Savvio 10k.2: 3.8/4.4
> >
> >
> > Sustained transfer rate:
> >
> > SAS Barracuda ES: up to 78 Mbytes/sec
> > SAS NL35: up to 65 Mbytes/sec
> >
> > SCSI/SAS Cheetah 15k: up to 125 Mbytes/sec
> > SCSI/SAS Savvio 10k.2: up to 85 Mbytes/sec
> >
> >
> > Annualized Fail Rate at 24x7 operation:
> >
> > SAS Barracuda ES: .73%
> > Others: not listed, probably worse since the Barracuda is supposed to
> > be
> > their most reliable SATA or probably not rated for 24x7 operation
> >
> > SCSI/SAS Cheetah 15k: .62%
> > SCSI/SAS Savvio 10k.2: .55%
> >
> >
> > So from the numbers, it's safe to say that the SCSI/SAS seek times are
> > almost half of SATA. Additionally, the above SATA drives are up to 25%
> >
> > more likely to fail than a SCSI/SAS drive. That's if you get these new
> > ones that are supposed to be more reliable than the others!
> >
> > Here's an interesting link from the makers of the Barracuda. ;)
> >
> > http://www.seagate.com/products/interface/sata/targetapp.html
> >
> > So the bottom line is that SATA is a viable alternative for SCSI/SAS,
> > but mostly for specific solutions/projects or very small shops.
> >
> > Good luck,
> >
> > Roger Riggins
> > Network Administrator
> > Lutheran Services in Iowa
> > w: 319.859.3543
> > c: 319.290.5687
> > http://www.lsiowa.org
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> > Behalf Of Amer Karim
> > Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 6:39 PM
> > To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: [THIN] Re: SATA drives
> >
> > The Seagate 3GB/s SATA drives (Barracuda ES) lines have a 5-year
> > warranty - and, for the price, I can put 8 of those in a server with
> > RAID-10 and RAID-5 with 2 hot-spares for a fraction of the cost of
> > SCSI
> > for equivalent capacity.  In other words, I'd have to disagree with
> > the
> > comments about SATA not being a viable alternative to SCSI/SAS.  And
> > throw in an SAS RAID controller, and you've made the migration to SAS
> > drives down the road a fairly simple thing as well.  The SATA disks
> > being referred to in those articles are older tech and better suited
> > for
> > desktop computers, rather than servers - IMHO.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Amer Karim
> > Nautilis Information Systems
> >
> >
> >
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