How to choose storage hardware for beginners. Q1 2014.

1. By Throughwave Thailand
Q1 2014
How to Choose
Your SAN Storage Hardware

2. This presentation applies to
• Most of SAN storage in video editing and enterprise
market
• Not NAS storage
• Not storage server

3. Choose your controllers
• Single controller
– Only one storage controller in the chassis
– Good for system that requires storage performance and
storage capacity
• Dual controllers
– Double the performance, interfaces, reliability and price
– Good for systems that requires reliability
Controller

4. Choose your cache size
• More cache [1/2/4/8/16/32GB]
– Higher storage performance when the system reads the
same data read before
– Higher memory for other storage features
•
•
•
•
Snapshot
Backup
Replication
etc.
Controller

5. Choose your battery backup / flash memory
• Battery backup
– Save the data from your cache when power outage event
occurs for 24 – 72 hours
• Flash memory
– Save the data from your cache when power outage event
occurs for 1 – 3 years
Controller

6. Choose your interfaces
• Fibre Channel
– 16Gbps = 4K Video Editing
– 8Gbps = Video Editing, Virtualization, Cloud
• iSCSI
– 1/10Gbps = Flexible usage
• SAS
– 6/12Gbps = Cheap price for CCTV, direct attach storage

7. Choose your drives
• SSD
– Highest performance
– Small capacity
• Hard Drives
– 3.5” SATA/Nearline SAS [2/3/4/6TB, 7.2K RPM]: High
capacity, medium performance
– 3.5” SAS [300/450/600/900GB, 15K RPM] High capacity,
high performance
– 2.5” SAS [147/300/450/600/900/1200GB, 10K RPM] High
capacity, high performance

8. Choose your software license options
• Snapshot
– Fast backup volume image which can be reverted back
• Volume Copy/Volume Mirror
– Realtime or schedule full volume image backup
• Remote Replication
– Realtime backup to remote site
• Thin Provisioning
– Provision larger storage with dynamic capacity allocation
• Storage Capacity / Volumes
– Some storage vendors charge you for capacity and
volumes you use

9. Choose your HBA cards and cables
• Fibre Channel HBA
– 8/16 Gbps FC HBA
• Ethernet HBA
– 1/10GbE HBA
• SAS HBA
– 6/12Gbps HBA

10. Other concerns
• OS compatibility
– Windows, Mac OSX, Linux
• Warranty
• Support and Service

11. Q&A