Can you point me in the direction of someone who may have the insight into this type of SAN technology?

I have been asked to RAID across storage ports. Does anyone know or discuss how to achieve this type of technology?

Thank you.

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By RAID across storage ports, I assume you mean a using RAID-0 striping.

For example, create a RAID group striped across 8 drives. Then, when configuring the storage subsystem, be sure that multiple (lets say 4) channels can see all the drives in that RAID group. What you are doing is allowing 4 channels to access all 8 drives.

This is done for couple reasons.

First, for performance you want parallel access to the RAID group. With multiple channels (storage ports) accessing the RAID group you can also leverage channel load-balancing software from Veritas or EMC.

Second reason for multiple channels is availability. Using channel fail-over software, you are protected against one or even two channels taking down your application. Again, look to your storage or enterprise software vendor for details.

These statements hold true in both a SAN and direct attached environment.

Jim

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This was first published in March 2002

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