RAID Config Advice for 3 x MD1200 arrays

Resources: 3 x MD1200 with 2TB drives (actual space is 1,862 GB per/drive)
Requirements: max space, good speed, good protection (thinking RAID 6 because of the large 2 TB drives)
Usage: CommVault backup to disk
Scenario: I have 28 disks I can use after using 8 (this already includes 2 hot spares). The following configurations are what I came up with:
- Create 4 virtual disk (7 disks per/virtual disk = 37.2TB)
- Create 3 virtual disk (9 disks per/virtual disk = 39.1TB)
- Create 2 virtual disk (14 disk per/virtual disk = 44.7TB)

I like the 2 virtual disk option giving me 44.7TB, but 14 disk per/virtual disk kinda cares me for some reason. Is there any reason I should not put this many disk into a virtual disk? Is there a suggested maximum number of disk you put in a virtual disk?

Any thoughts\help is appreciated.

Responses(2)

JOHNADCO

2 Intern

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847 Posts

0

September 8th, 2011 13:00

No real answer to this.... Does CommVault have any reccomendations on it? Application specific for sure. I generally find on PV storage, the more spindles the better, but we have not went over 14 drives in a group yet.

kerberos451

13 Posts

0

September 8th, 2011 14:00

"No real answer to this.... Does CommVault have any reccomendations on it? Application specific for sure. I generally find on PV storage, the more spindles the better, but we have not went over 14 drives in a group yet."

CommVault has no requirements & really doesnt care. I just mentioned it was for CommVault in my explanation to be thorough. Is more up to the designer as to what is acceptable. But thanks for letting me know there was someone else out there building large virtual disks with many spindles. I would just rather create a few large VDs as RAID6 vs. many smaller ones due to the loss in space. Seen any negative effects from such large VDs? Any other thoughts on the matter?

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RAID Config Advice for 3 x MD1200 arrays

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