Re: Caching RAID controllers versus non-cached RAID

I am actually involved in a similar search. The story with caching controllers is that the cache memory has to be battery-backed (of course) for data security. The manufacturers say it is a big win for RAID5.

The A5000 is supposed to be 'hot poop', but it's performance in RAID5 seems a bit uncertain. It appears to be very dependent upon the write mix and block sizes. A high (20%) of small block (2k) will not give you good performance.

The problem with OPS (Oracle Parallel Server) on Sun is that OPS requires Sun Cluster. Which limits your storage hardware choice to Sun by the look of it. And at the moment they don't have dual host conttrollers for SCSI, so we fetch up with choice of A5000 only at the moment.

cheers,

N.

nb I am not a Oracle DBA

rcbelanger_at_my-dejanews.com wrote:

> Hello:
>
> I am working on a Sun server configuration for Oracle 8.0.3 and am considering
> two RAID alternatives. One is a Sun SPARCStorage A5000 array with about 48 GB
> of raw storage and no cache, the other is a Winchester systems RAID array with
> about 128 MB of cache and about the same raw storage.
>
> I have used Oracle and Sybase before on caching RAID arrays with great
> results - the cache more than makes up for the RAID 5 write penalty, but the
> read performance and raw throughput of the Sun A5000 are impressive. I am
> also considering a paralle server configuration down the road and the
> multi-hosting capabilities of the A5000 with FibreChannel seem to be much
> better than the Ultra SCSI options.
>
> I have considered other RAID arrays like EMC and the Sun A7000 that are
> multi-hosted and cached, but the price points are a little high for me.
>
> Any advice would be appreciated.
>
> Rich
>
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