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Thread: DSS support for Adaptec MaxIQ™ SSD Cache solution

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Toronto, Canada
    Posts
    108

    Default DSS support for Adaptec MaxIQ™ SSD Cache solution

    I know that this is a little unfair given that Adaptec announced the solution just today...
    Adaptec MaxIQ™ SSD Cache Performance Kit

    I am wondering if Open-E knows whether DSS will be able to support this solution in the *near* future?

    The reading the Adaptec details suggests that most of the solution is implemented in new firmware for the series 2, 5 and 5Z controllers along with a new version of the Adaptec Storage Manager software.

    It looks to be the ideal solution for blending SSD (Adaptec's own custom SSD) and disk storage, something that I would like to integrate into our 2 DSS installs

    All feedback will be appreciated.

  2. #2

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by SeanLeyne
    I know that this is a little unfair given that Adaptec announced the solution just today...
    Adaptec MaxIQ™ SSD Cache Performance Kit

    I am wondering if Open-E knows whether DSS will be able to support this solution in the *near* future?

    The reading the Adaptec details suggests that most of the solution is implemented in new firmware for the series 2, 5 and 5Z controllers along with a new version of the Adaptec Storage Manager software.

    It looks to be the ideal solution for blending SSD (Adaptec's own custom SSD) and disk storage, something that I would like to integrate into our 2 DSS installs

    All feedback will be appreciated.
    I don't see any reason why it would not work now. You will need to set up MaxIQ in the bios of the card since open-e does not yet support the latest version of ASM. Other than that MaxIQ should be agnostic to the OS and application.

  3. #3

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    I'm also very interested in this, though I do have a concern. We have been using areca cards for their out of band management through via a built-in NIC with web interface and SMTP capabilities. AAdapatec does not have that option. Does open-e support monitoring of the adaptec RAID status and sending SMTP alerts?

  4. #4

    Lightbulb

    This looks really interesting. We're going to look into this. I wonder if they'll ever let you use your own SSD? That would be amazing.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Toronto, Canada
    Posts
    108

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Robotbeat
    This looks really interesting. We're going to look into this. I wonder if they'll ever let you use your own SSD? That would be amazing.
    I agree that it looks amazing!

    As for using your own SSDs? Maybe some day, but in the meantime they will be 'milking' the special functionality as much as possible $$$$.

    I must admit that since the have chosen the Intel X25-E SSDs, they have chosen the best of the current SSD offerings. To open up the solution to "any old SSD" could create a support nightmare for them (there are some dog SSDs out there).

    The real "killer" would be to tie together a PCIe based SSD solution (FusionIO or OCX) with a RAID controller -- that would rock!!!!

  6. #6

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    I only mention that because I have a very high performance, high-quality, high write-durability, high-capacity ssd sitting on the bench in our datacenter. It's even better than the Intel x-25e drives which are certainly the best of the consumer drives.

  7. #7

    Default

    Robotbeat, it won't allow you to use your own SSD.

    The X25-E they use, is using customized firmware. Unless you can get hold of the firmware itself, and flash it to a fully compatible X25-E drive (let's say X25-M?), you won't be able to leverage on the new cache family

    Given the SSDs I'm holding, I can try to do this trick for you, but for sure, it may violate warranty or even the UELA.

    I got a call few weeks back from Adaptec, for trying this new toy out. It is quite an independent cache. You plug it in, it will auto recognize it as a cache, you plug it out, no more cache, that's all. No impact in your underlying data of the original disk array. My question is, if I am already running quite a number of X25-M SSDs rocketing fast @ up to 2GB/s read & 1GB/s write kind of performance, what is the impact of a single drive cache with 250MB/s read & 170MB/s to my existing set up? Perhaps that depends on the main difference in using a 512MB DDR2 cache vs additional 30GB secondary cache, uhm...sounds like what netapps is pushing their customers to "upgrade" lol!

  8. #8

    Lightbulb

    Okay, I have a MaxIQ kit (with an Adaptec card) in for testing with the Open-E. It's really fast. 17,000 random read IOPS (after the cache is warmed up) over just a one gigabit ISCSI connection (with just a simple volume on a single SATA hard drive, besides the cache SSD) with a 15 GB test file.

  9. #9

    Default

    It works fine, but you can't manage it through Open-E, since the Adaptec storage management software included in the Open-E kernel is old. I think you need versiuon 6.3 of the Adaptec software for it to work well with MaxIQ.

  10. #10

    Lightbulb

    It appears that there is now a "small update" that brings you to Adaptec Storage Manager version 6.3. You just have to ask Open-E nicely for it.

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