SPARCstorage Array Subsystem

To expand your disk storage, consider the SPARCstorage Array subsystem. This disk array is a high-performance and high-capacity companion unit for the Sun Enterprise 4000, 5000, or 6000 systems, SPARCcenter 2000 or 2000E, SPARCserver 1000 or 1000E, Sun Enterprise 150 system, Sun Enterprise 2 system, and the SPARCserver 20 system.

The Model 101 uses 1.05 Gbyte single connector 3.5-inch disk drives. Each disk array contains three drive trays. Each drive tray supports up to ten 3.5-inch single-connector SCSI disk drives. All disk drive SCSI addresses are hardwired. The position of the disk drive in the drive tray automatically sets the SCSI addresses. Each disk array uses six internal fast, wide SCSI buses. Each drive tray contains two SCSI buses that support five disk drives for each SCSI bus.

Figure 2-9 shows a front view of the SPARCstorage Array subsystem.

Figure 2-9 Front View of the SPARCstorage Array Subsystem

Figure 2-10 shows how you can connect the SPARCstorage Array subsystem to your NFS server.

Figure 2-10 SPARCstorage Array Subsystem Installation Options

The SPARCstorage Array subsystem uses RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) technology. RAID 0 stripes data without parity, RAID 1 does disk mirroring, RAID 0+1 does mirroring optimized stripes, and RAID 5 does striping data with parity.

Within the disk array, independent disks plus RAID levels 5, 1, 0, 0+1 are available at the same time so you can easily match data layouts to meet the specific requirements for capacity, performance, high availability, and cost.

If any disk in a RAID-5, 1, or 0+1 group fails, an optional hot spare (if configured) is automatically swapped to replace the failed disk. Continuous, redundant data protection is provided, even if a disk fails.

Warm plug service lets you replace one or more disks without powering down the system and the disk array, or rebooting the system. You can obtain warm plug service if multiple disk arrays are configured.

Using the SPARCstorage Array subsystem can improve NFS performance because its processor manages and schedules disk I/O.

The SPARCstorage Manager software is provided with the disk array and provides similar functionality to Online: Disk Suite software. Since there are often many more disks to manage in the SPARCstorage Array subsystem, the SPARCstorage Manager software has an intuitive GUI interface.