Reliant DS4800 Installation and operation manual
Upgrade Guide
Upgrade Guide for the
IBM TotalStorage
DS4800
It’s time to expand your IBM TotalStorage DS4800 storage capacity and
the proposition is raising more questions than answers. Here’s a handy
guide to get you through:
The IBM TotalStorage DS4800 continues to be
an integral component of IBM’s TotalStorage
DS4000 Series. Your DS4800 is a virtual workhorse
of mission-critical storage management
strategy. With support for high-performance
Fibre Channel and high-capacity serial ATA
(SATA) disk drives, the DS4800 is both exible
and highly scalable.
If you are reading this, then chances are
the time has come to expand your IBM
TotalStorage DS4800. In this upgrade guide,
you’ll find a comprehensive list of answers
to the questions that we hear most often
from IT professionals ready to upgrade their
IBM DS4800.
10 Questions We
Hear Most WHen
upgrading tHe
iBM ds4800
#1. What Is the Maximum Capacity of My
IBM TotalStorage DS4800?
When released by IBM in 2004, the DS4800
storage system was touted as a solution “to
satisfy primary and secondary storage.” It
lives up to that claim.
There are 4models, all of which hold 224
drives max:
1815-80A with 4GB of cache
1815-82A with 4GB of cache
1815-84A with 8GB of cache
1815-88A with 16GB of cache
All models of the IBM DS4800 storage system
offer 4gigabit per second Fibre Channel interface
technology that can support up to 224 disk
drives when matched with the IBM TotalStorage
EXP810. This makes it an ideal choice for either
performance-oriented or capacity-oriented
storage requirements. It supports RAID 0, 1, 3, 5
and 10 and up to 64 partitions.
#2. What are some ways I can improve the
performance of my IBM DS4800 system?
While there are many ways to impact and
improve performance, here are 3options
that may work depending on your business
requirements.
1. Migrating From RAID 5 to RAID 1+0
(Raid 10)
RAID 10 has some known advantages. RAID 10
combines the features of RAID 0 and RAID 1.
It provides optimization for fault tolerance.
RAID 0 helps to increase performance by
striping volume data across multiple disk
drives.
RAID 1 provides disk mirroring which
duplicates your data.
RAID 10 often provides faster data reads and
writes than RAID 5 because it does not need
to manage parity.
Other reasons for migrating to RAID 10 include:
RAID 5 costs more for write-intensive
applications than RAID 10.
RAID 5 is less outage resilient than RAID 10.
RAID 5 suffers massive performance
degradation during partial outage.
RAID 5 is less architecturally flexible
than RAID 10.
Correcting RAID 5 performance problems can
be very expensive.
2. Migrating From SATA to Fibre Drives
FC drives spin at 10K or 15K RPM
SATA drives spin at 7200RPM
FC drives are known to be more reliable
FC drives are smaller and thus are faster to
read and write data
Migrating from SATA to Fibre drives will boost
your performance.
A tiered approach, with Fibre Channel disks
is the best option for on-line data, with SATA
disks for near-line archiving.
An IBM benchmarks article states: “SATA drive
technology is currently not robust enough to
handle the duty cycles of enterprise class
applications that you use to access data
frequently, such as le serving, Web serving,
database applications, and mail applications.”
3. Increasing Your Spindle Count With
More, Smaller And Faster Drives
Increasing your spindle count makes sense
especially when drives are relatively
inexpensive and easy to install. Adding more disk
spindles is generally more effective than using
faster spindles.
Consider each disk drive you add a resource
i.e. a shovel. If you are going to dig a hole in
the ground in a short amount of time – would
you rather have 4shovels digging the hole or 40
shovels digging the hole. The principle with disk
drives holds true and can be further tested by
using this formula:
(IOPS * %R) + WP(IOPS * %W)
______________________________
Physical Disk Speed
= Required
#3.What are some different ways to upgrade
my DS4800 that I might not be aware of?
Work with a provider who can trade
your existing drives for ones that suit
your business needs. You may consider
trading in SATA drives for FC drives for
a VMware project that was projected
to be marginal impact, but developed
performance limitations over time. You
may also consider trading in smaller 73GB
drives for larger 300GB drives for additional
capacity and retention.
If your existing IBM storage platform has
reached its capacity and performance
threshold, a resourceful storage provider
should be able to demonstrate how to
leverage a de-installed IBM DS4800 which
would allow you to split the workload and
helping to optimize your needs for capacity
and performance.
Add trays or disk expansions to the
system. Your DS4800 can accommodate 16
expansion units. If your provider is looking
out for your interests, they will show you
the most cost effective way to add trays
and drives.
#4. How can I lower the cost to upgrade
and add capacity to my IBM DS4800?
Buy new or de-installed equipment from a
storage expert. In today’s economy there is a
ton of new, like new and barely used de-installed
equipment on the market from business failures,
foreclosures and distress sales.
Not only can you save tens of thousands sourcing
your upgrades through this market but the
right providers will help you value your existing
equipment for trade-in value toward the upgrades.
You can expect to see savings of 30% to 50%
above and beyond IBM direct, IBM VAR or IBM
special pricing.
#5. How will the support work if I buy
IBM storage equipment outside of the
IBM channel?
IBM will support the equipment and you will
continue to use the 1-800-IBM-SERV number
(USA Only) as your main point of contact for IBM
maintenance and after hours support.
This is one of the most common questions we
answer on a day-to-day basis, and for good
reason – IBM storage customers demand that
their equipment is covered and protected.
Although a support contract will need to be
purchased, the cost is typically 10% of the total
savings, making the secondary market continue
to be a cost effective option to obtain upgrades
and add-ons.
Depending on your location and requirements,
alternative options exist for maintenance at a
50–70% discount compared to IBM.
Additonally, some hardware components have
zero impact to your maintenance coverage – a
Reliant storage consultant can educate you on
these programs and upgrades.
#6. I am considering replacing my IBM
DS4800, outright. What are some ways I
could repurpose it?
The right provider will help you explore a number
of options. You could move your DS4800 to your
disaster recovery site, repurpose is as a testing,
development or quality assurance system or
recongure it for archiving.
Disaster Recovery: The key to DR is doing
it cost effectively. Your provider should be able
to listen to your DR requirements and build a
solution which meets or exceeds your DR goals.
Testing, Development or Quality Assurance:
Many companies often have the perfectly sized
production environment, but fail to have Test,
Dev or QA. Having a free IBM DS4800 gives
you an ideal platform to build one of these
environments, with relative ease and certain
cost-effectiveness.
Archiving: Congured with SATA drives, the
IBM DS4800 can be an archiving workhorse.
It’s relatively easy to do and with the proper
provider it can be very cost-effective.
#7. What legacy expansion enclosures
can I use to increase my DS4800
storage capacity?
If you have legacy 2Gbps IBM technology in
your datacenter, you may consider attaching
IBM EXP710 (1740-710) storage expansion
enclosures to your array. These expansions
were originally positioned with the IBM DS4300,
DS4400 and DS4500 systems. Reusing your
mid-range, 2Gbps disk expansion can allow to
leverage existing storage assets, but will run at
2Gbps, making it an effective option for tier 2
applications.
The IBM EXP710 has 14 drive slots that
accommodate six different disk drive modules.
These include:
2Gbps FC, 36.4 GB/10K Drive – PN 5205
2Gbps FC, 73.4 GB/10K Drive – PN 5206
2Gbps FC, 146.8 GB/10K Drive – PN 5207
2Gbps FC, 300 GB/10K Drive – PN 5208
2Gbps FC, 18.2 GB/15K Drive – PN 5211
2Gbps FC, 36.4 GB/15K Drive – PN 5212
2 Gbps FC, 73.4 GB/15K Drive – PN 5213
2Gbps FC, 146.8 GB/15K Drive – PN 5214
With these options for growth, The IBM
EXP710 can be congured to meet a variety
of storage requirements. The IBM EXP710 disk
expansion is highly exible, allowing for scalable
congurations suited to a range of SAN storage
requirements.
#8. Can I intermix fibre channel
expansion arrays and high-capacity serial
ATA (SATA) disk drives in my DS4800?
With licensing and controller rmware The IBM
System Storage DS4800 disk system has the
capability to support both bre channel and
SATA disk drives. This means you can run Fibre
Channel and Serial ATA Disk Expansion Arrays
at the same time.
To accomplish this, you will need controller
firmware version 6.23.xx.xx or later to support
intermixing EXP810s. For intermixing, you will also
need the “FC/SATA Intermix Option Installation
Kit.” The chargeable license includes upgrade
and feature activation documentation, an
activation code and the instructions about how
to generate the key le.
#9. To utilize high performance fibre
channel drives, what expansion
enclosures do I need and how many
drives can I use?
Today’s best option to upgrade the IBM DS4800
is the EXP810, a 16 disk bay 3U rack-mountable
enclosure. It supports up to 16 ber channel or
SATA drives in a single enclosure.
Integrating the EXP810 Storage Expansion Unit
with the DS4800 provides the best of both possible
worlds:
The EXP810 offers 16 drive slots that accommodate
Fibre Channel or SATA Drives
7200, 10000 or 15000 Rotational Speed
FC Sizes: 73GB, 146GB, 300GB, 450GB or 600GB
SATA Sizes: 500GB, 750GB, 1TB or 2TB
The IBM EXP810 can tackle a variety of storage
requirements. It provides up to 9.6 terabytes (TB)
of capacity per enclosure (when using 600GB
bre channel E-DDMs) and 32TB when using 2TB
SATA E-DDMs.
Because the EXP810 was designed to
accommodate both bre channel and SATA
technology, it offers you both performance
and capacity and backs it up with redundant
2or 4Gbps bre channel connections, to help
enhance reliability and performance.
With its versatile capacities, scalability,
interchangeability and reliability, the EXP810,
supported by the DS4800, is a powerful yet
economical storage expansion platform for the
burgeoning SMB or enterprise. Depending on
how you choose to congure the system, it
will satisfy the needs of various xed content,
data reference applications that require large
amounts of storage capacity but do not have
the high utilization and access characteristics
satised by bre channel disk drive storage. The
storage expansion enclosure provides continuous,
reliable service and uses hot-swap technology for
easy replacement without the need to shut down
the system. Up to seven 1812-81A units can be
connected together in a redundant bre channel
drive channel/loop pair, providing connections to
a maximum of 112 hard drives.
For optimal performance and conguration,
you can contact a Reliant storage specialist
to discuss optimal looping congurations for
your IBM storage upgrade.
#10. What resources are available to help
me upgrade my DS4800 storage capacity?
IBM SAN Storage Technical Professionals at
Reliant Technology
You can leverage the IBM Storage Consultants
at Reliant Technology to help you explore
options for upgrading any or all of your IBM
Storage Platforms.
DS4800 Models 1815-88A 1815-84A 1815-82A 1815-80A
Interface 4Gb/sec 4Gb/sec 4Gb/sec 4Gb/sec
Cache Memory 16GB 8GB 4GB 4GB
Maximum Disk Drives 224 224 224 224
Head Unit 0 0 0 0
Expansions 14x EXP810, 14x EXP810, 14x EXP810, 14x EXP810,
16x EXP710 16x EXP710 16x EXP710 16x EXP710
Drive Type Fibre/SATA Fibre/SATA Fibre/SATA Fibre/SATA
Our IBM Team has the training and experience
to listen to your unique situation and make
recommendations on the most cost-effective
way to help you upgrade your DS4800.
Reliant can help you assess your current data
management and storage needs, how they are
evolving and recommend congurations that
will help your data storage system meet your
business needs today and as your business
changes and grows in the future.
You can rely on our IBM storage consultants
to source IBM Storage, IBM DS4800 expansion
units, EXP810s, drives, ber and cabling,
licensing and upgrade kits at pricing that typically
offers savings of 20 –70% when compared with
IBM direct or IBM special bids.
Other Helpful Documents
Following are some helpful product documenta-
tion links for the DS4800
About Reliant Technology
Reliant Technology is a leading provider of new,
used and pre-owned data storage hardware,
from companies such as IBM, NetApp, EMC,
Hitachi, Cisco, Brocade and others. Companies
rely on Reliant to store, manage and protect
more data for less.
Email us today at IBMStorage@reliant-
technology.com or call 877.227.0828 to
engage an IBM storage consultant.
System Storage Interoperation
Center (SSIC)
Interoperability matrix
Technical Sales Library Techdocs
Customer responsibilities for code
installation
Cache upgrade kit instructions -
IBM System
Installation & Host Support Guide : IBM
Installation, User’s & Maintenance Guide
Command Line Interface and Script
Commands
Installation and Migration Guide for
Hard Drives
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