IBM Launches New Product Line 222
An anonymous reader notes that "IBM has launched its new product line of storage devices: the DS6000 and the DS8000. The results are quite impressive, with the DS6000 being rack mountable, 3U, and ONLY 125 pound storage device that will hold up to 67.2 TB! The DS8000 is equally impressive, with 6x performance of ESS 800 (Shark), making it the most powerful storage system to date. "
Hot Damn, now I can finally ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hot Damn, now I can finally ... (Score:5, Funny)
Finally enough space! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hot Damn, now I can finally ... (Score:4, Funny)
not according to your sig
Re:Hot Damn, now I can finally ... (Score:2)
Re:Hot Damn, now I can finally ... (Score:2, Funny)
Do you have a torrent ?
Re:Hot Damn, now I can finally ... (Score:4, Funny)
DS? (Score:5, Funny)
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
To inform (Score:4, Informative)
Actually it's 4.8TB for a single rack (Score:4, Informative)
Writeup is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Writeup is wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe raid5+1 or maybe four 4-disk raid5s stuck together in an append or raid0. Or maybe raid6, if anyone ever releases a product that makes it easier to manage.
Re:Writeup is wrong (Score:2)
RAID 10 I can see if you really need high redundancy/availability, but 5+1 is just way too slow and too disk-hungry for any practical use. (what company or person wants to buy 16 disks for every 7 disks worth of storage they get to actually use?) For most uses, RAID 5 or RAID 3 do the job very nicely, providing decent redundancy without trading off too much space and performance. And yes, I mean 8-disk RAID 5.
RAID 6 is like RAID 5+1, but not as bad -
Re:Writeup is wrong (Score:2)
RAID 10 I can see if you really need high redundancy/availability, but 5+1 is just way too slow and too disk-hungry for any practical use. (what company or person wants to buy 16 disks for every 7 disks worth of storage they get to actually use?)
Lots of different terminilogy here.. when talking about 5+1 in a RAID5 setting, it's often a short way of saying "5 data disks +1 parity disk" for each set. 5+1 is a common configuration for write intensive tasks, since parity will be a limiting a factor. For
Re:Writeup is wrong (Score:2)
"8 disk RAID-5? You have a lot more guts than I do!
Maybe raid5+1 or maybe four 4-disk raid5s stuck together in an append or raid0."
Note that the poster uses the term "8 disk RAID-5" to refer to a RAID 5 setup where one out of every 8 disks worth of space is dedicated to parity; then he uses "4-disk raid5s" to refer to 4disk arrays with one drive's w
Re:Writeup is wrong (Score:2)
"when talking about 5+1 in a RAID5 setting, it's often a short way of saying "5 data disks +1 parity disk" for each set."
I have seen this usage, and it does make sense, but not in the context - and it would be very sloppy to say it as RAID5+1, which is what the poster I replied to said, and which is how I misread your post earlier.
Sorry about the misunderstanding.
Re:Writeup is wrong (Score:2)
It's not the parity calculations that are the bottleneck for RAID5, it's all the additional I/O required.
Naming... (Score:2)
Re:Writeup is wrong (Score:2)
To my mind, 'normally' it means RAID 5, mirrored.
Hopefully the poster I replied to will reply at some point and clarify his meaning for us.
Re:Writeup is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Writeup is wrong (Score:2)
Maybe raid5+1 or maybe four 4-disk raid5s stuck together in an append or raid0. Or maybe raid6, if anyone ever releases a product that makes it easier to manage.
We have (counting on fingers) 8 storage array cabinets very similar to IBM's - they're Infortrend devices. All of these units are either 12 disk or 16 disk devices. And we break them in half. So, we have one global spare for each cabinet, and an array of:
6 RAID-5 and 5 RAID-5 drives (1 spare)
Re:Writeup is wrong (Score:2)
You are right, IBM probably considered 42U racks (although 48U racks are available, as another poster mentioned). This means that the capacity is 67.2TB without RAID or with RAID-0. Now how many people dare make a RAID-0 of 224 disks?
Re:Writeup is wrong (Score:2)
That makes sense. So basically, this story is a total non-story. An expensive enclosure full of expensive disks is hardly news.
hyperbole.slashdot.com (Score:4, Funny)
"These are the most significant storage announcements we have made in more than a decade. IBM is focused on being the storage innovator and clear technology leader," said Dan Colby, General Manager, IBM Storage Systems. "Today, we are delivering new economics and choice by leveraging common components, breakthrough technologies from mainframes and supercomputers, and unmatched virtualization and management capabilities."
Most significant in a decade? New economics? Wow, this is too important for Slashdot. Somebody should call Time magazine. Or Newsweek.
Only 125 pounds? (Score:5, Funny)
not 67Tb in 3U (Score:3, Informative)
The single 3U unit won't hold 67.2Tb, that's a bunch of them linked together.
Longhorn System Reqs. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Longhorn System Reqs. (Score:2)
The KDE guys are going to have to get busy if they're going to be competitive with those specs.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Product pricing and availability (Score:5, Informative)
IBM's new storage offerings with enterprise class functions reset the bar with minimum configurations starting at half a terabyte and list prices starting as low as $97,000. The DS6000 series and the DS8000 series come standard with a four-year warranty on hardware and software, which is unique in the industry.
What are they smoking? 9.7 k a terrabyte, maybe. 97k. Even EMC is not that high any more.
Re:Product pricing and availability (Score:3, Informative)
You can get 5.6 TB for $10k in true 3U using VTrak 15100 from Promise.
That's $4k for VTrak plus 15 x $400 for 400GB drives.
Re:Product pricing and availability (Score:2)
Certainly for lower capacities (e.g. 10 TB), there are much, much cheaper turnkey solutions in the form of the XServe RAID from Apple, not to mention the stuff Promise sells.
Re:Product pricing and availability (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Product pricing and availability (Score:2)
What you're paying for in the $97k base configuration is the chassis with a few disks. That chassis may seem expensive, but considering the kind of redundancy built in (dunno if $97k is the fully redundant system with dual caches, dual FC switches, dual PowerPC processors, dual power supplies, you get the picture), it's a pretty low price.
Remember, when looking at stuff like this, you're really looking at the price of the chassis as the base of a much larger system, not a "I need half a terabyte, what sho
Re:Product pricing and availability (Score:2)
SirWired
only 67Tb in 13 units? (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I will admit that this is a very fast product with decent redundancy. Although I generally believe dealing with redundancy at a higher level with software is much more flexible than controller level redundancy. And cheaper.
Fibrechannel drives sound neat and all, but if someone can fit 3x as many "lower end" drives in the same amount of space that's lower cost, higher redundancy, higher capacity and higher performance. I'm sure they are good for something though, else IBM wouldn't have such a sales drive behind them. *snicker*
Re:only 67Tb in 13 units? (Score:3)
I have a few TB of storage on my own network, and it's great for archving stuff, but it would be crap for trying to use this for storage on a high load server, that's the situation that these will be useful in, a good amount of storage with good performance, from a well known vendor. Especially for cases where a business already owns an IBM server, and want to ensure compatibility a
An open question. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:An open question. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:An open question. (Score:5, Funny)
If only there were some sort of visual stimuli -- say, something which appeals to our most basic primal instincts -- which could be stored on such a device, and subsequently accessed whenever one is bored and no one is watching. Alas, I am unable to imagine anything suitable. Perhaps one of my fellow Slashdotters has an idea?
Pictures of yummy doughnuts?
Re:An open question. (Score:2, Funny)
67.2TB (Score:3, Funny)
No quantum leap, but ... (Score:2)
They even know how to make use of proper wording. No "quantum" here (presumably because IBM has some background on the real thing).
CC.
Expensive logo? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Expensive logo? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Expensive logo? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Expensive logo? (Score:2)
Re:Expensive logo? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Expensive logo? (Score:5, Insightful)
As for this particular case, this system was obviously designed to efficiently manage vast amounts of storage. It is not worth buying if you only need a 580GB of storage. Besides, no one pays the list price in the enterprise storage market. No one also buys IBM's enterprise hardware just because they think they need the hardware alone.
One word (Score:2)
Explanation (Score:2)
Apparently they're pretty happy with it.
f#ck google (Score:3, Insightful)
make love to google (Score:3, Informative)
For example they maintain integrity checks of every block, to catch silent corruption. This is not done by many competing systems -- it is a major selling point of Sun ZF
Re:make love to google (Score:2)
Loose data is what you get when English is ones third language, typing is quick and thinking is slow. It is called a spelling error.
Re:make love to google (Score:2)
It's because the OP who F#CK'd google wasn't ready to go the final mile and write FUCK google, for whatever reasons he has in mind, which is what the GP was pondering about.
Re:f#ck google (Score:2)
Re:f#ck google (Score:2)
But your right DNA sequencing, Biotech, but also Medical Imgaging demands huge huge amounts of storage
Re:f#ck google (Score:2)
COTS doesn't cut it when you have data worth billions, guys.
Re:f#ck google (Score:2)
Actually, we use Word documents for that. Lots and lots of word documents. On Windows servers with blank administrator passwords.
Don't you just love the corporate IT myth of everything being neat and organised, and running suitable good-quality software?
Re:One word (Score:3, Informative)
Google itself is ultra reliable so long as most everything is working kinda sorta well. Something breaks and Google just researches the web, which it was going to do anyway. Google can function perfectly well with lots of its components broken. Almost nobody else can.
Re:One word (Score:2)
Why? It is precisely the openness of Linux that allows them to tweak/mutilate/whatever the system so that their Linux serves Google's purposes rather than Google serves Linux's purposes.
Re:Expensive logo? (Score:2)
Product vs Solution (Score:2)
But there are times I want solutions, and solutions cost more. They come with uptime, top notch support, etc. When there's a problem, they often know it before we do, and notify us how and when it wil be solved.
For our compute farm and desktops we buy products. For our networked mass storage, we buy solutions.
Re:Expensive logo? (Score:2)
Now go back to your parents' basement, and pretend you have a clue about enterprise environments. In the meantime, read these hints.
SO YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR OWN ENTERPRISE RAID SYSTEM
(from 'clues for the terminally clueless')
First of all, get your hardware right. SATA doesn't cut it in the real world. Modern SCSI is acceptable for small to medium systems, but large-scale is FCAL all the way, and that costs money. Count on $1800/146GB drive, or $12.50/GB. Add cabinets ($10,000/14-disks or
Re:Expensive logo? (Score:2)
When you talk about SATA, SCSI and FCAL, are you meaning the interface or the drives themselves?
There are numerous cheaper products out there that stuff PATA or SATA disks into a rack chassis and provide a SCSI and/or Fiber interface to the collection as a single logical drive.
On the other hand I have seen a fair amount of information on speed and reliability of SCSI drives versus IDE drives, and it all points to SCSI being a better choice.
I'd imaging that a "cheaper" solution that uses PATA/IDE disks
Re:Expensive logo? (Score:2)
Ma Bell (Score:2)
Re:Expensive logo? (Score:2)
How many partitions? (Score:2, Insightful)
I've also had experience with FC setups which have a limit on the number of R
Re:How many partitions? (Score:2, Informative)
A LUN (logical unit number) is specific to the host and is effectively the physical disk number. The number of LUNs supported is very much dependant on the OS (Windows/Solaris support 256 and Linux supports 128 due to RDAC limitations currently).
Storage partitioning is configured at the storage device level and is a logical grouping of logical drives, host groups and hosts to control access and improve performance. The number of partitions supported depends on how m
Re:How many partitions? (Score:2, Informative)
For a better feel for the DS line, you have to look at the feature set of the ESS (shark) line.
The sharks have two pSeries boxes in them that act as an intermediary between the FC (fabric) host-adapters on the front end, and the IBM SSA disk loops and trays on the back end. Th
Backup 4TB? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Backup 4TB? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Backup 4TB? (Score:2)
Re:Backup 4TB? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Backup 4TB? (Score:2)
Re:Backup 4TB? (Score:3, Interesting)
ok, so if you want 12 weeks of retention, and do nightly incrementals and weekly fulls, 67.2 TB would require about 952TB of tape capacity.
(figure 3% daily change * 6 incrementals/week + 1 full/week * 12 weeks, so 14.16*disk=tape)
so if we round up to 1PB of tape, and let's assume LTO2, with 320GB/tape (about the numbers I'm seeing for binary data), that's roughly 3200 tape slots + 260/week for off
Not the first vendor to offer this... (Score:3, Informative)
RocketSTOR R2221 [zzyzx.com]
or
Silicon Mechanics SM-316RX [siliconmechanics.com]
after reading the spec sheet (Score:2, Interesting)
LOC sighting (Score:2)
DS6000 -Cool technology, but price is tooooo high! (Score:2, Informative)
Prices (Score:2)
Or is there some super-important feature that I'm missing.
Re: Prices (Score:2)
Yes, there is.
Death Station 9000 (Score:2)
Bill, comp.lang.c
Shame (Score:3, Funny)
As a Brit, I'm somewhat disappointed that the writeup meant the other "pound".
The ONLY 125 pound storage device that will hold up to 67.2 TB!
I don't really need 67.2TB of storage, but at £125 I would certainly have considered it. £1.86 per TB is not a bad price (US$3.33)
Cheers,
Rogerseems like a car! (Score:2)
- 8 processors (power5)
- 32-256 GB RAM
- up to 640 disk drives
- 4 port 2gig FC (anyone know where I can get a USB-to-FC adapter?)
- weight: 2880 pounds (each expansion is 2400 additional)
- 30,000 BTU/hr. Converted, that is 8800 watts, or 12 horsepower!
Wrong numbers! (Score:2)
The weight figure is a bit on the low side, yet not that far off, but again for multiple of these boxes and it essentialy reflects the weight of the disks plus some overhead.
Re:Poll Troll Toll (Score:5, Insightful)
The DS8000 is unique in the industry because it features two logical partitions too run management or utility applications such as the companies SAN Volume Controller and Tivoli Storage Manager for backup and data management.
That sounds like a pretty interesting feature. Anybody's in the industry care to comment on the portential for these new development?
This article on lightreading.com [lightreading.com] elaborates a little more.
IBM's DS8000 handles virtualization different then the competition. While HDS does virtualization in the controller and EMC plans virtualization on intelligent switches IBMs' new system does virtualization at the chip level (see EMC on Virtualization: Wait for Us ). Using the Power5's IBM Virtual Engine, the DS800 can divide servers into logical partitions (LPARs). Each LPAR can run different storage systems that run separate code.
Thats a truly impressive level of flexibility their. And of course, its great for Linux, the ability to run multiple OSe's in hardware on one box play's to Linuxes strength's and deal's a blow to Microsoft's monopoly lockin strategy. What Im really shocked about is that there slashdot writeup included only some bland "durr big numbers" product placement, while IBM is effecting an interesting Linux-related change's in the marketplace's if you look a little deeper.
--sig: why a duck?
Re:i hope these restore ibm's name (Score:5, Informative)
And I believe IBM actually had 2 lines that had issues (The 75 GXP and, to a lesser extent, the 60 GXP).
I had 2 30 GB 75 GXP drives, I think I ended up going through 3 RMAs. Eventually, IBM replaced one with a 60 GB 120GXP (I believe it was the 120 GXP) with an 8mb cache (original drives only had 2mb cache). While the RMAs were a hassle, IBM did a pretty good job of taking care of me.
Re:i hope these restore ibm's name (Score:2)
But I must admit, I haven't exactly been keeping track lately and that's the type of thing that may have changed since I last looked.
Re:insert witty pr0n comment here (Score:2, Funny)
Re:insert witty pr0n comment here (Score:3, Funny)
Re:insert witty pr0n comment here (Score:2)
Oh! Is it that so? [abcgallery.com]
Re:With all that storage... (Score:5, Funny)
RTFA! It's only 125 pounds! (Sterling, I'm sure.)
Re:With all that storage... (Score:2)
400 Gig drives, 16 in a 3U chassis. Hmm, that's probably a pair of 8x RAID5 units, so call it 2x7x400 Gig, or 5.6 Terabytes in a 3U chassis. Not bad, pricing for those sorts of things with AMD's 64-bit CPU's is in the $15,000 range right now for stand-alone Linux servers. IBM is using the less PowerPC chip, which means
Re:With all that storage... (Score:2)
That's raw capacity, not accounting for redundancy.
"IBM is using the less PowerPC chip, which means it will be tough to run standard software distributions on it rather than IBM's more proprietary offerings, but you may not care about that on a fileserver."
These are not servers, and will not run any "software distr
Re:My question... (Score:3, Interesting)
My advice is to wait five or ten years and get one at a fire sale, then pull it apart.
Re:Linux rules: 3u dual AMD 64, 4GB, 6x250GB for $ (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to be confusing the market that this thing is targetted as. This is Storage Area Networking, normally applied to systems for who's downtime cost far more to the company than this disk.
First, it's fast disk. Fibre Channel drives, using 15 000 rpm (up to 146GB now?), or 10 000rpm (300GB) disks.
Second, it's expandable. Just add extra drive chassies on the expansion loops.
Third, and the reason people buy these, is that it makes managing storage for 10s to 1000s (DS8000) of ma
Re:Linux rules: 3u dual AMD 64, 4GB, 6x250GB for $ (Score:2)
I think the price for an ideal configuration is 16GB, 12x400GB for $12k."
Great, you just spec'd out a pretty nice server. Contgratulatio