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A Look at CLARiiON with ATA CX Series Disk Drives and Enclosures

Applied Technology

Abstract

As the need for data storage continues to grow, developing lower-cost storage devices becomes imperative. This paper reviews the EMC® CLARiiON® CX series, Advanced Technology-Attached (ATA) disk-drive technology, and the impact this technology will have on the hierarchy of data storage requirements.

May 2006

A Look at CLARiiON with ATA CX Series Drives and Enclosures Applied Technology 2

Copyright © 2006 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.

THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED “AS IS.” EMC CORPORATION MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION, AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license.

For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com.

All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

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Table of Contents Executive summary ............................................................................................4 Introduction.........................................................................................................4

Audience ...................................................................................................................................... 4 Enabling technologies.................................................................................................................. 4

Disk-drive terminology .......................................................................................4 Spindle motor speed .................................................................................................................... 4 Rotational latency ........................................................................................................................ 4 ATA drive average access time ................................................................................................... 5 ATA drive transfer rate................................................................................................................. 5

CLARiiON ATA hardware ...................................................................................5 Performance specification comparison............................................................8 CLARiiON ATA (5,400 rpm and 7,200 rpm) performance results....................8 CLARiiON backup-to-disk performance with ATA drives .............................15 Backup and restore operations .......................................................................15 Restore ..............................................................................................................15 Applications of the 250/500 GB and 320 GB CLARiiON ATA drives.............16

General benefits of 250/500 GB and 320 GB ATA disk-drive technology................................. 17 Competitive advantages of the CLARiiON with ATA .....................................17 Implementing the 250/500 GB and 320 GB, 5,400/7,200 rpm disk drives .....17

Examples of mixed disk-drive usage ......................................................................................... 18 Conclusion ........................................................................................................18


Executive summary Businesses are demanding that more information be immediately accessible. Existing data management strategies no longer meet today’s information requirements for accessibility and availability. More information needs to be stored online for longer periods of time. At the same time, companies face declining budgets.

EMC® addresses these combined issues with the release of the highest capacity 5,400 rpm and 7,200 rpm Advanced Technology-Attached (ATA) drives available on the market today.

Introduction The EMC CLARiiON® CX series storage system with ATA is not a new product; rather, it is an extension of the CLARiiON CX series. Customers familiar with the management and replication functionality of CLARiiON arrays will benefit from the same software being available with ATA drives.

Redefining storage-system capacity and cost, CLARiiON 250/500 GB and 320 GB ATA hard-disk drives dramatically increase the amount of information that can be stored online. CLARiiON with ATA increases the capacity per storage system through improvements in disk features, such as linear/areal densities and tracks per inch—the factors that most directly affect the overall disk-drive capacity per spindle.

The CLARiiON with ATA implementation is at the disk-array enclosure (DAE) level. DAEs are the 3U enclosures that support up to 15, 1-inch hard-disk-drive modules. Customers now have the flexibility to choose between high-performance Fibre Channel DAEs and high-capacity ATA DAEs.

Audience This paper is intended for members of the EMC field community who interact with customers and need to understand the implementation of CLARiiON arrays with ATA technology.

Enabling technologies Improved hard-disk-drive head and disk media recording designs have resulted in capacity breakthroughs. These improved capacities allow the disk head and media surfaces to be recorded at densities that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Improvements include:

• Improved head/disk interfaces, which allow for higher areal densities. • Improved head-flying height performance and stability. • Higher track density through improved recording codes and methodology.

Disk-drive terminology The following sections cover terms commonly used when discussing disk drives.

Spindle motor speed The actual speed of the spindle motor assembly is measured in revolutions per minute (rpm). A complete revolution is a measurement from a given start point on the disk surface index and the amount of time it takes to make one full revolution back to the given start-point index. For example, it takes 11.1 ms to make one full revolution on a 5,400 rpm disk drive compared to 8.33 ms on a 7,200 rpm disk drive.

Rotational latency When the head arm moves to a track to access data, it must wait for the right sector to appear under the head. This takes time. On average, the platter must rotate half a revolution to reach the right sector. This


latency time is inversely proportional to the disk rotation speed and is naturally reduced as the spindle motor speed increases. The average rotational latency specification of a 5,400 rpm drive is 5.5 ms compared to 4.17 ms on a 7,200 rpm drive, or typically half the time it takes to complete one full revolution of the disk surface itself.

ATA drive average access time This term defines the average amount of time the head stack assembly takes to get from an original random point on the media surface (A) to a given random destination point on the media surface (B). Average access time is obtained by averaging the access times of a given number of random seeks over a certain period of time. Naturally, this time is reduced as the spindle motor speed is increased, and the data becomes accessible in a shorter time frame. Average access times are separately measured for both read and write operations. Read operations are of shorter duration than write operations. The access times are as follows:

• Average access write (ms): 9 - 13 • Average access read (ms): 9 - 12

ATA drive transfer rate This term refers to the rate at which data is transferred from either the drive to the target host (external), or the rate at which the data is transferred from the media surface to the head assembly (internal). The interface chipset architecture of the hard-disk drive enables this constant performance. Unless a higher transfer rate interface chipset is used on the hard-disk drive, the external transfer rate remains the same as the drive’s predecessors. The transfer rates of the 250/500 GB and 320 GB, 5,400/7,200 rpm drives are as follows:

• Internal buffer to/from media (MB/s): 26 – 67 • External burst rate to/from the data buffer to the I/O initiator (MB/s): 133/300 maximum

CLARiiON ATA hardware Figure 1 shows a front view of the CLARiiON ATA DAE2 (2 Gb disk-array enclosure) and a rear view of the actual disk module itself. The disk module carrier assembly was redesigned to house an additional adapter card, located on the rear of each ATA disk module. This adapter card converts ATA architecture to serial ATA and single-ported access to the drive to dual-ported access. The adapter card also contains soft start circuitry to sequentially start the disk modules when powering up the CLARiiON ATA enclosure. This allows the CLARiiON ATA disk module to be inserted into an ATA DAE2. With the exception of the LCCs (link control cards) and disk modules, all of the other DAE2 assemblies are identical to those of a standard Fibre Channel DAE2 assembly.

Figure 1. ATA technology converter and dual-port adapter

A Look at CLARiiON with ATA CX Series Drives and Enclosures Applied Technology

The ATA LCC (shown in Figure 2) converts serial ATA to serial Fibre Channel architecture. This ATA LCC takes the place of the standard LCC in CLARiiON ATA disk module enclosures.

Figure 2. The ATA LCC

Figure 2 shows the LCC used in the CLARiiON ATA storage-system enclosure. Once installed, the enclosure, from a system and software-level standpoint, appears to be a stChannel enclosure.

The implementation of a CLARiiON ATA enclosure is transparent to CLARiiON softwthat there are some limitations when implementing these ATA enclosures into the CLAsystems. The limitations are:

• RAID groups bound on ATA drives cannot span outside ATA drive enclosures, buATA enclosures. In other words, ATA drives cannot be bound with Fibre Channel

• Hot spares for ATA drives must be located in ATA enclosures and cannot be usedChannel disk modules. (One spare ATA drive for every 30 ATA drives installed is

ATA Ctrl
ATA Ctrl
ATA Link Control Card

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the ATA LCC is andard Fibre

are. Note, however, RiiON CX series

t can span through drives. as spares for Fibre recommended.)


• ATA drives cannot be located within the first enclosure of the CX series storage system. • ATA drives should not be used for host booting activities due to performance concerns. • Random I/O environments should be reconsidered prior to implementing ATA drives in place of

Fibre Channel drives. Other than these limitations, ATA drives may be used any way the customer desires.

Figure 3 is a functional block diagram of the CLARiiON DAE2-ATA, using ATA disk-drive technology.

Figure 3. Functional block diagram of the CLARiiON ATA enclosure

To support the ATA disk modules, EMC now produces two types of DAE2 that are based on the same 3U chassis design. The standard version includes Fibre Channel disk drives and FC-AL LCCs to manage them. The DAE2-ATA version uses ATA disk modules and FC-to-ATA (LCCs) to manage the disk modules, and provides an interface between the FC-AL and the disk modules. Both DAE2 enclosure types house dual power supplies of the same design. The CLARiiON ATA disk module is designed to be inserted into a DAE2 enclosure containing FC-to-ATA LCCs. The FC-to-ATA LCC converts ATA to serial Fibre Channel architecture. This ATA LCC takes the place of the standard LCC in CLARiiON ATA disk module enclosures.

The CX700 storage-system capacity now exceeds 114 TB (raw) per storage system (225 ATA and 15 fibre drives installed). CLARiiON users also realize reduced footprint benefits when implementing the 250/500 GB and 320 GB ATA drives into the CLARiiON storage systems.

When planning for performance and capacity for any given environment, the performance, pricing, and capacity requirements for a given application should be completely understood before selecting the proper drive to use in certain configurations. Select the 250/500 GB or 320 GB ATA drives when they meet both the storage capacity and performance requirements the individual applications demand.

Drive Canisters (15 Total)

DriveDriveDrive

FC-ATA LCC "A"

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DriveDriveDrive

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Performance specification comparison Table 1 on page 8 details the performance specifications of various EMC CLARiiON, CX series, approved disk drives.

Table 1. Various EMC CLARiiON CX series drive specifications

Note the following points:

• Rotational speed — The 250/500 GB and 320 GB ATA drives spin at 5,400/7,200 rpm, whereas the 146/300 GB Fibre Channel drives spin at 10,000 rpm.

• Average seek times — The averages are quite a bit slower on the 250/500 GB and 320 GB ATA drives as compared to the 146 GB and 300 GB Fibre Channel drives.

• Internal transfer rate — The internal and external transfer/burst rate specifications on the 250/500 GB and 320 GB ATA drives are also slower than those of the 146 GB and 300 GB Fibre Channel disk drives.

When you look at these specifications and take into account the bits per inch (BPI) and internal transfer rates of the two drives, several performance characteristics of the 250/500 GB and 320 GB drives become apparent. With average read and write seek rates of 9 ms to 10 ms, and an average rotational latency specification of 4.1 ms to 5.5 ms, the CLARiiON ATA drives may not be well suited for random I/O environment, such as database or OLTP environments. Instead, the CLARiiON ATA drives are ideal for bringing offline information online. Offline applications use large, sequential-type data access and storage activities. Some of these applications are discussed later in this paper.

CLARiiON ATA (5,400 rpm and 7,200 rpm) performance results The following I/O performance charts (Figures 4 and 5) compare performance characteristics of the 250 GB ATA hard disk drives and the 146 GB hard disk drives, in a random I/O environment. When comparing the same number of spindles in a random read/write environment, the performance characteristics of the 250 GB ATA hard-disk drives and the 146 GB hard-disk drives are quite different. This is because the 250 GB ATA drive performance specifications are virtually half those of the 146 GB Fibre Channel drives. When we look at such specifications as spindle speed, average rotational latency, and average seek times, it's easy to see how these specification differences add up to lower performance levels when looking at the 250 GB and 320 GB CLARiiON ATA disk drives in a random I/O environment.

73 GB 15K FC 146 GB 10K FC 250/320 GB PATA 250/500 GB SATA Rotational Speed 15,000 10,000 5,400 7,200Rotational Latency 2 ms 2.99 ms 5.5 ms 4.17 msAverage Seek (Read) 3.6 ms 4.7 ms ~ 10 ms ~ 9 msAverage Seek (Write) 4 ms 5.3 ms ~ 10 ms ~ 9 msTransfer Rates (Internal) 57 - 86 MB/s 43 - 78 MB/s 26 - 46 MB/s 37 - 67 MB/sBurst Rates (External) 200 MB/s 200 MB/s 133 MB/s 150/300 MB/s


Read - Random - 16 Thread - RAID 5 (8+1)

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Figure 4. Read-random performance chart with FC and 250 GB, 5,400 rpm drives

Write - Random - 16 Thread - RAID 5 (8+1)

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Figure 5. Write-random performance chart with FC and 250 GB, 5,400 rpm drives


In the I/O performance charts in Figures 6 and 7, different performance characteristics can be realized when running applications that are sequential read and write I/O intensive. Again, this is due to the fact that the 250 GB ATA drive performance specifications are virtually half those of the 146 GB Fibre Channel drives. Looking at specifications such as internal transfer rates, it is clear that these differences result in lower performance levels when looking at the CLARiiON 250 GB and 320 GB ATA disk drives.

Read - Sequential - 1 Thread - RAID 5 (8+1)

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Figure 6. Read-sequential performance chart with FC and 250 GB, 5,400 rpm drives


Write - Sequential - 1 Thread - RAID 5 (8+1)

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Figure 7. Write-sequential performance chart with FC and 250 GB, 5,400 rpm drives

In Figures 8, 9, 10, and 11, which compare the 250 GB serial ATA (SATA) and the 320 GB parallel ATA (PATA) disk drives, no perceivable difference is found in sequential performance due to the fact that the drives have virtually the same design regardless of spindle speeds. A nominal performance difference on the 7,200 rpm drives (10 percent to 15 percent) can be seen in random I/O performance due to the fact that the 250 GB drives are spinning at 7,200 rpm compared to 5,400 rpm on the 320 GB drives. However, higher physical cylinder counts exist on the 320 GB ATA disk drives (588,422 compared to 486,344 on the 250 GB drives). Also note: CLARiiON RAID 3 algorithms have been enhanced to noticeably improve overall large block, sequential I/O performance such as backup-to-disk applications and certain high-bandwidth video applications.


Figure 8. Read-random performance chart (5,400 vs. 7,200 rpm, RAID 5)

Figure 9. Write-random performance chart (5,400 vs. 7,200 rpm RAID 5)

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Figure 10. Read-sequential performance chart (5,400 vs. 7,200 rpm, RAID 3)

Write, Sequential, 1 Thread, RAID 3 (4+1)


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Figure 11. Write-sequential performance chart (5,400 vs. 7,200 rpm, RAID 3)


In Figures 12 and 13, which compare the 250 GB serial ATA (SATA), 320 GB parallel ATA (PATA) and the 500 GB (SATAII) disk drives, again, no perceivable difference is found in sequential performance due to the fact that the drives have virtually the same design regardless of spindle speeds. A nominal performance difference on the 7,200 rpm drives (10 percent to 15 percent) can be seen in random I/O performance due to the fact that the 250 GB drives are spinning at 7,200 rpm compared to 5,400 rpm on the 320 GB drives.

Read Sequential, 1 Thread, RAID 3 (4+1)


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Figure 12. Read-sequential performance chart (250/320 GB vs. 500 GB, RAID 3)

Write Sequential, 1 Thread, RAID 3 (4+1)


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Figure 13. Write-sequential performance chart (250/320 GB vs. 500 GB, RAID 3)


CLARiiON backup-to-disk performance with ATA drives

Total Elapsed Backup Time, ATA vs. Tape Total Elapsed Backup Time, ATA vs. Tape

10 GB 100 GB

Figure 14. CLARiiON backup-to-disk performance with ATA drives

Backup and restore operations Up to this point, all performance numbers have been articulated without the use of a commercially available backup software package. The charts in Figure 14 compare the overall backup times for ATA disk drives to various tape technologies, while backing up data with a backup software package. The results are the average of multiple backup packages.

When comparing the performance of a backup-to-disk implementation to a backup-to-tape implementation, the overall time to complete a backup or restore operation must be considered—not just the data transfer time. There can be significant differences in the overall time it takes to perform a backup or restore operation with ATA disk compared with tape.

The charts in Figure 14 reflects the total backup time with differing backup file sizes. As shown, tape overhead can be significant when performing a backup operation, depending on the type and amount of data, LUN size, data compression ratio, and so forth. In some scenarios, file access, tape movement, and robotics time for a tape library can be greater than the time it takes to complete the actual data transfer.

In a backup-to-disk scenario, there are few steps required to accomplish the complete job. Once a request is received, data starts transferring almost immediately. This is due, in large part, to the random-access nature of disk.

In a backup-to-tape scenario, many time-consuming steps are involved, including loading of tapes into drives, waiting for drives to become ready, positioning of media, and actual transfer of data. If more than one tape media is required to complete the backup, library robotics or manual intervention is required, adding yet additional time to the backup operation.

In some measured scenarios, only 28 percent of the overall time it takes to perform a backup is spent actually transferring data to tape. The other 72 percent of the time is tape mechanical movement, file access, and other tasks. This represents extensive overhead associated with backup to tape.

Restore The charts in Figure 15 depict restore operations for tape that involve three tapes cartridges (full backup plus two incrementals).

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1.5 GB, Three-Tape Incremental 10 GB, Three-Tape Incremental

Figure 15. Tape restore with three tape cartridges (full and incremental backups)

There are significant differences in the overall time it takes to perform a restore of a dataset in a backup-to-disk scenario versus a tape restore. The charts in Figure 15 show typical scenarios where a full backup was performed on one day, followed by two daily incremental backups. A subset of the data is to be restored.

In a disk-to-disk restore scenario, there are few steps required to complete the restore. Upon request, data to be restored starts transferring almost immediately. Once the full dataset has been restored, the first and subsequent incremental restores are restored—in most cases immediately.

In a tape-to-disk restore scenario, the same steps used in the tape backup operation are involved, along with additional tape-searching time. As the charts show, it can take many times longer to perform the restore operation with tape as compared to disk.

Users must account for tape overhead when comparing total backup and restore times, as this can significantly impact total time to perform these operations. ATA technology in this case not only provides faster data-transfer rates compared to tape, but also eliminates the extensive overhead of tape, allowing businesses to resume operations much more quickly.

Applications of the 250/500 GB and 320 GB CLARiiON ATA drives We have discussed the important features and technologies that have enabled these 250/500 GB and 320 GB, 5,400/7,200 rpm ATA drives to come to market. Now let’s look at some of the applications where we can implement these drives. To realize true cost and capacity benefits, use the 250/500 GB and 320 GB, 5,400/7,200 rpm ATA drives in applications that best suit higher-capacity environments. Sequential access applications have a tendency to maximize any caching advantages of the storage system, and take advantage of the higher density, 250/500 GB and 320 GB ATA drives. In these applications, the speed at which the drive can transfer data from the platter has the greatest affect on overall performance. Thus, medium-to-large block and sequential I/O applications reap the greatest benefits from the drive’s higher areal-bit densities.

Some popular types of applications for the 250/500 GB and 320 GB, 5,400/7,200 rpm ATA drives are:

• Disk-to-disk backup

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Disk backup using traditional backup software. CLARiiON with ATA is tested and supported with most major backup applications.

Improves backup and restore performance when compared to tape. • Large application datasets Some applications, like seismic data interpretation, government intelligence, and life sciences research are immediately written out to tape due to their large size. When the tests need to be rerun, the data must be reloaded from tape, and then rerun. Now the information can stay online with CLARiiON ATA drives and businesses can improve their operational efficiency and time to market.

General benefits of 250/500 GB and 320 GB ATA disk-drive technology • Lower price per megabyte:

60 percent less for an ATA DAE with fifteen 250/500 GB or 320 GB ATAs compared with a Fibre Channel DAE with fifteen 146 GB fibre drives

• Reduced footprint • Reduced power and cooling requirements Available on all CLARiiON CX series storage systems

Competitive advantages of the CLARiiON with ATA Following are some of the competitive advantages to implementing CLARiiON ATA drives into a new or existing CLARiiON infrastructure: • Plugs into an existing sixth-generation architecture • As always, 5,400 and 7,200 rpm ATA/SATA drives can be used in the same ATA enclosures • Full software functionality of CLARiiON with ATA • Can nondisruptively expand capacity by adding an ATA DAE to an existing CLARiiON CX series

storage system • Dual porting on each ATA drive for high availability • Hot plug and hot swaps of all CLARiiON ATA components • FLARE™ advantages, such as Data Integrity Checking and Scrubbing (Sniffer) • Redundant high-availability components (for example, power, cooling, LCCs) • Same RAID support (0, 1, 1/0, 3, and 5) and drive-selection flexibility as Fibre Channel drives

(RAID 3 ATA configurations are strongly suggested for large block, sequential environments.) • CLARiiON Sector Data Protection Scheme • Checksum architecture for end-to-end data protection Firmware downloads/upgrades to the ATA disk modules

Implementing the 250/500 GB and 320 GB, 5,400/7,200 rpm disk drives In a typical binding operation, various RAID groups and LUNs are bound and presented to the host as logical disk drives. Within this binding/assignment operation, the hard disk drives are selected and grouped into usable storage for host applications.

It is common practice to mix drive types and enclosures in CLARiiON storage systems, according to user requirements. This is where the 250/500 GB and 320 GB drives may be factored into the data capacity/performance mix. With the current capacity points of the CLARiiON hard-disk drives at 73 GB (10K rpm and 15K rpm), 146 GB (10K rpm and 15K rpm), 300 GB (10K rpm) and now the 250/500 GB


and 320 GB ATA disk modules, you can apply these different capacity and performance drives/enclosures to suit the various applications within your operating environment.

Examples of mixed disk-drive usage In a CAD/CAM environment, the hard-disk drive should provide higher capacity storage per drive for drawing retention and design change, versus lower-capacity storage per spindle.

In nonperformance-sensitive environments, the lower-capacity hard-disk drives may be the right choice due to the lower initial cost of ownership of storage in these types of applications.

In high I/O, small block applications, such as OLTP, 15K rpm drives are a good fit from a performance standpoint, and 250/500 GB and 320 GB drives are great for nearline data backup and short-term data archiving solutions.

Taking the CLARiiON modular design into account, we can accommodate all four scenarios into one CLARiiON storage system simply by installing:

• A DAE or RAID group with 300 GB, 10K rpm Fibre Channel drives for engineering group applications or nearline backup applications.

• A DAE or RAID group of high performance 146 GB, 15K rpm Fibre Channel drives for OLPT and random database applications.

• A DAE or RAID group with 146 GB 10K rpm Fibre Channel disk drives for a good midpoint cost/performance-effective storage solution.

• A DAE with 250/500 GB or 320 GB or both, 5,400 and 7,200 rpm ATA drives can be used for a database group for nearline backup applications and database archiving solutions.

In these scenarios, we are able to support four types of applications, meeting four different price/performance applications within one CLARiiON storage system.

Conclusion The CLARiiON 250/500 GB and 320 GB ATA disk drives enable customers to bring more of their offline information online. The economics and capacity of the CLARiiON ATA disk modules provide superior capacity, price, and reduced operating costs when applied in suitable environments. However, when thinking about implementing the CLARiiON 250/500 GB and 320 GB ATA hard-disk modules, it’s important to consider applications, capacity, and of course, performance, before making any decisions.

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