I would like to use 3PAR 7200 with 1 SFF enclosure and 1 LFF enclosure.
I know HP strongly recommend config at least (12) nearline drive.
I know that the nearline drives can use RAID 5.
But... If I have limited budget,
Can I Config LFF enclosure with only (8) Nearline drives?
And... Can I set up RAID 5 (3+1) with this (8) LFF Nearline drives?
Many thanks!
Config LFF enclosure with only (8) Nearline Drives
Re: Config LFF enclosure with only (8) Nearline Drives
Yes it's possible with 8 disks since you can configure Raid 5 3+1 (2 nodes x 3+1 = 8 disks), You'd first have to override the safety setting preventing this. However I really wouldn't recommend it for anything outside of a test environment. You could look at purchasing more smaller disks to hit your budget, capacity and the minimum Raid 6 requirement.
e.g.
8 x 2TB LFF Raid 5 (3+1) = 7.7TiB
16 x 1TB SFF Raid 6 (6+2) = 9.0TiB
8 x 3TB LFF Raid 5 (3+1) = 11.7TiB
14 x 2TB LFF Raid 6 (4+2) = 13.9TiB
20 x 1TB SFF Raid 6 (8+2) = 12.5TiB
8 x 4TB LFF Raid 5 (3+1) = 15.6TiB
14 x 2TB LFF Raid 6 (4+2) = 17.7TiB
16 x 2TB LFF Raid 6 (6+2) = 18.3TiB
Just another option, but make sure you check the usable numbers vs the overall config as the disk mix has an impact on sparing overhead which in turn can impact usable capacity.
e.g.
8 x 2TB LFF Raid 5 (3+1) = 7.7TiB
16 x 1TB SFF Raid 6 (6+2) = 9.0TiB
8 x 3TB LFF Raid 5 (3+1) = 11.7TiB
14 x 2TB LFF Raid 6 (4+2) = 13.9TiB
20 x 1TB SFF Raid 6 (8+2) = 12.5TiB
8 x 4TB LFF Raid 5 (3+1) = 15.6TiB
14 x 2TB LFF Raid 6 (4+2) = 17.7TiB
16 x 2TB LFF Raid 6 (6+2) = 18.3TiB
Just another option, but make sure you check the usable numbers vs the overall config as the disk mix has an impact on sparing overhead which in turn can impact usable capacity.