SCSI vs FC-AL

[ron]

I can not find ANY benchmark data on the web that makes any attempt at all to compare SCSI against FC-AL for over-all performance. Does anyone know of any benchmark data they can share with me?

I'll be looking at a substantial server upgrade in the next six months and I KNOW that Sun will push a configuration based around FC-AL disc arrays. I am not convinced, however, that FC-AL will out-perform Ultra-160 SCSI (or Ultra-320 that will soon be available).

I am aware, of course, of the published MB/sec figures -- but since the two technologies work differently I am unsure as to what extent these figures are meaningful.

Can anyone help shed some light on this subject?

Thanks,
Ron.

 

[ron]

No-one has added to this thread in two years! My goodness!

Now I can add to it myself!

For various reason the new server purchase was deferred - main reason being were considering changing our core application. Therefore - we've had to extend the life of the current Sun V480 server by adding more disc storage.

Last Christmas we needed to extend the database size - and the way we decided to do this was to move the AI files from a dedicated SCSI Ultra-160 mirrored pair - onto the FC-AL OS mirrored pair - and use what had been the AI disc for the extra DB space.

We collect a whole range of DB and processor statistics every 15 minutes, 24 x 7. Looking at a graphical display of the statistics I have noticed something interesting. The loading that used to be on the SCSI Ultra-160 disc has (of course) gone. But, the loading on the OS disc has barely changed at all. It used to be "almost nothing" - and it has remained "almost nothing". I have to conclude that the FC-AL disc has significantly greater I/O capacity than the SCSI Ultra-160!