HDS 2000-series AMS Storage Arrays (1)

(originally posted Jan-2009)

I'm sitting in this week on a class on the new modular storage arrays from Hitachi Data Systems. Since a bunch of folks asked me to update them on some of the details on the new products, the AMS 2000-series arrays, I decided to blog it. If anyone catches anything here that's NDA, please comment or let me know (edward at ebranley dot com) so I can edit this and keep this for public consumption.

The AMS 2100, 2300, and 2500 are new models that supersede the AMS 200, 500, and 1000. There are a number of changes and upgrades, most notably the use of Serial-Attached-SCSI (SAS) drives in the 2000s instead of the Fibre-Channel (FC) drives previously used.

The AMS 2100 supersedes the AMS 200. It's a half-cabinet array (8 shelves of 15 drives plus control unit). This is up from the 200, which was 7 shelves, giving the 2100 a total of 120 drives. Instead of the mixed back end (FC+SATA), the array has a 16-path (4x4) SAS Wide link. The SAS shelves support both the new SAS as well as existing SATA drives. It has 4 front-end ports, either FC or iSCSI. Max cache (mirrored) is 4GB

The AMS 2300 is a full-height cabinet, 16 shelves, 240 drives. It's got double the front-end ports of its predecessor, the AMS 500, with 8 FC ports (or 4 iSCSI). The 2300 also has a 4x4 SAS Wide back end. Max cache (mirrored) is 8GB.

The AMS 2500 is the two-cabinet model. It tops out at 33 shelves (base + 32), with 16 FC or 8 iSCSI ports on the front end. This is fully double the front end ports of the old array, the AMS 1000. The back end is 4x8, because it's spread over two cabinets. Max cache on the 2500 (mirrored) is 16GB.

The SATA drives for all three arrays are SATA2, which have MBTF close to that of the SAS drives.

The front-end of the 2000s is true active/active - no more "lun ownership" on these. LUNs can be assigned to host groups on either controller. This is a HUGE advancement over the 200/500/1000 arrays.

Cache numbers double with these arrays because they use either 2GB or 4GB DIMMs

The 2000-series are managed by a new application, Storage Navigator Modular 2 (SNM2). If you've worked with DAMP for the Thunders or SNM for the older AMS systems, you'll be able to find your way through SNM2. The new GUI is an HBASE application, so it's got a look-and-feel more like HDvM.

More coming tomorrow. This is a summary of day one lectures. The lab for today was "component identification."