StarPort Raid-0 (Stripping)
StarPort Raid-0 (Stripping) and Storage Link Aggregation
A RAID-0 (also known as a stripe set or striped volume) splits data across two or more independent/separated disks. RAID-0 is normally used to increase performance and combined volume capacity.The data written to a RAID-0 (striped volume) is written to the disks according to the below sample of two physical disks:
The primary purpose of a RAID-0 configuration is extending the bottlenecks caused by the limitations of read/write speed of a single hard drive. Combining two hard drives into a RAID-0 array allows nearly doubling of the read/write performance.
When building an iSCSI network, a break-through idea would be to create iSCSI targets which would work similarly to a simple RAID-0 or Striped Volume configuration. Adding iSCSI protocol to this configuration would add the advantages of iSCSI SAN to the advantages of RAID-0.
Standard way:
The standard way for of implementing an iSCSI SAN on a separate dedicated box would cause the following issues:- DAS limitations (The maximum amount of jacks for IDE/SCSI/SATA devices on the Motherboard is limited. Moreover, the connection interfaces length is also limited (Parallel ATA only allows cable lengths up to 18 inch (460 mm); SCSI SSA - 984 inch (25 m)). Also, there is a limitation in the amount of devices that one can connect to a single interface port.
- CPU limitations (no matter how many storage arrays or disks there are on the iSCSI Target PC - the amount of CPU remains the same).
- BUS limitations (one cannot extend the transfer rate of an existing BUS. No matter how many network interfaces there are in an iSCSI network).
StarWind way:
StarWind Software StarPort allows creating a software RAID-0 configuration via iSCSI which allows creating Storage Link Aggregation for achieving higher data transfer performance between your iSCSI targets and initiators. Using a single iSCSI target even with NIC teaming or MPIO implemented will not allow extending the performance limit of the target hardware:StarPort allows creating Storage Link Aggregation that splits the data between two or more storage systems - implementing the true software iSCSI RAID-0 functionality.
And because StarPort fully implements iSCSI client side protocol enabling you to connect to remote storage appliances - you can achieve the functionality of iSCSI SAN configuration combined with RAID-0 functionality combining the benefits of using iSCSI and the benefits of using RAID-0.
By separating the storage link NICs and storage arrays onto two or more separate links dedicated for storage network - you can achieve the combined benefits of RAID-0 and iSCSI technology.
Pros:
- SAN Benefits (remote storage is recognized as local; no BUS length limitations while the files on the remote SAN are still accessed on a block level as if they were local).
- CPU Independent (One can distribute the data between two or more storage links).
- Bus Independent (Single target bottleneck is no longer a problem).
