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I do not have deeper knowledge of the storage area, sorry for asking evidently stupid questions :) We are thinking about getting HP StorageWorks MSA60 for storing our VM. Do we need another DL server with controller so that we could use iSCSI ? Do we need to get some P800 controller for doing that? I cannot imagine how it is connected together actually ... MSA60->DLserver with p800 controller and servers that are running VM connected with iSCSI to this DL server ?

Or MSA60 directly supports iSCSI so the DL server is not necessary ? What is inside this MSA60? Is it possible to install there OS ?

Thank you.

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The HP StorageWorks MSA60 is a JBOD enclosure intended to be used with a server. It's an extension of a Smart Array controller, so it will require a p800 or p812 controller inside a server to interface with the enclosure. The MSA60 is meant to connect to a single server. You haven't provided information on your operating systems or choice of virtualization platform, but I'm pretty sure this isn't the solution you're looking for.

1). If you're looking to extend the amount of storage available on a single virtual host server, then the MSA60 will work. There would be no need for iSCSI as you'd be directly connected via SAS to the storage array. This provides no real benefit other than having more room for disk drives than the server may have.

2). If you're looking to have two or more virtual host servers in a cluster and tied to the same shared storage via iSCSI (or SAS or fibre channer), then you should look at the entry-level MSA P2000 storage arrays. These look like the MSA60, but provide support to connect to multiple servers. They can be expanded using additional JBOD enclosures, though.

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  • Virtualization platform is XenServer installed on multiple hosts. I would like to have VM stored on this shared storage. So P2000 supports iSCSI ? So I will not need any extra server for iSCSI feature?
    – John
    Dec 28, 2010 at 13:03
  • I forgot, I would like to use iSCSI with Ethernet.. I'm seeing that there are FC ports.
    – John
    Dec 28, 2010 at 13:05
  • You would need a P2000 iSCSI model, for example, model #BK830A in the US.
    – ewwhite
    Dec 28, 2010 at 14:21
  • Hm P2000 is 3 times more expensive.. So it would be also possible to combine MSA60 + some cheap server (with linux and controller) which could export the MSA60 as iSCSI, but seems to be kind of awkward solution :)
    – John
    Dec 28, 2010 at 15:48
  • How much storage do you need? You could use a server and something like NexentaStor (instead of Linux) to provide iSCSI or NFS storage to your virtual machine hosts. Or you could just run the virtual machines on one physical server.
    – ewwhite
    Dec 28, 2010 at 15:52

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