Bounty 100 rep coming: I know I'm asking a lot here and I'd like a detailed/quality answer so, as soon as I am able, I'll be adding a 100 rep bounty to this question.
I'm trying to illustrate the problem of this setup to my superiors but I'm not a professional system administrator; So, I figured I'd ask the pro sysadmin community for some backup on this one.
The configuration consists of:
- 3 Promise Pegasus R6 configured as Raid 50 arrays chained via a Thunderbolt (copper) interface
- A Mac Mini server running as a dedicated file server
- A Cisco 4900M Catalyst switch (don't ask ::sigh::)
- 3 iMac Workstations
- 2 Dell Laptop Workstations
- 3 Xerox Production Printers
Here's a little background. The workstations are dedicated to professional graphic design and video editing and the storage array's primary purpose is to act as a data repository for the workstations.
What I'd like to know is, what is the maximum theoretical throughput of the connection from a workstation to the storage array broken down into simple terms (Kilobytes/s Megabytes/s).
Note: Brownie points if you can illustrate a NAS (Network Attached Storage) setup with equal or better throughput.
Update:
For those who are curious, the controllers are Promise Pegasus R6. You can find the spec sheet here.
Evan,
Based on your response "the interface on the iMacs and laptops will be gigabit (theoretical)" - then, as Zoredache pointed out - your theoretical max is 120MB/s. It'll be lower, as Chris S said, allowing for normal network overhead.
The system is as fast as the slowest NIC. In this instance, that's the gigabit NICs on the workstation. You also don't provide much info about the RAID 50 arrays - what controller, etc. It is possible you'll hit a limiter there as well.