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Accepted
matteo nunziati
Asked: 2017-02-03 15:55:31 +0800 CST

Can sas attached storage like msa1040 stop working due to a single point if failure?

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I mean, beside any incident into the rack, is possible that a redundant storage like the hp msa1040 can die because of a single point of failure?

I'm asking because we are going to implement a redundant virt system with 2 servers and a san (let call the msa1040 a san), but I am quite new to the topic and I don't see a reason why such a san (sas attached) could die.

Is in any single point of failure in such kind of systems or everything is really redundant in them as advertised?

Thank you

Edit: for downvoter, it can still be a dumb question but I'm aware that everything can die. I was wondering if there actually is a non redundant component in such items. Then yes even redundant components can blow altogether but to me these are not single points these are overall system failures caused by failures of the given redundancy subsystem. It is a different thing.

EDIT 2: while I've marked the answer as the accepted one, I would like to point out what, to me, is the best answer in absolute: https://mangolassi.it/topic/8822/why-dual-controllers-is-not-a-risk-mitigation-strategy-alone

storage

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Yes, any storage array can stop working for a reason or another. The RAID configuration can fail (see that question about RAID level), the backplane can die, etc...

    Be sure to have good backup and a recovery plan.

    By recovery plan I mean: If you use in example a backup library and it's a VM that use it. Even if you have good backup, please consider the time to bring back the array + time to restore a VM and reinstall the backup software + time to re-inventory the cartridge + time to actually restore. If unplanned for that step, in real life, as I seen a SAN crash (the array got toasted, it was in RAID50 and sadly two disk in the same set died in a short time lapse), it took 3 days 24/7 to recover.

    So for your actual question, yes it can fail (so don't put your eggs all in the same basket)

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