Chapter 1. Introduction; Overview - IBM DS4800 User, Installation And Maintenance Manual

Chapter 1. Introduction

This chapter describes the operating specifications, features, and components for
the IBM System Storage
(hereafter referred to as DS4800 or storage subsystem).
This chapter also includes an inventory checklist and important information on best
practices guidelines and product updates for your DS4800.

Overview

IBM DS4000 solutions support the large and growing data storage requirements of
business-critical applications. These scalable IBM DS4000 solutions offer you data
access and protection to meet your existing enterprise storage requirements and
prepare for the future.
The IBM System Storage DS4800 storage system is designed to provide solutions
to meet the needs of midrange/departmental storage requirements, delivering high
performance, advanced function, high availability, modular and scalable storage
capacity, with SAN-attached 4-Gbps Fibre Channel (FC) connectivity, and support
for RAID levels 0, 1, 3, and 5 up to over 89 terabytes (TB).
Note: The stated maximum capacity was calculated using 224 drives of the
The DS4800 is designed to deliver up to a twofold IOP performance increase over
the current DS4500 offering and represents the sixth-generation architecture of the
DS4000 series family. A 4-U rack-mountable enclosure houses the DS4800
redundant, dual-active intelligent RAID controllers equipped with sixteen 4-Gbps
fibre channel ports (eight ports per controller), for attachment of host servers and
DS4000 storage expansion enclosures.
The DS4800 supports attachment of up to 16 DS4000 EXP100 or EXP710 storage
expansion enclosures, or up to 14 DS4000 EXP810 storage expansion enclosures,
resulting in the capability to connect to up to 224 disk drives and enabling storage
configurations of over 89 TB. DS4800 models 82A/H, 84A/H and 88A/H support the
attachment of up to 224 drives as standard. The DS4800 model 80A/H supports
only the attachment of up to 112 drives as standard. An entitlement must be
purchased to connect up to 224 drives behind a DS4800 model 80A/H.
The DS4800 supports configurations of FC or Serial Advanced Technology
Attachment (SATA) disks, or a mix of both types of disk drives by use of the
optional DS4800 Fibre Channel/SATA Enclosure Intermix feature.
Advanced DS4000 storage management, copy service options, and optional
advanced disaster recovery functions are available for the DS4800, including
FlashCopy
The DS4000 Storage Manager client is also available for the DS4800. This storage
management software is designed to help centralize storage management, help
simplify partitioning of the DS4000 series storage into as many as 64 virtual
servers, and strategically allocate storage capacity to maximize storage space.
The DS4800 RAID controller cache size varies depending the DS4800 model.
Currently, the cache size is either 2 GB, 4 GB or 8 GB. Depending on the model,
© Copyright IBM Corp. 2006
®
DS4800 (Machine Type 1815) Storage Subsystem
currently available 400G SATA hard drives.
®
, VolumeCopy, and Enhanced Remote Mirroring.
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