Nexsan Auto Maid Marketing Report

Nexsan Energy Efficient AutoMAID TechnologySeptember 2009

Wikibon Green Validation Report Wikibon Energy Lab

Wikibon.orgWikibon.org

Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology

Contents

• 1.0 Introduction • 2.0 Executive Summary • 3.0 Technical Overview • 4.0 Measurement Methodology for power. • 5.0 Drive & Controller Measurement Results • 6.0 AutoMAID Effectiveness in the Real World • 7.0 Appendix I – Benchmark I/O Definition • 8.0 Appendix II Detailed Measurements (VA) • 9.0 Appendix III – Description of Wikibon Energy Lab Power Calculator for

AutoMAID • 10.0 Appendix IV Description of Nexsan AutoMAID

1.0 IntroductionWikibon Energy Lab Validation Reports are designed to assist customers in understanding the degree to which a product contributes to energy efficiency. The four main goals of these studies are to:

1. Validate the hardware energy efficiency of a particular technology as compared to an established baseline.

2. Asses the potential contribution of software technologies to power savings, and validate the actual contribution in real world installations.

3. Quantify the contribution of the hardware and software technologies to a green data center.

4. Educate business, technology, and utility industry professionals on the impact of technologies on reducing energy consumption.

Our objective is to identify not only the hardware energy consumption but also the often overlooked and hard-to-quantify green software aspects of technologies. Wikibon Energy Lab Validation Reports are submitted to utilities such as Pacific Gas & Electric Company as part of an energy incentive qualification process.

Wikibon Energy Lab defines and validates the hardware testing procedures to determine the energy consumed by specific products in various configurations. As well, Wikibon reviews actual customer results achieved in the field to validate the effectiveness of these

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http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Green_software

http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/energysavingsrebates/incentivesbyindustry/hightech/hteeincentives.shtml

Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology technologies based on real-world field-data analysis. These proof points are mandatory for the utility company to qualify a specific vendor's technology for energy incentives.

Wikibon Energy Lab Reports are not sponsored. Rather they are deliverables required by PG&E and other utilities as part of an incentive qualification process. As part of its Conserve IT Program, Wikibon is paid by the vendor to perform services associated with securing incentive rebates from utilities for end customers that acquire the vendor's technologies. To ensure this process is completely independent, Wikibon lab and field results are sometimes vetted by a third party engineering firm hired by PG&E or other utilities.

Wikibon only produces Lab Validation Reports for technologies that have been qualified for rebate incentives by PG&E or other utilities and have passed strict utility company guidelines. By adhering to this criterion, Wikibon assures its community of the independence of these results.

Disclaimer This report was prepared by Wikibon. Reproduction or distribution of the whole, or any part, of the contents of this document without written permission of Wikibon is prohibited. Neither Wikibon nor any of its employees make any warranty or representations, expressed or implied, or assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any data, information, method product or process disclosed in this document, or represents that its use will not infringe any privately-owned rights, including, but not limited to, patents, trademarks, or copyrights.

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http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Storage_Customers_Seeing_Green_with_Conserve_IT

Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology This report uses preliminary information from vendor data and technical references. The report, by itself, is not intended as a basis for the engineering required to adopt any of the recommendations. Its intent is to inform the customer of the potential cost savings. The purpose of the recommendations and calculations is to determine whether measures warrant further investment of time and/or resources. 2.0 Executive Summary A storage array consists of a large number of disk drives together with a storage controller. Many servers can be connected to a storage array, which allows any of the disk drives to be used by any server. Data is read from the disk and written to the disk with a read/write heads (see figure 1 below). The disk spins at between 7,200rpm and 15,000rpm. The heads are moved across the recording surface of the disk to different tracks where the data is stored.

Disk Arm Read/write Head

Disk Platter (1 of 3)

Disk Arm Read/write Head

Disk Platter (1 of 3)

Figure 1 - Components of Disk Drive In traditional storage arrays all the disks are spinning all the time, even when they were not reading or writing data (not doing any IO, in computer parlance). About 80% of the energy consumed by a storage array goes to spinning the disks and moving the read/write heads.

Nexsan has developed software and hardware features called AutoMAID, a sophisticated technology to turn off individual drives in an array when they are not being used. There are 3 levels of AutoMAID. Each level saves more power. When a disk drive goes into idle state (i.e., no data is being read or written, no IO activity) for 10 minutes, the drive goes into AutoMAID level 1. After 10 more minutes with no IO activity, it goes into AutoMAID level 2, and after 10 more minutes into level 3. The delay is added to avoid “hunting” between AutoMAID levels, which would increase power momentarily when the disk became active.

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Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology Figure 2 below shows power required for idle disks and for each level of AutoMAID. These figures were determined at Nexsan’s laboratory on Nexsan equipment under the guidance and supervision of Wikibon Energy Labs. Wikibon certifies the accuracy of the data.

Average Power Required for Different Levels of AutoMAID

13.0

11.5

9.2

5.6

3.4

-

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

14.0

Drive Active Idle Disk Drive(No IO Activity)

AutoMAID Level1 (15% to 20%power savings)

AutoMAID Level2 (35% to 45%power savings)

AutoMAID Level3 (60% to 70%

savings)

Level of AutoMAID

Pow

er fo

r Hita

chi 1

Ter

ayte

Dis

k D

rive

(Wat

ts)

Figure 2 - Power Required for Hitachi 1 Terabyte Disk Drive with Different Levels of AutoMAID

The time that AutoMAID is invoked can be determined by running a standard report from each Nexsan array that itemizes the percentage of time each level of AutoMAID is used, as illustrated in Figure 3 below.

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Figure 3 - Report on AutoMAID Performance from a SATABeast Array (Source: Nexsan, 2008)

Wikibon has developed a Wikibon Energy Lab Power Calculator for AutoMAID to determine the power savings and the rebates. If the data from figure 3 is entered into the calculator, the savings are shown in Table 1 below. In this example, the savings would by 19,764kWh/year (39%).

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Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology 3.0 Technical Overview MAID technology was introduced first by Copan. In the Copan MAID storage technology the maximum number of drives that could be running (spinning) at any given time was 25% and 75% of all the drives were turned off. This technology is suitable for workloads that use the drives in the same manner as tape drives such as in backup and archiving applications. With these applications almost all the I/O activity is sequential; although there is significant delays for data on an idle disk that is randomly accessed (a drive has to be powered down and another powered up), the number of these data accesses are few and the delay can be tolerated by the application and users. However many if not most applications require the ability to make random access to all data on all disks, and the COPAN implementation of MAID cannot be applied generally. Drive manufacturers such as Hitachi have recently introduced multiple powered down states. This was first introduced for laptops, and has now been extended into enterprise SATA drives that are used in enterprise storage arrays. For example, Hitachi allows a drive to be in one of four power states:

Level 0: o Normal operation at 7,200 rpm with heads loaded (un-parked)

MAID level 1: o Heads Unloaded (parked, reduces wind resistance on heads) o 15% to 20% power savings o Sub-second recovery time

MAID level 2: o Heads Unloaded, o Slows to 4000 rpm o 35% to 45% power savings o 15 second recovery time

MAID level 3: o Stops spinning (sleep mode; powered on) o 60% to 70% savings o 30 to 45 second recovery time

Seagate has a SATA drive that allows the drive just to be powered off (MAID level 3), and Western Digital has a SATA drive so-called “Green Drive” that revolves slower (5,400rpm) and can also park the heads (MAID level 1). Nexsan currently deploy Hitachi and Seagate drives in their SATA storage arrays, and may introduce other disk manufactures later. Nexsan has developed software and hardware features called AutoMAID that allows control of when these levels are evoked and how quickly, which level of MAID is invoked, and reports to the user of the amount of time that each of the drives is in each MAID state.

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ikibon and Nexsan conducted a rigorous analysis of the benefits that Nexsan customers ad achieved with the use of AutoMAID. The analysis showed that when AutoMAID is

represent a complete and accurate reflection of the ctual power that would be consumed by Nexsan’s storage array products in a data center

Wikibon defined and reviewed the power measurements on the drives available on Nexsan’s SATABeast & SATABoy storage arrays, with and without the use of AutoMAID. Wikibon found that the key variables that determined the power usage were the type of controller (SATABeast or SATABoy), the number of controllers (dual or single) and the level of AutoMAID engaged. Table 2 below gives the savings per drive from AutoMAID, which were derived from the detailed component measurements taken. The section below called “Power Measurement Methodology” gives additional detail.

Whinstalled in a suitable environment, the disks will be stopped on average over 50% of the time. Full details are given in the section “AutoMAID Effectiveness in the Real World” below. These savings can be verified with a report from each array that itemizes the savings, as illustrated in Figure 4. Used in combination, these resultsa

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Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology environment with and without AutoMAID, and the likely power efficiency savings that AutoMAID will achieve.

Figure 4 - Report on AutoMAID Power Efficiency from SATABeast/SATABoy Arrays (Source:

exsan, 2008)

ergy Labs developed the Wikibon Energy Lab Power Calculator for utoMAID. The methodology used was based on PG&E methodology for calculating

N Wikibon EnAincentives. The data in this report is used in the calculator. The detailed inputs and outputs are shown in Appendix III.

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Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology 4.0 Measurement Methodology for Power The Nexsan SATABeast and SATABoy storage arrays are built from standard components, and enable the power of different configurations to be calculated. The measurements were made at the component level; measurements were taken of the array controller (either single or dual) and the drives. Included in the measurements was the performance of the drives when idle and under a benchmark load, and when different levels of AutoMAID were invoked. Table 2 above gives the impact of the measurements. Table 3 below gives power consumption of the key components in the SATABeast and SATABoy configurations. The measurements on the array controllers were for AutoMAID level zero (i.e., normal operation) were made with a mixed workload of sequential reads, random reads, sequential writes, random writes and idle state (no data being transferred). All the measurements for AutoMAID levels one through three were made with the system in idle state. The results of the three workloads were averaged to produce an overall figure of power consumption for each of the components of the Nexsan arrays. Wikibon believes that the benchmarks used and the power measurements made were done professionally and in good faith. In the opinion of Wikibon, this measurement represents a good and reasonable estimate of the power consumed in the real world applications across a number of drives for “typical” combinations of applications found in a data center. 4.1 Equipment Measured The Nexsan storage array and components measured were:

o SATABeast Dual Controller - GN60 o Controllers - 000402FC400D / 000402FC312B o Chasis - 01754065 o 512MB cache per controller o 42 x Drives o 4 x 10 disk RAID 5 sets o 1 volume per RAID set o 2 x Hot spares o DCNR - one Volume per port or Single controller 2 volumes per port

The load testing host equipment was:

o Dell 1850, Dual 3Ghz Xeon CPU o 2 x Q-Logic 8GBp/s Dual port HBA's o 4 or 2 ports Direct Attached in dual controller or single controller respectively

The drives measured were:

o Hitachi HUA721010KLA330 7200rpm 1TB, 750GB, 500GB SATA drives

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o Seagate ST31000340NS 7200rpm 1TB, 750GB SATA drives o Western Digital WD1000FYPS 5400rpm 1TB (not included in results as not yet

announced by Nexsan) 4.2 Measuring Equipment Used Amp measurements were made with a Fluke 600 A AC True-rms Clamp Meter 335, SN – 95980112. Volt measurements were made with a Fluke 189 True-rms Multimeter. 4.3 Location of Testing The testing was done in Nexsan’s facility at Application Support Lab 1, Nexsan Technologies, 302 Enterprise Street, Escondido, CA 92029 USA (tel: 866.463.9726). The testing was overseen by Nitsan Tucker, at the above address and phone number.

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igures

5.0 Drive & Controller Measurement Results The chart below summarizes the power consumption results from the drive and controller measurements taken by Nexsan. The detailed measurements are shown in Appendix II. The results of the analysis allow the power consumption of each of the drive components (drive chassis and each disk drive type) to be calculated. The final results are shown in Table 3. This table is used to power the incentive calculator for AutoMAID.

The characteristics of the benchmarks run to give the measurements under load are given in Appendix I below. The controller and drive funder load were used to determine the power consumption that would have been required without AutoMAID, the base case. The idle drive figures were used to calculate the reduction of power requirements as a result of AutoMAID, and calculate the overall power consumption with AutoMAID. The difference between the two gives the direct drive power savings. Derived from AutoMAID.

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Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology 6.0 AutoMAID Effectiveness in the Real World Nexsan did a detailed study of eight customers who were analyzing the deployment of AutoMAID across multiple SATABeast arrays. The results of the study are shown in Table 4 below. What was interesting was the high variability of when AutoMAID could be deployed. The most interesting statistic was that AutoMAID could be deployed at some level 58% of the time. The other interesting statistic was that 80% of the time that AutoMAID was deployed, it was deployed at level 3, the highest level of power saving.

Nexsan Storage Use

User Application Day Evening Weekend Comments AM0 AM1 AM2 AM3

Genealogy Data 1 2 4Most clients use the system during the evening and weekends ‐ day use is light

48% 5% 5% 43%

Medical Image Archive 4 1 2 52% 4% 4% 39%

Scientific Images 1 2 2 31% 6% 6% 57%

email Archive 1 2 2 31% 6% 6% 57%

Medical Research Archive 2 2 3 46% 6% 6% 43%

Test System for delivering rich media 2 2 3 46% 6% 6% 43%

Test System for delivering scientific research data 2 2 3 46% 6% 6% 43%

Storage and backup of rich media 3 2 1Part of the system is used for backup ‐ that portion can use MAID since day use is light

40% 6% 6% 48%

Hours/week 60 60 48 Average 42% 6% 6% 47%

MAID Level AM0 AM1 AM2 AM3High (AM0 14%, AM1 7%, AM2 7%, AM3 72%) 1 High 14% 7% 7% 72%Average (AM0 40%, AM1 6%, AM2 6%, AM3 48%) 2 Average 40% 6% 6% 48%Low (AM0 60%, AM1 5%, AM2 5%, AM3 30%) 3 Low 60% 5% 5% 30%None (AM0 100%, AM1 0%, AM2 0%, AM3 0%) 4 None 100% 0% 0% 0

MAID Levels

AutoMAID Profile

% Table 4 - Study of Nexsan SATABeast Storage Users and deployment of AutoMAID

The following screen shots of the AutoMAID Utilization Tracking Log Screen were taken from eleven (11) production Nexsan SATABeasts and SATABoys with AutoMAID installed. They show the level of impact on energy efficiency that AutoMAID has had on these arrays. The results vary from very little impact to very high impact. Figure 7 shows the log from a 42TB (42 disk) SATABeast system used for running various test in a LB. The 90 day log shows high energy saving, with the disks stopped 85% of the time.

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Figure 5 -SATABeast System 42TB used for running various tests in a LAB – High Energy Saving – 90 day log The array reflected in Table 5 was being used in a test environment. Over a 45 day period the disks in the system were stopped (AutoMAID level 3) 96% of the time. This is characteristic of many test environments, with long inactivity and occasional bursts of critical work.

Table 5- SATABeast 42TB System used for running customer application simulations in a LAB – High Energy Saving – 45 day log The report from the array in Table 6 shows a smaller high-end production environment with critical databases where AutoMAID was not relevant. The disks were active 93% of the time, and the energy savings from AutoMAID were low to negligible.

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Table 6 - 4TB System used in high end production environment with critical databases – Low Energy Saving – 30 day log The array log in Table 7 shows the power saving results from a file and image content system for long-term archiving. AutoMAID is highly relevant. The disks were stopped 89% of the time, and the energy savings from AutoMAID were high.

Table 7 - SATABeast 42TB System used for holding file and image content for long term– High Energy Saving – 120 day log The array log in Table 8 shows the power saving results from a small company mixed application environment with a mix of very active and non-active systems. file and image content system for long-term archiving. AutoMAID is highly relevant. The disks were stopped 30% of the time, and the energy savings from AutoMAID were medium to low.

Table 8 - 14TB System used in daily production environment for a small company with a mixed application environment - Medium to Low Energy Saving – 60 day log The array log in Table 9 shows the power saving results from an archiving system. Again, AutoMAID is highly relevant. The disks were stopped 85% of the time, and the energy savings from AutoMAID were very high.

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Table 9 - SATABoy 14TB System used for holding archive data– High Energy Saving – 50 day log The array log in Table 10 shows the power saving results from a backup and recovery system for a full production environment. This type of system is characterized by very significant activity for short periods of time, followed by inactivity for most of the time. This is an excellent environment for AutoMAID, and the disks were stopped 81% of the time. The energy savings from AutoMAID were very high.

Table 10 - SATABeast 42TB System used in backup environment- holding backups of production environments – High Energy Saving – 65 day log The array from the log in Table 11 shows the power saving results from a system designed to test video games systems. This and other resting environments are excellent for AutoMAID, and the disks were stopped 90% of the time. The energy savings from AutoMAID were very high.

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Table 11 - SATABoy 14TB System used for testing video systems– High Energy Saving – 75 day log The array from the log in Table 9 shows the power saving results from a system newly installed and at rest. This happens a lot, before systems are migrated over to the new system. This of course reduces the power consumption very considerable and is a tailor-made environments for AutoMAID with the disks stopped 99% of the time. The energy savings from AutoMAID were very high.

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Table 12 - SATABoy 14TB System at rest – powered but not being used – High Energy Saving – 2 week log The array from the log in Table 13 shows the power saving results from a long-term content archiving system. As usual, this is a suitable environments for AutoMAID with the disks stopped 94% of the time. The energy savings from AutoMAID were very high.

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Table 13 - SATABoy 14TB System used for holding content for long term– High Energy Saving – 50 day log The array from the log in Table 14 below shows the power saving results from a testing and simulation environment. This again is a suitable environments for AutoMAID with the disks stopped 81% of the time. The energy savings from AutoMAID were high.

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Table 14 - SASBoy 4TB System used for testing and simulations– High Energy Saving – 40 day log Overall the percentage of time that AutoMAID was able to save power by stopping the disks varied from 3% to 99%. The majority of the environments were well over 50%. In some environments there will be software constraints that will mean that AutoMAID levels 3 and sometimes 2 cannot be deployed. Almost all environments should be able to take advantage of AutoMAID level 1.

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he overall mix for components load was defined as 2/3 load benchmark (as defined in

7.0 Appendix I – Benchmark I/O Definition The definition of the I/O loads that were run against the components is given in Table 15 below. The average I/O block size is 1 MB, which is a reasonable estimate of what is found in real-world usage of Nexsan SATABeast and SATABoy storage array deployments. This benchmark was run against all the array components and the power measurement (volts and amps) were taken. All the array components were also run in idle state, i.e., no I/O.

TTable 15 above), and 1/3 idle measurements. Wikibon confirms that this is an accurate estimate of the power consumption that would be found in real world conditions when under load.

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Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology 8.0 Appendix II – Detailed Measurements (VA)

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MFR

MFR M

/NCA

PACIT

Y/RPM

Test

Peak

Idle

Load

Peak

witho

ut Ch

assis

Idle w

ithou

t Ch

assis

Load w

ithou

t Ch

assis

MAID

Lv1MA

ID Lv2

MAID

Lv3# D

rives

Emply

2/2

chassi

s Peak

Emply

2/2

chassi

s Idle

Single

Dri

ve Pe

akSin

gle

Drive

Idle

Single

Dri

ve Loa

dSin

gle Dr

ive

Avera

ge

Single

Dri

ve MA

ID Lv1

Single

Dri

ve MA

ID Lv2

Single

Dri

ve MA

ID Lv3

Hitach

i HU

A721

010KLA

330100

0/7200

Amps

96.1

6.99

6.16.9

5.33.9

3.142

Hitach

i HU

A721

010K

LA330

1000

/7200

Volts

114.3

115.1

511

5.65

114.3

115.1

511

5.65

114.8

116.7

3116

.9542

Hitach

i HU

A721

010K

LA330

1000

/7200

Watts

1028

.770

2.415

797.9

8580

8.68

482.3

9557

7.965

388.4

223

5.227

142.52

542

220.02

220.02

19.3

11.5

13.

8

13.0

9.2

5.6

3.4

Hit

achi

HUA7

21010

KLA330

1000/7

200BT

U/hr

Hitach

i 750

/7200

Amps

8.65.6

6.99

5.66.9

5.33.9

3.142

Hitach

i 75

0/720

0Vo

lts11

6.911

7.311

5.65

114.3

117.3

115.6

511

4.811

6.73

116.95

42Hit

achi

750/7

200

Watts

1005

.3465

6.88

797.9

8580

8.68

436.8

657

7.965

388.4

223

5.227

142.52

542

220.02

220.02

19.3

10.4

13.

8

12.6

8.4

5.1

3.1

Hit

achi

750/72

00BT

U/hr

Hitach

i 500

/7200

Amps

8.14.9

6.99

4.96.9

5.33.9

3.142

Hitach

i 50

0/720

0Vo

lts11

6.94

117.2

115.6

511

4.311

7.211

5.65

114.8

116.7

3116

.9542

Hitach

i 50

0/720

0Wa

tts94

7.214

574.2

879

7.985

808.6

835

4.26

577.9

6538

8.42

235.2

27142

.525

42220

.02220

.0219.

3

8.4

13.

8

12.0

6.8

4.1

2.5

Hit

achi

500/72

00BT

U/hr

Seagat

eST

3100

0340

NS100

0/7200

Amps

9.75.5

6.79.7

5.56.7

xx

2.742

Seagat

eST

3100

0340

NS10

00/72

00Vo

lts11

4.211

5.211

5.111

4.211

5.211

5.1x

x11

6.142

Seagat

eST

3100

0340

NS10

00/72

00Wa

tts11

07.74

633.6

771.1

788

7.72

413.5

855

1.15

xx

93.45

4222

0.02

220.02

21.1

9.8

13.1

12.

0

9.8

9.8

2.2

Seagat

eST

3100

0340

NS100

0/7200

BTU/

hrx

xSea

gate

750/72

00Am

ps8.8

5.36.7

9.75.3

6.7x

x2.7

42Sea

gate

750/7

200

Volts

114.8

111

5.05

115.1

114.2

115.0

511

5.1x

x11

6.142

Seagat

e75

0/720

0Wa

tts10

10.32

860

9.765

771.1

788

7.72

389.7

4555

1.15

xx

93.45

4222

0.02

220.02

21.1

9.3

13.1

11.

8

9.3

9.3

2.2

Seagat

e750

/7200

BTU/

hrx

x

Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology 9.0 Appendix III – Description of Wikibon Energy Lab Power Calculator for AutoMAID The information for the Nexsan customer applying for the PG&E incentive is input in the blue boxes as illustrated in Figure 8 below. Step 1 - Customer Information

Company Name:Street Address:City:State:Zip Code:

Nexsan Customer1 Data Center Blvd.,CityCA94000

Figure 6 - Wikibon Energy Lab Power Calculator Input - Customer Information The equipment that will be installed is input in the blue boxes as illustrated in Figure 9 below. Step 2 - Storage System Information

Vendor Drive Size # Disk Drives Total Storage Capacity

GB # TBHitachi 500 0 0Hitachi 750 0 0Seagate 750 0 0Hitachi 1000 200 200

200 200

5Dual

Drive Size # Disk Drives Total Storage Capacity

GB # TBHitachi 500 0 0Hitachi 750 0 0Seagate 750 0 0Hitachi 1000 0 0

0 0

0Single

Assumptions:

SATABeastNumber of SATA Beasts

Total StorageStorage System Requirements

Dual or Single Controller?

Proposed Storage System - Enter the description, drive size, and number of drives for the proposed storage systems.

Inputs

The proposed storage system with AutoMAID provides the same performance as the baseline storage system with fewer number of drives spinning and lower power costs

SATABoyNumber of SATABoys

Description System for Nexsan SATABeast

Storage System RequirementsStorage System Requirements

Storage System Requirements

Dual or Single Controller?

Description System for Nexsan SATABoy



Storage System RequirementsStorage System Requirements

Total Storage

Figure 7 - Wikibon Energy Lab Power Calculator Input - Storage System Information The information about UPS in the data center where the storage equipment will be installed is input in the blue boxes as illustrated in Figure 10 below.

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Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology Step 3 - UPS Information

Units CommentsUPS present in data center? Yes If yes, UPS losses included in cooling load calculationsTotal UPS Capacity 250,000 VA Enter total rated UPS capacity Baseline UPS Loading 100,000 VA Connected critical load using standard storage system, inclUPS type (see table below) 1 Use Type 1 if unsure

UPS Efficiency ProfilesLabel Description Comments

1 Baseline UPS efficiency Equivalent to average double conversion performance2 High Efficiency Double Conversion Best measured efficiency curve for double-conversion UPS.3 High Efficiency Delta Conversion Measured efficiency for delta conversion line-interactive UPS.4 High Efficiency Flywheel Based on 4th order polynomial best fit of flywheel data.5 User Defined Efficiency Curve If known, enter efficiency of UPS on Calculator tab

Figure 8 - Wikibon Energy Lab Power Calculator Input - UPS Information The information about the cooling in the data center where the storage equipment will be installed is input in the blue boxes as illustrated in Figure 11 below. Step 4- Cooling System Information

Existing Cooling System Capacity 2 Enter single-digit number from Table below.

Cooling System Types

Nominal Installed Cooling

Capacity

Individual Compressor

Nominal Capacity

Annual Average Efficiency

Worst Efficiency

During Summer

Peak Demand Period

tons* tons kW/ton kW/ton1 < 360 40 1.29 1.642 <150 1.22 1.223 >=150 and

<3001.13 1.13

4 >=300 1.01 1.015 n/a 0 0

* Not including redundancy. 1 ton of cooling is equal to 3.52 kW. For 100 kW of energy input to the storage system, 28.4 tons of cooling is required.

Air-cooled DX CRAC units>= 360 Water-cooled chilled water plant, serving chilled water CRAC units

No dedicated computer cooling

System Type Baseline Cooling System

0

Figure 9 - Wikibon Energy Lab Power Calculator Input - Cooling System Information The information about the AutoMAID usage on the storage equipment will be installed is input in the blue boxes as illustrated in Figure 12 below. On initial submission, the usage is estimated using the pull-downs for daytime, evening and weekend AutoMAID usage. When the storage system is installed, the data from the AutoMAID Performance report (see Figure 3 for an example) can be input.

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Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology Step 5 - Other Customer Inputs

0.12$ per kWh10,000$

5,000$ 300,000$ Note: The total cost includes the software costs

50,000$ 250,000$ This is calculated by taking the total cost of the Storage system with software and subtracting the cost of the software

Active AM0 (Idle) AM1 AM2 AM3High (Active 5%, AM0 3%, AM1 7%, AM2 0%, AM3 85%) High 5% 3% 7% 0% 85%Average (Active 25%, AM0 15%, AM1 6%, AM2 6%, AM3 48%) Average 25% 15% 6% 6% 48%Low (Active 45%, AM0 11%, AM1 7%, AM2 7%, AM3 30%) Low 45% 11% 7% 7% 30%None (Active 65%, AM0 35%, AM1 0%, AM2 0%, AM3 0%) None 65% 35% 0% 0% 0%

AM0=AutoMAID level 0, Idle, no savings Index Hours/Week Active AM0 AM1 AM2 AM3AM1=AutoMAID level 1, Heads parked 3 60 45% 11% 7% 7% 30%AM2=AutoMAID level 2, Heads parked and drive slowed 1 60 5% 3% 7% 0% 85%AM3=AutoMAID level 3, Drive in Standby 1 48 5% 3% 7% 0% 85%

Total 168 19% 6% 7% 3% 65%

Calculation of Average

Total Cost of AutoMAID Features

Type of AutoMAID Profile EveningType of AutoMAID Profile Weekend

High (Active 5%, AM0 3%, AM1 7%, AM2 0%, AM3 85%)High (Active 5%, AM0 3%, AM1 7%, AM2 0%, AM3 85%)

Type of AutoMAID Profile DaytimeTotal Cost of Storage System without AutoMAID

AutoMAID Profile

Low (Active 45%, AM0 11%, AM1 7%, AM2 7%, AM3 30%)

Cost of AutoMAID per SATABoy ControllerTotal Cost of Storage System with AutoMAID

Cost of AutoMAID per SATABeast ControllerAnnual Average Electric Cost Including all fees and demand charges.

Figure 10 - Wikibon Energy Lab Power Calculator Input - AutoMAID Usage Information The output from the Wikibon Energy Lab Power Calculator is illustrated in Figure 13

below. A more complete read out is available from the Power Calculator is available when calculating specific incentive amounts.

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Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology 10. Appendix IV – Description of Nexsan AutoMAID In tradition storage arrays, disk drives continue to rotate all the time, which uses power and require cooling. High performance FC disks rotate at 10,000 or 15,000 rpm. Almost all high density disks (SATA disks) rotate at 7,200 rpm. Nexsan's AutoMAID (Automatic Massive Array of Idle Disks) energy saving technology transparently places SATA disk drives into different idle states to reduce power and cooling costs. AutoMAID is granular to an individual drive or RAID set and offers multiple levels of energy savings. AutoMAID is user selectable enabling users to determine the right trade-off between response time performance and energy savings. Drive manufacturers have recently introduced multiple powered down states. This was first introduced for laptops, and has now been extended into enterprise SATA drives that are used in enterprise storage arrays. For example, Hitachi allows a drive to be in one of four power states:

Level 0: o Normal operation at 7,200 rpm with heads loaded (un-parked)

MAID level 1: o Heads Unloaded (parked, reduces wind resistance on heads) o 15% to 20% power savings o Sub-second recovery time

MAID level 2: o Heads Unloaded, o Slows to 4000 rpm o 35% to 45% power savings o 15 second recovery time

MAID level 3: o Stops spinning (sleep mode; powered on) o 60% to 70% savings o 30 to 45 second recovery time

Seagate has a SATA drive that allows the drive just to be powered off (MAID level 3), and Western Digital has a SATA drive so-called “Green Drive” that revolves slower (5,400rpm) and can also park the heads (MAID level 1). Nexsan currently deploy Hitachi 500GB, 750GB and 1TB drives, together with 750GB Seagate drives in their SATA storage arrays, and may introduce other disk manufacturers later. It is expected that drive manufactures will introduce additional levels of power savings, and much faster recovery times to access data. The faster recovery times will be particularly useful, as it will avoid potential impacts on the application.

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Wikibon Energy Lab Nexsan Storage Arrays with AutoMAID Technology Figure 14 below illustrates the cycle of moving from a disk or disks in sleep mode, through a request for data and reactivation of the drives, through the cascade down through the MAID levels until the disk is in sleep mode again.

15-20 % energy saving60% energy saving

35-45% energy saving


Nexsan storage drives are at rest to save energyMAID level 3

Nexsan storage drives climb to full high speed and start managing data requests

This initial start time varies. From MAID level 1 under 1 secFrom MAID level 2 15 secFrom MAID level 3 30-45 sec

Note: Many applications / HBAshave a timeout of 120 sec. Some applications will assume that there is a I/O problem and evoke error recovery

Requests for data have stopped –NexsanAutoMAIDwaits another 10* minutes to be sure there are no additional requests

10* minutes later NexsanAutoMAIDslows the drives to conserve more energy MAID level 2

After 10* minutes NexsanAutoMAIDparks the heads to conserve energy MAID level 1

10* minutes later Nexsan AutoMAID puts the drives back to rest for maximum energy conservationMAID level 3

Initial data

request arrives

* Delay times between moving to different AutoMAID levels and which levels to use are fully configurable












Initial data

request arrives












Initial data

request arrives

* Delay times between moving to different AutoMAID levels and which levels to use are fully configurable

Figure 11 - AutoMAID in Action (Source: Nexsan, modified by Wikibon) 10.1 Nexsan Storage Array Specifications SATABeast Technical Specifications

o Up to 42 SATA drives in a 4U rack configuration o Dual 4Gb Fibre Channel SFP LC host ports per controller o Dual iSCSI ports per controller o Single or Dual active/active controllers o Dual Power Supplies

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Figure 12 - Nexsan SATABeast (Source: Nexsan, http://www.nexsan.com/satabeast/tech.php, downloaded 9/28/2008) SATABoy Technical Specifications

o Dual 2Gb Fibre Channel ports and dual iSCSI ports per controller or quad SCSI ports on a single controller

o Single or dual active/active controllers o Up to fourteen SATA drives in a 3U rack configuration o Dual Power Supplies

Figure 13 - Nexsan SATABoy (Source: Nexsan, http://www.nexsan.com/sataboy/tech.php, downloaded 9/28/2008)

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http://www.nexsan.com/satabeast/tech.php

http://www.nexsan.com/sataboy/tech.php


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Nexsan Auto Maid Marketing Report

Technology

Transcript of Nexsan Auto Maid Marketing Report