White Papers

19 Best Practices for Deploying a Mixed 1Gb/10Gb Ethernet SAN using Dell Storage PS Series Arrays | BP1008
5 Best practice recommendations
The results presented in this paper indicate that attention must be paid to some important SAN design
considerations when integrating of 10Gb PS Series arrays into an existing 1Gb PS Series SAN.
 When integrating 10Gb switches into your existing 1Gb environment, utilize stacking on both sets of
switches if possible, and connect the stacked switches using split uplink LAG to create a highly
available switch fabric.
 When connecting 1Gb switches and 10Gb switches together where either or both speed switches do
not support stacking, be aware of where Rapid Spanning Tree is enabled to block links, ensuring that
10Gb traffic (i.e. PS Series inter-array data flow) never crosses the 1Gb switch.
 You must configure pools and volumes in a way that minimizes impact to I/O performance.
- If you have predominately 1Gb initiators, start upgrading your arrays to 10Gb for comparable or
better performance across almost all situations.
- If you have predominately 10Gb initiators, you should only access data and volumes residing on
10Gb arrays (from those initiators). You may see high latency and retransmit rates when 10Gb
initiators connect to 1Gb targets.
- When adding 10Gb arrays, place them in separate pools from your 1Gb arrays.