Specifications

ES/OL
Evaluator Series On-Line™
Storage Systems
Product Analysis
May, 2011
Page 7 of 30
Analysis of Fujitsu ETERNUS DX400 S2
Models DX410 and DX440
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Controllers
Both models are dual controller and use a shared PCI-Express bus architecture for communication between
the two controllers and for the attachment of the channel adapters (to the host) and device adapters (to the
drives). The controllers execute the software that runs the storage systems. Controllers can run active-
passive, or in parallel (active-active) for faster performance. The device adapters, which attach the drives to
the controller, are attached with SAS Expanders supporting 6Gbps per path.
The ETERNUS DX410 S2 has a single two-core processor per controller, and the DX440- S2 has a single
four-core processor. On the DX410, one core is assigned for processing, while the other core is used to
perform encryption and parity creation for RAID5 and RAID6. In the DX440, two cores are assigned to
processing and two cores to RAID and encryption calculations.
Host interface connectivity (Channel Adapters) for the ETERNUS DX400 S2 can be fibre channel, iSCSI, or
FCoE or a mixture. The Model DX440 S2 supports a total of 96GB of cache in 6GB increments, with the
Model DX410 S2 supporting 8 or 16GB. All configurations utilize cache split across two controller cards.
Cache is utilized for multiple purposes, including for read and write operations, as well as maintaining
information required for data protection and replication functions such as Fujitsu’s array based replication and
point in time copy data protection software. Cache is allocated dynamically, with more detail covered on page
9 under the section “Cache” in this document.
Channel Adapters
The Channel Adapters (CAs) provide fibre channel, iSCSI, and FCoE interfaces to the host (server) system.
They process commands from the host and manage accesses to the cache. The channel adapters plug into a
PCI-Express bus on the controller module. Up to eight fibre channel host connections per controller may be
installed (two quad channel adapter cards). For service, an entire controller module must be taken out of
operation (a failover to another controller module must be done) before the channel adapter is replaced. After
replacement, the controller module can be returned to service.
The channel adapters support fibre channel connectivity at 2Gbps, 4Gbps, and 8Gbps. Channel adapters
support both 1Gbps and 10Gbps iSCSI, as well as 10Gbps FCoE
Table 2 below summarizes channel adapter connectivity.
Interface
Model DX410
S2
Model DX440
S2
Number of FC (8Gb) ports
4 - 8
4 - 32
Number of iSCSI (1Gb) ports
4 - 8
4 – 16
Number of iSCSI (10Gb) ports
4 – 8
4 – 16
Number of FCoE (10Gb) ports
4 – 8
4 - 16
Table 2: ETERNUS DX400 S2 Models Host Connectivity