RE: Disk storage - iSeries/Windows/UNIX

Hi Ken -

The short answer, yes the iSeries does use a different block size than
Unix or Windows, but this is done when you format the drives, so it's
really a software function.  If you want a non-IBM source, EMC (
http://www.emc.com/products/systems/DMX_series.jsp ) has been doing this
for years.  

Once your storage unit has been formatted and the space has been
allotted to your different architectures you can easily share it between
platforms, even with the different block sizes, using NFS or
Netserver/Samba.

Regards,
 
Scott Ingvaldson
iSeries System Administrator
GuideOne Insurance Group

-----Original Message-----
date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 05:18:15 -0800
from: "Graap, Ken" <keg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Disk storage - iSeries/Windows/UNIX

We are looking into partitioning an iSeries in order to host OS400,
Linux
and at the same time using some integrated xSeries servers to also
include
Windows in the picture... The intent is to share resources, especially
disk
resources...

Our UNIX administrator asked the following question that I don't have an
answer for... Can anyone help me?

Here is her question:

I believe the AS/400 (she means iSeries) uses a different blocksize than
the
UNIX and Windows worlds -- 520K vs 512K.  That is why purchasing a SAN
(from
a non-IBM source) that would work across all three of our architectures
proves very expensive.  So, could you confirm if the blocksize is, in
fact,
different between the different platforms, and what effect this has on
how
storage can be allocated between them in your proposed architecture?

Thanx in advance .... 

Kenneth

****************************************
Kenneth E. Graap
IBM Certified Specialist 
AS/400e Professional System Administrator