× The internal search function is temporarily non-functional. The current search engine is no longer viable and we are researching alternatives.
As a stop gap measure, we are using Google's custom search engine service.
If you know of an easy to use, open source, search engine ... please contact support@midrange.com.



My Perspective: Small Businesses. Below 20k CHF per Machine.

Regarding Storage and IO, the System i has several storage management
features which are not Standard in that price class.

The good things about System i storage:

A baseline 520 offers the ability to add, and remove disks from a
storage pool (called ASP) without having to save and reload any data.
While extending of storage pools in the pc world (called Volumes) is
usually possibly, shrinking them is seldomly an option. There is also a
very intelligent data distribution over multiple disks, which is usually
only available in advanced SAN systems, the System I offers those by
default.

The System i also always aware of all the disks it has - this is usually
not the case with a x86 server, where the RAID controller presents
abstracted logical disks to the Operating System. This allows the System
i to figure out disk related performance bottlenecks much easier.

Another feature the System I offers in that field is RAID level
migration. Migrating your setup from mirroring to RAID is possibly
without having to save and reload your entire system. This feature is
getting on it's foots in the PC World, but is currently mostly available
in the enterprise segment, not in the SMB segment.

The bad things about System i storage:

When looking at disk performance, and controller features, the System I
doesn't really differ from a x86 server at half the price point - it has
BBWC RAID controllers with their own CPU, it has 15kRPM disks, etc.

What the System i is currently lacking in the storage area are 2.5" SAS
disks, which would allow for more disks in the gigantic base unit. The
System I also doesn't have iSCSI support, which is what entry level SANs
in the Small Business world usually use. Disk Storage is also completely
overpriced, at least 3 times a normal x86 server disk, with exactly the
same specifications.

The bad things about the System i in general:

There are is wrong thing which is completely wrong with the System i,
and this will probably kill it off in the small business market over the
long run.

The price.

The System i is overpriced as hell. A baseline express 520 costs 20k
CHF. That's 16'000 US dollars. Yes, it includes a complete RDBMS with
unlimited users. No, that doesn't matter. It also includes a castrated
1.9Ghz, which has 23% of it's original performance, and comes with 1 GB
of RAM, which isn't even enough for the operating system. The system
also comes with a shitty tape drive (SLR60), offering 30GB of net
capacity, on a tape drive I haven't seen anywhere except the System i. A
backup software is not included in this price, neither is a development
environment, nor query, nor anything else. It also comes with 2x36GB
15kRPM disks, which can barely hold the OS. For additional 4000CHF, you
can get QU1, WDS, and ST1.

For half that price, 10kCHF, you can get a x86 server from IBM or HP in
a normal form factor (2U), with two 2 Ghz dual core CPUs, with 8GB of
RAM, and with 4x147GB 10kRPM Disk storage. This includes an LTO2 Tape,
offering 400GB net capacity on an industry standard tape. For only
1200CHF, you can get Microsoft small business server for 5 Users,
including SQL Server 2005, ISA Server, Exchange Server. Additional users
are 1500CHF per 5 additional users. A basic development environment
(Visual Studio 2005 Express) is available free of charge.

And as always, the question is not "buy a system I or a windows server",
because you need a windows server anyway (or are there shops which only
have 5250 Terminals, without E-Mail, without Web?).

Buying a System I aequivalent in performance to a 10kCHF Windows Servers
costs about 150kCHF. This is INSANE.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of albartell
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 3:44 PM
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: iSeries specific benefit - Disk IO performance

Hi all,

I have started a side project to document (sometimes only mentally) the
benefits to owning an iSeries in an effort to learn why it is really
better
than other platforms. I am pursuing this because I don't want to
blindly
accept the platform as the best ever without knowing from where I speak.

With that said I just got done reading the following article from Alexei
Pytel concerning disk performance on i5/OS:
http://www.systeminetwork.com/artarchive/index.cfm?fuseaction=PrintArtic
le
<http://www.systeminetwork.com/artarchive/index.cfm?fuseaction=PrintArti
cle&
CO_ContentID=20870> &CO_ContentID=20870

What intrigued me was the caching mechanisms the i5 has including
everything
down to having a dedicated battery to retain records that haven't yet
been
written to disk in the event of a power failure (do a search for NVS in
above article for reference).

It would be my guess that a Wintel box DOES NOT have this intimate disk
IO
and performance tunage. Would that be a true statement, or is it a
"depends
on where you buy your hardware" type deal?

I would love to start an online list of feature comparisons where the
i5, in
its entirety, is compared to other platforms (most specifically
Wintel/.NET
implementations), and this would be one such entry that most might not
think
of initially but in the end can be considered a plus that the i5 has
over
other architectures/platforms/implementations. Often times comparisons
are
done at the application tier (i.e. RPG vs. .NET/Java) and the whole
picture
isn't taken into consideration.

Thoughts? Comments?
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

This thread ...

Follow-Ups:
Replies:

Follow On AppleNews
Return to Archive home page | Return to MIDRANGE.COM home page

This mailing list archive is Copyright 1997-2024 by midrange.com and David Gibbs as a compilation work. Use of the archive is restricted to research of a business or technical nature. Any other uses are prohibited. Full details are available on our policy page. If you have questions about this, please contact [javascript protected email address].

Operating expenses for this site are earned using the Amazon Associate program and Google Adsense.