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Simple Rules for Tuning SSA Devices

  • Put the busiest disks in the center of the loop, to give the less active disks a chance to transfer information.
  • When using RAID 1 or RAID 1+0, make sure that half the disks are closest to one port, and the other half of the disks are closest to the other port.
  • Try not to put more than 32 disks per loop and balance the disks between the two loops.
  • Use the fast-write cache, especially for RAID 5 arrays.
  • Check the queue_depth on the SSA adapter.
  • Make sure all the disks in a RAID array are the same speed and capacity.
  • Set the enclosure name to something meaningful.
  • Keep all the microcode and filesets current.