RE: Clarification on DISK CONFIGURATION -- MIDRANGE-L

Dare,

Comments inline:



> On Behalf Of Dare
> Subject: Clarification on DISK CONFIGURATION
>
> Hi guys,
>
> I'm on OS400 V4R5M0, AS/400 9406-510 2144, with current CUM.
>
> Need some clarification, education AND/OR suggestion(s) on my system
disk
> configuration.
>
> I have 2 ASP (ASP 1 is Mirrored and Raided) with a total of 173.1 Gig
and
> 90% threshold.
> My system ASP is 57.19Gig with 87.4692% USED.  I think the only unit
> MIRRORED in this ASP is UNIT 1.
> ASP 2 is 115.92Gig with 82.49% USED. I think this ASP is totally
RAIDED.
> The protection column for both ASPs shows all "DEVICE PARITY" except
for
> Unit 1 in ASP1 that shows "CONTROLLER".
>
> QUESTIONS:
> ==========
> 1.    Can this configuration be improved without any additional
hardware
> and system disruption?

It looks good to me.  I'm not sure what you mean by improved, do you
have a specific issue?  Generally you have disk contention issues and
capacity issues.  You don't have disk contention issues (see #2 below),
you do have capacity issues.  Most people would recommend that someone
in your situation (mid-80% capacity) start implementing a plan for
additional capacity.  You would have the choice of adding additional
drives or replacing existing drives with higher capacity drives.  You
really cannot do much to improve the disk configuration of a 510 without
system disruption.  In your case, since your drives seem to be optimally
configured, you can't do anything without changing hardware.

> 2.    My disk arm AVG % busy < 10% is this a good number and better
usage
> of these ARMS?

This is a very good number.  Generally speaking, you don't run into disk
arm contention issues until you exceed 40% or so.

> 3.    My MIRRORED disks are at 100%, if this is bad what can I do to
> improve?

I don't know the technical answer to this Dare, but I don't feel good
about it.  I would imagine that there are some things which the OS would
prefer to be on the boot disk, so it filled it up and then starting
putting things elsewhere.  It doesn't make me feel good, but I don't
have any empirical basis for that feeling.  Other than substituting
larger drives, I don't know what you would do.  I doubt that it has many
user objects on it.

> 4.    If I decided to upgrade to V5, will the MIRRORED disk be
sufficient
> to accommodate the OS?

Minimum load source for V5R1 is 2 GB, so technically you're within
guidelines.  I find your current load source at 100% to be scary
however.

> 5.    Can I safely say that my current OS is contained in my MIRRORED
> disk?

No, only those portions of the OS required to boot.  More SLIC than OS I
would imagine.

> 6.    What other suggestions or comments would you give with this
> configuration?

I don't see much external disk (9337's) anymore.  Is this a genuine IBM
9337 or a device emulating a 9337?  If they're 9337's, then you must
have two or more.  Do you have more than one device?  There might be
some things (improvements) that you could do with your external drives,
but the disk configuration doesn't make clear what those devices are.
If you don't have any problems, I wouldn't change anything.  Do you
think you have disk problems?  It would help if you stated your goals in
asking these questions.

> 7.    How do my both ASPs get used in terms of internal code libraries
and
> other libraries?

I'm not sure what you mean.  Your system stuff will be in ASP 1.
Whatever user stuff you put in ASP 2 will be in that ASP.

Regards,
Andy Nolen-Parkhouse

> Thanks for all of your input.