Okay, maybe it's a bit of a hokey metaphor, but there are apparently still folks out there believe that as a result of Storage Space Networks (SANs) utilize high-speed disk technology such as RAID that they do not suffer the consequences of file fragmentation.
A SAN is a high-speed special-purpose network (or subnetwork) that interconnects a variety of information storage devices (sometimes hard drives) with data servers. They generally implement multiple physical disk drives in some form of fault tolerant disk striping (RAID), and do provide a great profit to an enterprise: as a result of stored information will not reside directly on any of a network's servers, server power is utilized for business applications and network capacity is released to the end user.
As a result of the purpose of fault tolerant disk striping is to offer redundancy, in addition to improved disk performance by splitting the I/O load, it's a standard misconception that fragmentation does not have a negative impact. But moving in a bit for a nearer look, it will be readily seen that file fragmentation will indeed impact a SAN.
Physical members in an exceedingly SAN atmosphere don't seem to be scan or written to directly by an application. Even the Windows file system sees every set of striped drives together single "logical" drive. As an application reads and writes to the current virtual setting (making new files, extending existing ones, furthermore deleting others) the files become fragmented. As a result of of this truth, fragmentation on each logical drive can have a substantial negative performance effect.
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When an I/O request is processed by the file system, there are a variety of attributes that has got to be checked which value valuable system time. If an application has got to issue multiple "unnecessary" I/O requests, as within the case of fragmentation, not solely is the processor kept busier than required, however once the I/O request has been issued, the RAID hardware and software must process it and determine to that physical member the I/O request must be directed. Intelligent RAID caching at this layer will mitigate the negative impact of physical fragmentation to varying degrees-but it will not solve the overhead caused to the operating system with the logical fragmentation.
As a result of a SAN system is made, in part, as a high-speed storage resolution, regular defragmentation could be a must. But given nowadays's demanding applications, further as the escalating variety of sites that currently operate 24X7, scheduled defragmentation cannot keep up. Fragmentation continues to occur in between scheduled runs, and in some cases isn't impacting fragmentation at all. Additionally, the negative impact of defragmentation on performance has become intolerable in the constant access of a SAN environment.
The proper defragmentation solution for SANs is one which will operate transparently, consistently, and while not scheduling. It will only utilize offered system resources, hence can haven't any negative performance impact. This essentially means that the drives among a SAN stay defragmented repeatedly, and most performance and reliability are assured.
Thus yes, SANs undoubtedly do suffer from fragmentation. A fully automatic, transparent defragmentation resolution is the simplest answer.
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Lic Robertson has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in speed reading, you can also check out his latest website about:
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