Server Storage Flashcards

1
Q

storage technologies

A
  • storage device dimensions/form factors have to be considered
  • 3.5 in large form factor (LFF) hard drives are common
  • SFF disks = 2.5 in
  • storage capacity
  • read/write speed
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2
Q

HDDs

A
  • magnetic disk drives
  • vacuum sealed
  • contain multiple platters
  • spinning disks
  • read/write heads on actuator arm for each platter
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3
Q

RPMs (HDDs)

A
  • faster disk spins
  • quicker read/write times
  • norm for desktop disks = 7200
  • norm for laptop disks = 5400
  • faster server HDDs = 15000
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4
Q

seek time (HDDs)

A

position of the read/write head over the disk platter determines time to locate data on disk

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5
Q

rotational latency

A
  • disk platter must spin to correct position to read/write before data is transferred
  • usually measured in fractions of a second
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6
Q

bus width (HDDs)

A
  • amount of bits that can be transferred simultaneously

- fast disk transmission technologies often use serial rather than parallel transmission schemes

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7
Q

IOPS (HDDs)

A
  • input/output operations per second
  • how often a disk can perform I/O operations depends on the specific workload
  • generally more IOPS is better
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8
Q

transfer rate (HDDs)

A

per second rate at which data is moved into/out of disks indicates the speed of data transfer

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9
Q

SSDs

A
  • solid state drives
  • no moving parts
  • more expensive than HDDs
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10
Q

SATA

A
  • serial advanced technology attachment interface

- used to connect both SSDs and HDDs

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11
Q

SSDs in cloud

A
  • premium pricing when SSD is used

- opting for disk with higher IOPS value

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12
Q

SSHDs

A
  • hybrid drives
  • combination of hard disk/solid state
  • spinning platters and faster flash memory
  • cache frequently accessed data on flash memory
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13
Q

storage tiers

A
  • valuable data should be quickly accessible
  • storage tier policies to determine which type of data will be stored on which specific storage media
  • hierarchical storage management (HSM)
  • place tiered storage capabilities in front of SAN storage
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14
Q

SAS (disk interface)

A
  • serial-attached SCSI
  • serial bit transmission
  • hot-pluggable
  • newer iteration of older SCSI standard
  • more expensive than SATA
  • smaller storage capacity than SATA
  • designed for constant use
  • often used for servers
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15
Q

SATA (disk interface)

A
  • serial ATA
  • serial bit transmission
  • not designed for constant use
  • used often in personal workstations
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16
Q

eSATA (disk interface)

A
  • similar to SATA
  • interface connector is external to the device
  • some devices have built in eSATA port
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17
Q

SCSI (disk interface)

A
  • small computer system interface
  • parallel bit transmission
  • used often for servers
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18
Q

USB (disk interface)

A
  • universal serial bus
  • serial bit transmission
  • convenient external connectivity
  • used often in personal workstations
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19
Q

FC (disk interface)

A
  • fibre channel
  • used in SANs
  • host bus adapters are required in server to access SAN storage
  • used often for servers
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20
Q

serial bit transmission

A

sends data bits one after another over a single channel

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21
Q

parallel bit transmission

A

sends multiple data bits simultaneously over multiple channels

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22
Q

optical drives

A
  • CD/Blu-ray/DVD
  • write once ready many (WORM) media
  • server may require optical drive to boot from for recovery purposes/install OS
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23
Q

cloud storage

A
  • can provision/deprovision storage instantly
  • only pay for the storage needed
  • legal/regulatory restrictions on public cloud storage
  • on-premise storage can back up to cloud
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24
Q

DAS

A
  • direct attached storage
  • storage disks are housed inside the server chassis
  • storage disks only available locally to that server
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25
Q

NAS

A
  • network attached storage
  • SMB (Windows)
  • NFS (Linux)
  • CIFS
  • use of higher layer protocols distinguishes NAS from SANs
  • servers connect to NAS storage over standard network equipment/using standard protocols
  • SANs = highly specialized high-speed networks designed to transmit disk I/O traffic using protocols designed for this use
  • NAS can be hardware appliances/servers configured for this purpose
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26
Q

CIFS

A
  • common internet file system

- specific implementation of SMB

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27
Q

iSCI

A
  • internet small computer system interface
  • makes storage accessible to hosts over standard TCP/IP network on a small scale
  • less expensive
  • slower
  • less reliable
  • requires separate network segment/VLAN
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28
Q

iSCSI initiators

A
  • can be implemented as hardware/software
  • hardware initiators support enhanced options i.e. server booting the OS over network
  • initiator needs network address/port to contact target
  • specify logical unit number (LUN) using iSCSI qualified name (IQN) after connection is established
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29
Q

iSCSI

A
  • hosts disk space on IP network
  • disk spaced consumed by servers
  • allocated blocks of disk space = LUNs
  • iSCSI LUNs can also be consumed by some client OS
30
Q

FCoE

A
  • fibre channel over ethernet
  • places disk commands into ethernet frames
  • requires converged network adapters (CNAs)
  • requires FCoE switches
  • requires copper/fiber optic cables
31
Q

FC host bust adapter (HBA)

A
  • enables VMs to communicate with SAN
  • installed on hypervisor host
  • unique 16-digit hexadecimal identifier called world wide node name (WWNN)
  • can have multiple ports
  • each port can connect to different FC switches for redundancy
32
Q

SANs

A
  • separate storage from individual hosts
  • hosts connect to storage over network
  • storage appears to be a local device to host
  • use specialized network equipment/network storage protocols i.e. FC
33
Q

fabric

A
  • FC switch with a single WWNN plus a WWPN for each port

- storage arrays connected to FC switches

34
Q

LUNs

A
  • administrators configure LUNs and LUN masks to determine which servers can use which configured storage
  • LUN uniquely identifies disk space on the storage array
  • LUN mask is usually configured at the HBA level (prevent Windows server from seeing LUNs used by Linux servers)
35
Q

zoning

A
  • larger SANs use instead of LUN masking
  • configured at FC switch level
  • doesn’t apply to FCoE or iSCSI
  • groups nodes into zones
  • enables controlling LUN visibility to all nodes in the same zone
  • use separate VLANs to achieve this with FCoE or iSCSI
36
Q

necessary features of cloud storage

A
  • pool of resources shared by multiple tenants
  • IT services available on demand from anywhere using any device
  • rapid elasticity
  • user provisioning/deprovisioning
  • metered services
37
Q

VSS

A
  • volume shadow service
  • volume shadow copy service
  • enables data backup without requiring applications to be taken offline during backup
38
Q

disk quotas

A
  • limit how much disk space is used in a folder/by user
  • soft quotas don’t enforce quota but create log entry
  • hard quotas are enforced
39
Q

thin provisioning

A
  • overbooking/overcommitted disk space
  • admin adds storage to server
  • multiple disk volumes are created and thinly provisioned to include all storage space added to server
  • volumes will use disk space as they grow
  • don’t have to know storage needs in advance
  • limited to total disk space physically available
40
Q

compression

A
  • compression tools save space by reducing redundant occurrences of data
  • Windows/Linux servers use GUI/command line to work with compression
  • Windows compact command
  • Linux gzip command
41
Q

data deduplication

A
  • remove redundant data blocks to conserve space
  • Windows server includes data deduplication for NTFS volumes
  • tools to measure current disk space usage
  • Microsoft file server resource manager (FSRM)
42
Q

Windows image files

A
  • .WIM standard file type

- save storage space by storing multiple images of the same OS within a single file (single-instance storage)

43
Q

DISM

A
  • deployment image servicing and management
  • DISM.exe
  • tool to work with Windows image files
44
Q

image management tools

A
  • DISM
  • imagex.exe
  • Microsoft development toolkit (MDT)
  • Microsoft system center configuration manager (SCCM)
45
Q

RAID configuration

A
  • redundant array of independent disks
  • enables grouping multiple physical disks together as a logical unit
  • improved I/O
  • fault tolerance
  • hardware RAID support usually integrated on server motherboards
  • can get expansion cards (RAID controllers)
  • software RAID is built into server OS
46
Q

dynamic disks

A
  • required for using software RAID in Windows
  • disks start as basic disks
  • prompted to convert to dynamic disks when configuring software RAID levels
47
Q

hardware RAID array controllers

A
  • often have battery-backed caches
  • cached data is committed to disk after system crashed and is rebooted
  • use redundant RAID controllers
48
Q

RAID 0

A
  • uses disk striping
  • requires at least 2 disks
  • data to be written to disk is broken into blocks (stripes) that are evenly written across the disk array
  • improves disk I/O performance
  • offers no fault tolerance
49
Q

RAID 1

A
  • uses disk mirroring
  • requires at least 2 disks
  • data written to disk partition on 1 disk is also written to a disk partition on a different disk
  • can use only 50% of disk space
  • tolerates disk failure
  • doesn’t replace backups
50
Q

RAID 5

A
  • uses disk striping with distributed parity
  • requires at least 3 disks
  • data is striped and evenly written across the disk array
  • stores parity (error recovery) information for each stripe on a separate disk from its related data stripe
  • tolerates single disk failure
  • can reconstruct in memory/on demand any data from failed disk
51
Q

RAID 6

A
  • uses double parity RAID
  • requires at least 4 disks
  • data is striped and distributed evenly across the disk array
  • stores 2 parity (error recovery) strings on each disk
  • never stores parity and its related data on same disk
  • tolerates 2 disk failures
  • can reconstruct in memory/on demand any data from failed disks
52
Q

RAID 10

A
  • uses RAID level 1 then 0
  • uses disk mirroring followed by striping
  • provides fault tolerance and performance
  • requires at least 4 disks
  • stripes data across mirrored pairs
  • tolerates multiple disk failures and long as they are not in the same mirrored pair
  • useful for busy databases
53
Q

making storage space usable

A
  • initialize disks
  • partition disks
  • formatting partitions with a particular file system
54
Q

disk initialization

A
  • master boot record (MBR)

- GUID partition table (GPT)

55
Q

disk management tools for Windows

A
  • diskpart.exe
  • GUI disk management
  • server manager
56
Q

disk management tools for Linux

A
  • fdisk command (MBR)
  • gdisk command (GPT)
  • logical volume management (LVM)
57
Q

LVM

A
  • logical volume management

- used to group physical disks together upon which logical volumes can be created

58
Q

file systems supported by Windows server

A
  • file allocation table (FAT)
  • FAT32
  • extended FAT (exFAT)
  • new technology file system (NTFS)
  • resilient file system (ReFS)
59
Q

NTFS

A
  • supersedes FAT/FAT32
  • journaled file system
  • supports compression/encryption/file system security/larger file and partition sizes/user disk quotas
60
Q

FAT32/exFAT

A
  • most commonly used with removable storage

- can format flash drives as NTFS

61
Q

ReFS

A
  • newer system
  • designed to be more resilient to file system corruption
  • ability to scan for/correct file system corruption while disk volume is mounted and in use
  • doesn’t support encrypting file system (EFS)
  • doesn’t support data deduplication
  • can’t be used on an OS boot drive
62
Q

file systems supported by UNIX/Linux

A
  • UNIX file system (UFS)
  • zettabyte file system (ZFS)
  • extended file system (EXT2/EXT3/EXT4)
  • reiserFS
63
Q

EXT4/ReiserFS

A
  • common in modern Linux environments

- journaled file systems

64
Q

journaled file systems

A
  • all file system write transactions are logged before being committed to disk
  • makes file system less susceptible to corruption
65
Q

VMFS

A
  • virtual machine file system
  • specific to VMware
  • designed to support simultaneous read/write activity by cluster nodes concerning VM hard disk files/snapshots
  • enables live migration of VMs between VMware ESXi hosts with zero downtime
66
Q

CSVs

A
  • cluster shared volumes
  • supported by Microsoft failover clustering
  • enables live migration of Hyper-V VMs between clustered Hyper-V hosts with zero downtime
67
Q

hot swappable disks

A

failed disks can be replaced while everything stays running

68
Q

hot spares

A

extra disks plugged in but not currently in use

69
Q

cold spares

A
  • extra disks that can be swapped out when used disks fail

- requires that system is shut down

70
Q

most common disk interface in servers

A

SAS

71
Q

tier 2 storage

A

HDD

72
Q

VMFS benefit over NTFS

A

enable multiple cluster nodes to read/write to the same file system simultaneously