[NTLUG:Discuss] SCSI performance question

[Robert Parkhurst]

I've used SCSI a lot, but mostly in the "lower-end" area (external CD/DVD
SCSI drives, external SCSI hard drive or even a small SCSI external disk
pack).  I'm curious though how SCSI would perform if you had a lot of large
disk arrays attached off a single SCSI bus/adapter?

Specifically, say I had an LSI SCSI adapter (Ultra-320, PCI-e (x8)) that
could have 32 SCSI devices attached to it.  And I attached 31x16TB external
SCSI enclosures (like the JetStor SCSI unit or something) off that one
adapter and then used Linux to make an LVM striped volume over all of them
and formatted it with something like ReiserFS or XFS.  Would I see a
(noticeable) performance hit on it?

And if so, what's a good "recommended" max for attaching storage like that
to a single SCSI controller?




Thanks in advance!


Robert