Windows Knowledge Base

[VMAX] EMC VMAX - Some Key Points about VMAX

The Symmetrix VMAX system is the high-end, scalable storage array with a system
bay and separate rollup storage bays.
The system scales from a single Symmetrix VMAX Engine system with one storage

bay to a large eight engine system and a maximum of ten storage bays. On-line
system upgrades are achieved by adding single or multiple VMAX Engines or
additional storage bays. Each VMAX Engine contains two Symmetrix VMAX
directors with extensive CPU processing power, physical memory, front-end ports,
and back-end ports. Drive capacity is increased by installing 4 Gb/s disk array
enclosures (DAEs) to the storage bay.

Below are some key points about EMC Symmetrix VMAX.
1. V-MAX engine is The building block of EMC Vmax.
2. Each engine has its own redundant
-Power supplies
-Cooling fans
-Standby Power Supply
-Environmental modules
3. A pair of Directors in the same drawer which is quite the same as EMC Clariion line product.
4. For VMAX, Quad-core Xeon 2.3GHz (5410) processors is used in Engine Directors. Newer model may use feature Intel Nehalem 5500 processors
FYI, VMAX-SE director only use Single CPU.

5. Engine Memory/Cache
with option of 32/64/128GB of global memory for each engine(16/32/64GB per director). The global memory access is handled by EMC ASIC.
what is important to know is:
- Read and writes are mirrored for protection. in the real world, really just the write IO need to be protected by Mirroring. So this will introduce a certain level of overhead.
- It uses 64 KB cache page size, which will introduce more cache space loss in OLTP applications.
6. Each Engine has 4 back-end I/O modules which provides 16 drive channels per engine. 4 front-end I/O modules that provides 16 host channels per engine

7. VMAX Engine IO Port Module

8. Drive Enclosure/storage module
- Up 15 disk drives per DAE
- Link control cards connected to 2 VMAX directors (redundant connection)
- Daisy chain with other DAEs in the loop
- Up to 5 drive enclosures per loop with 4Gbps back-end fibre interface
- Each loop support from 15 up to 75 disk drives
9. VMAX Sysmtem/Storage Bay
- Up to 10 storage bays/frames
- 8 to 16 Drive Enclosure (DE) per frame
- Up to 4 directly connected storage bays/frames (2x DMX4) and up to 6 daisy chain connected storage bays/frames
48 to 2400 disk drives per VMAX
- Maximum capacity up to 2PB(1TB SATA disk)

10. Maximum number of disk drives per V-Max engine
- 240 disk drives on V-Max engines 3, 4, 5, & 6
- 2 Drive Enclosures (30 disk drives) per loop
- 360 disk drives on V-Max engines 1, 2, 7 & 8
- 3 Drive Enclosures (45 disk drives) per loop


Optional configurations are possible