Allen is correct: lots of write back cache and you are good to go.

The better solution IMHO is to use some fast SAS or FC disk as
traditional disk device class pool fronting a bunch of SATA file device
class.  You can then control the number of streams writing to the SATA
disks and keep them in their happy place: serial I/O.

We have probably 30 customers or so that are using various amounts (up
to 200TB) of SATA disks in their STORServer/TSM environments.  Most, if
not all, are very happy with their backup and restore performance.  For
the larger sites, we're implementing some fast SAS or FC disk in front
of SATA and improving performance by a bunch.

My opinion: go forth and SATA baby! 


Kelly J. Lipp
VP Manufacturing & CTO
STORServer, Inc.
485-B Elkton Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
719-266-8777
lipp AT storserver DOT com

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of
Allen S. Rout
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 12:55 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] SATA disk?

>> On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 13:09:31 -0500, Johnny Lea <jlea AT DIS.UMSMED DOT EDU>
said:


> I thinking the speed (7200 RPM) may be a problem.


Good cache obviates that.  SATA is good for serial workloads, so if
you're sending few (maybe <10) streams to it simultaneously, you should
be good.

It'll suffer faster under heavy random access contention than will e.g.
FC disk.


- Allen S. Rout