SAN Storage interview question and answers:

1. What is the difference between Raid 1 and Raid 5?

Mirroring and Parity striping across the disks.

2. What is the difference between Lun masking and Zoning?

Lun masking is hiding the LUN to specific server or Host and Zoning is specific to Operating system
for e.g Windows zoning, UNIX zoning only preferred luns can be assigned to particular Zoning

3. Give examples of few CLI commands of the Storage controller?

Different for Different storage

4. What is the meaning of IOPS? Where it plays important role?

IOPS INPUT OUTPUT PER SECOND One transaction to and fro of the server to storage. Mission
critical applications planning based on IOPS one can determine the storage,space needs.

5. Give an example of the Database configurations for Disk layout?

It differ storage to storage expected answer Raid 1+0 configurations

6. Name at least 3 ways consolidating storage improves operational efficiencies. ?

Centralized administration, Scalability, Backup/restore improvement

7. What advantages do LAN-free back up and restore deliver?

Speed up the backup/Restore, Data will not travel over LAN

8. Name at least 3 ways a SAN provides a High Availability Infrastructure.

No single point of failure, BACKUP/Restore speed, Replication/DR will be improved from Distance
point of view
9. What are the steps involved to accomplish Raid best configurations?
Size of the data, no of users, criticality of applications, cost effective of the storage requirements,
Raid 1+0

10. What is the functionality of multi pathing?

Load balancing, fail over on different path, security

11: What is the difference between SAN, NAS and DAS?

• DAS is a block device from a disk which is physically [directly] attached to the host
machine.
• You must place a filesystem upon it before it can be used.

• Technologies to do this include IDE, SCSI, SATA, etc.

• SAN is a block device which is delivered over the network.
• Like DAS you must still place a filesystem upon it before it can used.

• Technologies to do this include FibreChannel, iSCSI, FoE, etc.

• NAS is a filesystem delivered over the network.
• It is ready to mount and use.

• Technologies to do this include NFS, CIFS, AFS, etc.