How many 15K RPM SAS disks would be required to provide a business critical application with 1000 IOPS?

To determine how many 15K RPM SAS disks are required to provide a business-critical application with 1000 IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second), it's essential to understand the performance characteristics of the disks involved.

15K RPM SAS disks are known for their high performance and typically provide around 150-200 IOPS per disk, depending on factors such as workload type and access patterns. For the sake of calculation, a conservative estimate of 150 IOPS per disk can be used. If a single disk provides 150 IOPS, to meet the requirement of 1000 IOPS, you would divide the total IOPS needed by the IOPS provided by a single disk.

Dividing 1000 IOPS by 150 IOPS per disk gives approximately 6.67 disks. Since you cannot have a fraction of a disk, you would need to round up to the nearest whole number, which results in 7 disks as the minimum needed. However, considering factors such as redundancy, performance overhead, and other operational requirements, it is prudent to use 8 disks to ensure that the application runs smoothly without bottlenecks and that there is adequate capacity for future growth or unexpected surges in performance needs.

Thus, the