Nimble SAN

[Snuffkins]

Hi All,

 

I'm currently in the process of replacing our storage.

 

I've looked at Dell Equalogic and HP at the moment, both fine for our needs, but then i stumbled upon the Nimble Solutions. The literature made them come across as a very good option, so i had a look on here.

 

I'm guessing because they are relatively new there isn't very much information about them. I was wondering if anyone could provide any feedback from experience of the using their solutions and what their support is like etc. should they have needed to use it?

 

Also from anyone who has used the equipment could you recommened any good suppliers of Nimble as i have only found a couple, of which i've had no experience of working with to date.

 

Many thanks,

 

Phill.

[nicholab]

From of what I have seen Nimble is the technology of choice at the moment so go with them. They seem to be able to do what schools what is high performance and high storage at ok costs.

[chazzy2501]

FROM £15000! I spent £4500 on my HP.. £15,000 is my entire budget. it's alright for some.

[Soulfish]

Yup from what I've heard Nimble are one of the smaller players punching above their weight. Suspect they'll be gobbled up by HP/Dell/EMC/IBM in the next 12-24 months

[cpjitservices]

We use thsse:

 

Flash based.

 

Nimbus Data: Leader in Sustainable Storage®

[clodhopper]

Have a look at DNUK (https://secure.dnuk.com/store/storage-disk.php), we have 3 of there SAN's and they just work.

[Snuffkins]

So not many people so far have had actual experience with Nimbles solutions. I know their price point looks a little steep, but from what I can see so far, it may well be worth the investment. Hopefully there are a couple of people that can provide some feedback from here.

 

Thanks for your comments so far.

 

Phill.

[Tallwood_6]

I have a webex with tomorrow looking a Nimble which should hopefully prove insightful but on the surface it looks pretty good.

[Snuffkins]

I have a webex with tomorrow looking a Nimble which should hopefully prove insightful but on the surface it looks pretty good.

 

I've got one booked in for Friday. After you've had the webex i'd be interested to have your thoughts on the them and the solution. It's hard with out seeing it under real world workloads though of course.

[Tallwood_6]

Had the webex and it looks impressive, just waiting for some rough pricing, unfortunatly the look to be a bit more expensive than the equallogic and lefthand units we have looked at before and adding 10gbit apparently bumps the price up quite a bit. Its relatively new company as well so there is always that prospect that they might get swallowed up.

[VeryPC_Ed]

I don't know if you guys have looked at a Windows based ISCSI SAN ?

 

We've been doing them based on Supermicro for ages with Starwind ISCSI SAN and depending on your requirement they can be considerably cheaper than some of the off the shelf brands.

 

If anyone wants to PM over your requirement, i'd be more than happy to have a look at what options are available.

 

Ed

 

.

[Net-Ctrl]

have you considered looking at Overland Storage at all? We have sold a fair bit now into education and we have had some great feedback, and it has been chosen over the Dell and HP solutions.

[RTFM]

We have 2x NetApp 2040 and they are awesome

[Snuffkins]

We have 2x NetApp 2040 and they are awesome

 

I have looked at a NetApp offering, but for the same price point I wouldn't think it would provide the same performance, although i've yet to see it in person with real life workloads etc. Obviously more money could be spent on another solution and scaled, but then it wouldn't fit into the budget. I agree though, lovely kit and has some managebility features that if my setup was more complex may be worth going down that route instead.

 

It also seems as though i'd save space and power with the Nimble option though. From research my only slight concern is the use of SuperMicro hardware. Not that there is anything wrong with it of course, but how reliable will it be in comparison. Saying that though looking at all the statistics so far it's very positive and they have a very promising looking support structure, but only having been around in this country for a couple of years, i suppose the hardware hasn't yet proven the test of time like the likes of NetApp etc.

 

If there's any other feedback for Nimble that would be most useful, although i'm pretty set on going down that route now.

Edited June 12, 2013 by Snuffkins

[Tallwood_6]

Providing I can persuade the powers that be I think we will be going Nimble, they have completely sold me on both performance and capacity vs the likes of an equallogic or lefthand. The SANs base around a supermicro hardware doesn't bother me, my only slight concern is over support turn around ( mitigated by having some spare disks on site) and the prospect of them being gobbled up by a larger player.

[Snuffkins]

It looks like we will go with Nimble as well. I have been very impressed with it's performance and capacity for the price in comparison to traditional architectures as well. I'm not actually worried about the support element as long as it's as pro-active as they say it is, but yes having cold spares is always a good option.

[Tallwood_6]

We have been been impressed enough to place an order for install over the summer holidays, lets hope it lives up the the hype! They do do a 4 hour call out option but we have just go with some spare hardware onsite and next day support.

[pantscat]

We're due to replace out Netapp next Summer and I've been keeping an eye on Nimble for the last 12 months or so - it looks really good and cost seems to compare well with Netapp.

 

I'd be very interested to hear how you find the kit once you've got it installed!

[Tallwood_6]

I will keep you posted, its a bit of shame we arnt using it for VDI or something that will really task it straight away.