SAN - NetApp vs Dell vs HP

[Marshall_IT]

Hi All,

 

I'm currently looking for a new SAN and have been offered among other things the following;

 

NetApp E2724

Dell Equallogic PS4210X

HP MSA 2040

 

I have cut it down to these 3 suggestions as all the others are either too expensive or do not quite meet my needs.

 

Any experiences that you guys have of these companies / models would be of a great help.

 

thanks.

[bossman]

@Marshall_IT

 

Is it actually a SAN that you require, they are becoming less and less a requirement these days as they are so expensive compared to Hybrid NAS/SAN units.

 

Have you tried these

 

They may have what your looking for at a fraction of the cost.

[Marshall_IT]

It could potentially meet my requirement, however i don't know anyone who has based their entire virtualised network on these systems.

Because it is such a critical part of the environment i'd be happier sticking with a known and tested system from a player with historically good success at delivering and support.

 

I have an older model that i'm using as a backup location for the SAN i will be buying.

[bossman]

@Marshall_IT

 

I've been running VMs on ours for 6-9 months now with no problems, we have had the unit over a year but this is with just SATA 4TB WD Reds X 24 which gives us 32TB of staorage which I have carved up into 3 x 11TB LUNs and our Xenserver just connects via ISCSi sweet!

 

Cost £4k complete.

 

The new models can support both SSDs and 8TB SATA so you can mix and use the SSDs for caching with not much difference in price but you do lose a little storage.

 

I would give them a ring and see what they can do for you as I think you might be pleasantly surprised.....Oh BTW they also have a 5 years warranty with all models.

[Marshall_IT]

That looks really good, really worth considering.

[nicholab]

Have you considered scale out file server in a support setup? Normally in a cluster in a box configuration.