Servers and SAN

[Paid_Peanuts]

Just out of interest, does anyone here use VMWare's vSAN? I'm in a position where I need to look at storage and have been looking at this, but can't see how it actually works.

 

vSAn is very good by VMware, however the licensing costs are high and the annual support is expensive. To give you an idea we had a price for 3 dual core hosts, including 5 years support the cost for vSAN standard came out at almost £14k. For advanced license (includes dedupe and compression) including 5 years SnS came to approx £24k.

[Paid_Peanuts]

I could be wrong but I believe vSAN is being discontinued next year.

 

VMware aren't discontinuing vSAN that I know of or have heard after speaking to lots of VMware partners. Quite the opposite actually, from what I've been told VMware see vSAN as one of their biggest USPs moving forward. Their are lots of big boys out there using vSAN.

[Tefters]

If I was to go down a new SAN route I would be looking into NetApp personally

[Paid_Peanuts]

If I was to go down a new SAN route I would be looking into NetApp personally

 

Recently got a NetApp quote. They wanted more for the storage alone then the likes of Dell or IBM wanted for their entire solution (3 hosts, iSCSI switches and SAN).

I told NetApp in no uncertain terms, if they couldn't revise the price then not to contact me again. Suffice to say I haven't heard back.

[Tefters]

Surely you just need the SAN? In terms of infrastructure (switches etc...) and hard drives, you would just buy yourself and do?

[NB9457]

Surely you just need the SAN? In terms of infrastructure (switches etc...) and hard drives, you would just buy yourself and do?

 

The tricky thing with supplying your own HDDs with things like SANs is it could affect your warranty and big name manufacturers tend to have'certified' drives. I'm sure some companies limit features too if you don't buy their 'special' drives. Plus when spending that much on something, you'd want it to be complete, working and guaranteed.

[Paid_Peanuts]

Surely you just need the SAN? In terms of infrastructure (switches etc...) and hard drives, you would just buy yourself and do?

 

Huh?

Not sure I understand what your saying?

The point I was making was NetApp supplied me with a quote for something daft, in the order of £50k! For nothing more special than Dell/IBM have quoted for. Looking at the SAN element alone, Dell and IBM are less that 30% of the NetApp quote.

[nicholab]

My view is I would get a Nimble if it was hardware or Datacore if it is software solution I am looking at getting. In today's market I would go software as are server number are like to decrease as the cloud becomes more important. The server and storage should only be about 4-6U.

[lmrogers]

So I am looking at Intel Server Chassis H2224XXLR3 2U with SSD storage. Has anyone used this hyper converged system yet? I'm interested to know more about how it works and the pros and cons?

 

Cheers,

[nicholab]

So I am looking at Intel Server Chassis H2224XXLR3 2U with SSD storage. Has anyone used this hyper converged system yet? I'm interested to know more about how it works and the pros and cons?

 

Cheers,

 

Look at the HP solution for a school hp 380 hyper converged looks possibility. My view is get two boxes from ICT direct and use datacore.

 

Generally schools need storage less than compute.

 

https://www.realwire.com/releases/UK-Educational-Institutions-Turn-to-DataCore-to-Overcome-IT-Challenges

[mavhc]

Look at the HP solution for a school hp 380 hyper converged looks possibility. My view is get two boxes from ICT direct and use datacore.

 

Generally schools need storage less than compute.

 

https://www.realwire.com/releases/UK-Educational-Institutions-Turn-to-DataCore-to-Overcome-IT-Challenges

 

Well, you wouldn't want non hyper converged virtual sans.

 

Did you mean more storage than compute?

[nicholab]

Yep more storage than compute. Then the storage is only hot for that user a couple of times a week. There is also scale out file server which can be used to build a hyper converged Windows only environment. Edited February 18, 2018 by nicholab

[mavhc]

Buzzword bingo!

 

So basically buy a load of computers with cpus and ram and network and drives in, and then use software to make them act like 1 big computer.

 

Anyone looked at https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Hyper-converged_Infrastructure ?

[snagrat]

Is no one looking at Storage Spaces Direct?

 

Just setting up S2D cluster at a customer this weekend. It seems a very good solution

[FN-GM]

Is no one looking at Storage Spaces Direct?

 

Just setting up S2D cluster at a customer this weekend. It seems a very good solution

I am looking at using it to replace my current SAN and servers. Not done enough research into it yet to decide if I will go ahead.

[snagrat]

I am looking at using it to replace my current SAN and servers. Not done enough research into it yet to decide if I will go ahead.

 

Only gotcha we had which we figure before we even went to install was the need for the drives to be HBA and not go through any raid controller.

 

Don’t even think you can bodge it and put the RAID in pass-thru or JBOD because Windows will always see it as RAID and not use those disks

[mavhc]

You can often configure your RAID device to a HBA, sometimes you have to reflash it with a different firmware.

 

Storage Spaces Direct seems way too new, MS removed it from 1709 due to bugs. It'll be back later I guess. Meanwhile ZFS is over 10 years old.

[FN-GM]

I will be selected Microsoft certified hardware, so I should be all ok with that kind of thing. Dell have a range of certified hardware that I am currently looking at. Edited February 18, 2018 by FN-GM

[matte53]

@FN-GM, Have you made any decisions yet?

 

I'm quite interested in something similar to replace an ageing SAN & two host VM Ware setup.

[FN-GM]

I have. I will be ordering this week. It will be a storage spaces direct setup.

 

It is worth noting that Dell include setup in the cost when you buy S2D certified hardware.

Edited June 19, 2018 by FN-GM

[ITGURU]

SANs have never, or will ever be on my list of hardware. if your going for full redundancy it's your Single point of failure of your entire network unless you have 2. I've inherited networks before where theres been 2 hosts, 2 switches, all cross linked for host/nic/switch redundancy but if the SAN failed, what would you do?! Let alone seeing them configured in a raid 5.

I'll be staying with physical servers and local storage, at least if you lose a server you only lose part of your network, utilizing DFS and replication, redundancy is there.

 

TBH all SANs i've inherited, they've always split the entire array of drives into 2 raid 5 volumes and performance is no where near that of physical drives local to servers.

Edited June 19, 2018 by ITGURU

[FN-GM]

SANs have never, or will ever be on my list of hardware. if your going for full redundancy it's your Single point of failure of your entire network unless you have 2. I've inherited networks before where theres been 2 hosts, 2 switches, all cross linked for host/nic/switch redundancy but if the SAN failed, what would you do?! Let alone seeing them configured in a raid 5.

I'll be staying with physical servers and local storage, at least if you lose a server you only lose part of your network, utilizing DFS and replication, redundancy is there.

 

TBH all SANs i've inherited, they've always split the entire array of drives into 2 raid 5 volumes and performance is no where near that of physical drives local to servers.

 

If you have a decent SAN with multiple power supplies and controllers and RAID you should be ok. The only common factor is the physical metal chassis and the connectors on the drive. I doubt all connectors will go at once and if something goes wrong with the metal chassis you probably have bigger issues!

[ITGURU]

If you have a decent SAN with multiple power supplies and controllers and RAID you should be ok. The only common factor is the physical metal chassis and the connectors on the drive. I doubt all connectors will go at once and if something goes wrong with the metal chassis you probably have bigger issues!

 

Especially if it's a Dell - Unless their reliability has improved over the years! Quite happy with some of my 7+ year old HP servers out of their 3 year warranty still performing as necessary without a drive or any kind of hardware failure. I have trust in them.

[Norphy]

I've been using Dell SANs of one description (Equallogic in the past, Compellent now) or another for upwards of ten years. I won't say that I've never had issues with them but they've been reliable and always performed well. I have trust in those as well.

[Paid_Peanuts]

I've been using Dell SANs of one description (Equallogic in the past, Compellent now) or another for upwards of ten years. I won't say that I've never had issues with them but they've been reliable and always performed well. I have trust in those as well.

 

Would echo that statement. Been using Dell for upwards of 13 years now and 100% faith in their kit. Currently have a compellent and it’s he best thing we’ve ever had.

As for HP the only place they have in my organisation is in the switching.