Storage Suggestions for Backup and Vmware Datastores

[fox1977]

Hi there,

 

I am currently looking at our DR strategy and looking to phase out tapes and moved to disk based backup with offsite storage. I need to backup a full weekly backup of about 700gb.

 

I am looking for any recommendations for hardware. Ideally I am after an ISCSI device that I can split 50/50 as vmware datastores for 20-30 light VMs and a backup partition.

 

I have two sites and ideally I would like to have a box at either end and replicate between the two devices. We currently have an EMC AX4 at one end and I tempted to look at EMC options but fear they may be quite pricey to enable replication features. Anyone any experiences

 

I have been looking at the top end qnap devices but on their forums people saying iscsi is flakey and need to use NFS. Anyone any hardware recommendations? Happy to look at all options but any NAS options would need to be bullet proof as I have had far too many experiences with dodgy nas devices!

[Duke]

Check out the Oracle Sun S7000 storage range. It'll do iSCSI and NFS for VMware, as well as CIFS and pretty much every protocol out there. It'll also do replication and loads of other stuff. Extremely well priced compared to EMC and NetApp - check out the 7120 then talk to Andy at Cutter Project (linescanner on here).

 

I haven't got time to go into details but do a search on EduGeek for this stuff - there's a lot of love.

 

Chris

[fox1977]

Sounds good. I few people quoting that box. How much do they start at?

[Duke]

These figures are ballpark and were before the new range was finalised:

 

12TB - £15k-ish

22TB - £23k-ish

 

This is all very dependant on support, RAM, flash accelerators, etc. I haven't got an up to date price list, sorry. I'll PM you Andy Trevor's contact details.

 

Chris

[fox1977]

Thanks Duke,

 

Much appreciated. Bit more than expected but if that's what it costs then thats what it costs.

 

Specs look imppressive

[Duke]

Cheaper than the alternatives to be honest, at least in the enterprise storage market. The problem with NetApp, EMC, HP et al. (I know some of them are changing this) is that they charge you per-licence for the connection protocols (CIFS, NFS, iSCSI, etc). NetApp with charge you $10k for an NFS licence, no joke. S7000 has everything bundled as part of the price, as well as de-dupe, replication, and you get the new features as they come out.

[Hebdenlad]

Thanks for the compliment :-)

 

In my humble (and slightly biased) opinion it's a very good box for the money...

 

Andy at Cutter will look after you.

 

Regards,

 

Phil

[MarkPower]

If the Sun system falls into a price point that is not affordable then I would suggest considering Overland Storage, this does have less functionality than Sun but all that functionality may not be needed. It should also be much cheaper dependandt again on what is needed.

 

They also have some promotions at the moment on N2000 Snap Servers giving 8TB for the price of 4TB so may help you to double the capacity for FREE.

 

Overland Storage: Effortless data management and data protection solutions

 

Happy to discuss when this with you if you have the time.

 

Kind regards

Mark Power

01473 281211

Enterprise Security Solutions | Network Security Consultants

[linescanner]

Fox 1977, drop me a pm and we can see what we can do for you.

 

The S7000 range is very good for what you want to do. There are a load of guys on here using various models.

 

Re pricing - Good saying in life, you pay for what you get.

[PeteHopton]

Hi Fox,

 

I had an idea which was to provide a storage system with a low upfront cost and to remove the costs of maintenance of proprietary systems, by replacing them with standard gear and a familiar operating environment. I signed an agreement with MS and Starwind software.

 

On November 9th one of my organisations, VeryPC, launched a load of low cost, Microsoft based iSCSI storage and HA SAN products on the Microsoft Stand at Green IT Expo 2010, EcoVault.

 

Depending on what you features need, it should be about 1/2 the price of the Sun equivilent.

 

Here's the press release:

 

VeryPC launches a range of new EcoVault Storage Solutions becoming the first StarWind OEM partner : News from techmesh

 

I'm not going to do a sales piece on an open forum, its bad form, and as we don't sell directly to end users - its inappropriate. But if this is of interest to you, please feel free to get in touch with the VeryPC team, one of the VeryPC resellers or come and say hi at BETT.

 

;-)

[john]

Highly recommend the Sun Storage range, now have 2 of them myself in the College and they have been performing brilliantly, well the 1 has we've only just taken delivery of the 2nd unit this week.

 

If they are out of your price range, the Overland stuff is great, I spent a good amount of time reviewing costs and products before hammering the budget to get the 2nd Oracle unit, and I spent a lot of time working with Mark at Net Ctrl and his team and his contacts at Overland and they have a good product range, but in the end the kit just couldn't cope with what I needed (in particular the Media Studies Curriculum we have) but if we didn't have that requirement then it would have been an instant winner of a solution so very much worth a look at .