Storage...

Soldato
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Not really sure where to begin in terms of asking for advice, but i need some! lol

I need to replace our current network storage solution(s). At the moment we have two different solutions: Two boxes which our VMs run from (Infortrend Eonstor DS G2140s), one box which is purely file data, shares etc. (Infortrend Eonstor A16E)

The Infortrend boxes are cheap and nasty, they filled a purpose for a while and they've been stable but i need better performance and reliability in terms redundancy.

Roughly 20 VMs, a couple running SQL, exchange, SCCM, one is a terminal server those are probably the only "intensive" virtual machines. Then on the shares and data side of things we've got roughly 400-500 PCs using those shares at once daily, mainly for office documents, though some video and large image files too.

In terms of the amount of writable space i need, i don't need a great deal (5-6TB for the VMs and about 10TB for the shares) and lastly i have 10GB available to me on servers and switches so i might as well make that available on my storage too.

The only box i've considered so far is a HP MSA 2040 (24 x 2.5") but can anyone recommend me anything to consider looking into?

Trying to get something that'll do the job for a maximum of about £18k including the disks. I'm also not sure if it's a good idea to use one box for both purposes and just ahve two arrays? or maybe tiered storage for the VMS? So many possibilities!
 
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Soldato
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That's a tight budget for decent storage.

The MSA 2040 is a reasonable device. Dell will sell you an Equallogic for your budget which would be worth a look too.
 

RSR

RSR

Soldato
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Dell will sell you an Equallogic for your budget which would be worth a look too.

I'd strongly advise against Equallogic's, as we have had a fair amount of trouble with them. Also one of the later firmware's has a lovely 248 day controller failover bug (7.0.2 - 7.0.8, I believe this is resolved in 7.0.9), other ones include possible data corruption when using sDRS in VMware and I could add a few more.
 
Caporegime
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Those HP boxes are rebadged Dothill and are total garbage, they don't meet your file requirements either unless you were going to stick Windows servers in front of virtual disks accessed via iSCSI.

For 18k you're in NetApp FAS2520 territory with a bit of negotiation.
 
Soldato
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Had a long chat with a HP storage expert today, he seemed quite keen to recommend their StoreVirtual device (The new name for lefthand?) albeit probably too expensive for us.

Apparently there's a firmware update for the MSA 2040 coming out soon that'll add automatic tiering, and it seems like the most cost effective solution for us that i've seen so far (at least in terms of HP) HP are going to give me a populated MSA recommendation based on our requirements soon so i'll see how that comes out...

Everything I'd really like for the task is just too expensive for the budget we're given sadly :( I'll have a look at the Equallogic stuff, though from the post above I'm a little cautious of that one, and not sure i'd want to go down the refurb route but i'll have a look into that a bit more :)
 
Soldato
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Can you get software updates for your refurb kit? There are companies who do good third party hardware support, but I wouldn't run a NetApp without their support and updates.

You'll get bugs with any storage. I've spent the last few days getting 3Tb of space back on our NetApp it had consumed due to a dedupe bug in OnTap.

If you can get a NetApp for £18k go for it, but I'd think you'd be looking at 24 SATA drives tops for that money. You might find that a little tight for IOPS for your VM's, databases and CIFS for 600 users. It'll do it, but things like cloning a VM during office hours will noticeably affect the performance. NetApp are very hot on deal registration, so the first company you approach will get access to the best pricing and everyone else will get list.
 
Soldato
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What aspects of performance vary within a box when you take away the disks and network connectivity? Is it all down to how good the raid controller is?

Taking my current boxes for example, i've had some performance issues in the past but have been unable to trace them back to iops, network iscsi usage etc. and i've always wondered if the raid controller was just pants at managing the load in and out of the box? or is there more to it than that? I see network > controller > disks as the 3 variables outside of the servers but is there another tier to that?

the_chicco i've messaged your trust (obviously no pm system on ocuk) :)

Obviously i've never had any exposure to the likes of EMC and NetApp, and I'm generally unaware of what products in the 5 figure region can offer me over the el cheapo ones i have now, but what makes a £30k box or a £60k box cost that much compared to a £10k one when you take away the disks from the equation? Maybe if i understood this better i'd be able to rationalise a higher cost to myself.
 
Associate
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We just bought a fibre channel Dell Compellent SC4020 for about 22k. Raw disk space was just shy of 30TB (24x1TB 7200RPM SAS + 18x300GB 15000RPM SAS). Dual controllers and all neatly packed into 4U. You can get this in iscsi variants too. Just thought i'd mention its its fairly close to price/specs you mentioned. It's been in place for about 3 months now and so far its performing well.

In terms of usage we have about 30VMs total (2 MS SQL boxes, Domino server, a 2TB file server and run SAP ERP/CRM) roughly 250 machines on site
 
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Soldato
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Depending on what connectivity you want, there are some deals out there. I got offered this last week:

Dell MD3620F FC8 Fibre SAN
Dual x FC Controller Modules
Redundant PSU
24 x 900Gb 10k SAS HDD
Rackmount Kit
3Yrs Professional Support for IT- Mission Critical and 4Hr Response

Dell price £22,993.00 (claimed!) - was offered it for £8,995.00+VAT
 
Soldato
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we're just looking at retiring our old HP MSA and to be honest it's done extremely well over the years over a mix of 2/4gb fibre HBA to physical and VM sql/exchange/share boxes.

only thing i would say on refurb items is watch out for rising support costs and falling hardware availability. our HP is now EOL and parts are like hens teeth, especially for expansion.

HP support isnt too bad when you peel away the indian factor. parts (disks and batteries) arrive quickly.

for the love of god though, avoid HP backup software (dataprotector).

we're looking at EMC as a replacement, not actually seen the kit in action yet however.
 
Soldato
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for the love of god though, avoid HP backup software (dataprotector).

Covered on the backup area, using CA arcserve backup and Arcserve UDP with a D2D2T setup, been using that for the past year now and it's been flawless. Not quite as many features as veeam in UDP but price wise and performance/reliability wise i can't knock it one bit. (Very glad to no longer be using Backup Exec!)

What model MSA was it you had?
It's still the most tempting option available to me at the moment, but again I'm letting costs dictate my decision because i don't know enough about the more expensive devices on the market and what they can offer me.
 
Soldato
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its a really old 4000 series. and to be fair its been bombproof just needing a new disk every now and again, a few cache batteries and a new LTO3 drive in the library once.
 
Soldato
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Why not look at EMC VNXe3200? We got 17TB usable for less than your budget.

My experience of EMC hasn't been a good one so far, not the hardware but generally getting pricing and information from them...get the impression they're one of these companies that don't really care about "small fry" if you know what i mean :(

Eurgh this is such a minefield of choices to blow myself up on. EMC, NetApp, HP, Dell, varied opinions on each, lots of different models....it wouldn't be so hard if i just needed something to give me 5-6TB of space for VMs or if i JUST needed 8-10TB of file storage, but it seems I'm complicating things (mainly in cost) by wanting one box to do both tasks.

Should i perhaps look to keep these two things separate? Am i barking up the wrong tree in combining them?
 
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Soldato
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Ok what if i did this instead...
Use my two identical 4 year old Eonstor DS G2140 boxes for data for the next year with some cheap NL-SAS disks in, and create some form of replication between them so that i still have physical resilience. I can then replace that next year with something purely for data storage.

Then this year i only need to worry about purchasing storage for my VMs which would lower my requirements to only needing 5-6TB of usable space and i can make it all flash+fast sas hybrid?
 

RSR

RSR

Soldato
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Have you looked at the baby NetApp series of FAS's (22XX)? As that would be my preffered choice. Also don't be shocked with the first price they offer as its normally around the RRP which can be on the high side. That will often decrease once they know they have a serious bid on there hands.
 
Associate
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My experience of EMC hasn't been a good one so far, not the hardware but generally getting pricing and information from them...get the impression they're one of these companies that don't really care about "small fry" if you know what i mean :(
I can't say i've ever had issues. I have a partner I go through who have a bunch of EMC certified people who can advise and spec solutions. The only time they generally go back to EMC is when I say "How much?! That's no good, I'll have to buy Dell instead".;) to get a pricing request.
 
Soldato
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I can't say i've ever had issues. I have a partner I go through who have a bunch of EMC certified people who can advise and spec solutions. The only time they generally go back to EMC is when I say "How much?! That's no good, I'll have to buy Dell instead".;) to get a pricing request.

I think i may need to try another reseller in that case :p
 
Associate
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Without knowing basic bandwidth/IOPS requirements, it's difficult to know what your environment really needs. With your budget of 18k, your looking at MSA/Powervault territory.

I would class StoreVirtual to be out of budget as you'd need at least 2 nodes and I would avoid it in your environment along with Equalogic due to the limitations on adding additional storage (you can't add additional shelves to the StoreVirtual or the Equalogic, you have to add an additional appliance.)

The firmware update to the MSA2040 will add archive tiering for free and performance tiering for an additional license cost.

Seeing Exchange mentioned, I wouldn't recommend NetApp - purely due to support issues from MS with NFS, but then again I've had Exchange running on Nutanix which is NFS based storage, so I've just contradicted myself :p

EMC I'm not that familiar with, but it's always seemed more expensive on quotes for similar based specs.

You also have other options open, like software defined storage - VSA/VSAN or something like Nimble Storage.

My advice is to get some performance metrics by running something like a Dell DPACK, send the file off to some suppliers to get some competitive quoting going.
 
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