SAN Advice - Urgent

RockLobster · 22 Apr 2009 at 11:51

I’m weighing up some options for a new SAN. I have two quotes of similar price from Dell and HP. The specifications are as follows: -

Dell

Dell EqualLogic PS5000E
16 X 1TB, 7.2K SATA, Dual Controllers. This is an iSCSI SAN.

HP

HP MSA2000 with 24 450GB 15K SAS HDD. This is a Fibre Channel SAN.

We are planning to virtualise part of our infrastructure. With the Dell option we are considering three new servers, the specifications as below: -
Dell PE 2950 Quad Core Xeon (3 GHz, 32 GB of RAM, quad gigabit network cards)

With the HP solution we have two options. The first is to use three DL380s (G5 or G6) with 32 gig of RAM, quad gigabit network cards. Redundant power supplies, etc. The second is to use HP Blade servers. This will be a HP Blade system C3000 containing four blades with Dual Xeon processors. There will be approximately 92 gig of RAM across these Blades.

As I said both of these SANS are of similar price. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with either of these products or with the enterprise support areas of these companies. Please assume that both specifications are adequate for our needs and performance monitoring has indicated this.

RockLobster · 22 Apr 2009 at 13:32

neil_g said:
out of interest why are you sticking to the same make servers as SAN?

Because each is part of its own quotation which is linked to a finance agreement. Not sure about the ins and outs but we can't mix and match.

iaind said:
If the SANs are the same price, surely the 10tb SAS/FC is going to perform much better and give more capacity than an 8tb SATA/iSCSI option?

I'm suprised they are even close to the same price, especially given the higher cost of the fabric for FC

I realise this to be the case however both are adequate for our needs and I've heard people are not happy with their HP MSA solutions. I'm looking for opinions on the two products, I'm not overly worried about the servers.

RockLobster · 22 Apr 2009 at 15:27

These two vendors are the only options on the table. With the Dell solution a mistake in the spec posted it has 16 X 1TB, 7.2K SATA, Dual Controllers.

RockLobster · 23 Apr 2009 at 19:55

Cheers all.

We have decided to go for the Dell solution. Reading the reviews, the discount they given us and 0% finance this swayed it. We are also having 3 x R710.