SAN Storage

[Guest2]

We are going fully virtual in the future and enquired about HP SAN Storage from our suppliers.

They sent us an leaflet 'HP StorageWorks P4000 SAN Solutions'

Inside this leaflet are 3 models....

HP StorageWorks P4300 G2 16TB MDL SAS Starter SAN Solution (£17,599.99 ex VAT)

Hard drive array
16TB
16 bays (SAS)
16 x HD 1TB
DVD-ROM
iSCSI (external)
Rack-mountable

The second...

HP StorageWorks P4300 G2 7.2TB SAS Starter SAN Solution (£18,799.99 ex VAT)

Hard drive array
7.2TB
16 bays (SAS)
16 x HD 450GB
DVD-ROM
iSCSI (external)
Rack-mountable

The third is a P4500 G2 10.8TB coming in at a not so cheap £31,999.99 ex VAT

Question -

Why is the first one cheaper than the second and has better specs? The only thing this is different is that it says 'MDL', apart from that its a grand cheaper and more than double the storage size

 

[Guest2]

'fully virtual' - I think you need to look in more detail about the systems you have and whether a virtual infrastructure is best for those sytems. I'm thinking particularly about database systems. Fully virtual is a great idea - in practice, it doesn't really work.

Have a look at some of the Dell Equallogic SAN units - we have one - works great.

Fully virtual, maybe in about 5+ years. At the moment we have just moved a secondary DC and our main SQL server to virtual - XenServer. Next will probably be our BES server, terminal services then exchange and other DC. The file server probably last when we have a tonne of money.
Its great that backing up a whole server only takes a few minutes and can be restored in a few minutes too.
As everyone has probably already figured i'm new to all this so everything is new (plus the fact im not the main systems admin, my boss is. I'm support but have been testing VM stuff)

Thanks all, i'll look into the Equallogic SAN

 

[Guest2]

+1 for equallogic san's. They have great replication between them, but may require some extra fee's for setup help and optimization.

If you just want raw storage and can do with cheap 7200rpm sata, nexsan do a satabeast for 21k which is 42tb's of storage..

Hmmm. Our file server is currently 1.36TB so I dont think 42tb's will be needed!

Maybe 5 or 10 to be safe