Storage...

[mrbios]

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!

 

[mrbios]

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

 

[mrbios]

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.

 

[mrbios]

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.

 

[mrbios]

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?

 

[mrbios]

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?

 

[mrbios]

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

 

[mrbios]

Running DPACK for the day, will see what results we get out of that. Wish i'd known about this tool earlier....one question that's always bugged me when speaking to anyone about storage they come along and say "what sort of iops are you using?" i've never been able to answer it!

Just had accurate pricing back on a Nimble CS215 with 10GB connectivity, and it's only very slightly over our budget so that may be a very good option for us. The CS210 has all the performance we'd need but sadly not the storage capacity (and no scope for expansion like the CS215)

 

[mrbios]

DPACK and alike are brilliant tools, helps us get a lot of answers that sometimes gets met with an "Errrmmm...?" It gives a short term snapshot of your environment, obviously something running for a full business cycle would give more information at such times as month end, but for indicative pricing it's fantastic.

Nimble are nice little boxes, and remember to get quotes from various places on different hardware providers, the CS215 might be out of reach now, but if you get a competitive quote on HP or DELL, you might magically find out that suppliers/manufacturers margins go down and you get more for your money, or you might get more for your money from HP/DELL trying to compete with Nimble.

Just a few words of impartial advise.

I'm waiting for HP to get back to me with a specification based on the requirements i gave them in an hour long phone call, waiting on a phone call from EMC to talk about the VNXe3200 and get a price and some ideas as to what fits our specification, and i've been to have a technical demo of the Nimble. Slowly getting there

At the moment, Nimble have me by the ears, I think i could make a stretch to the current cost of the Nimble but i've got my contact going back to beat them up on pricing and see if he can get the CS215 +10gb down to our £18k budget. It'd be a little tighter on capacity than i'd like it to be, but certainly next year or the year after i could add a JBOD shelf to it and i'd be covered for many years then.

Just waiting to see what EMC have to say now and what they can offer me....i like having it narrowed down to 3, i need a minimum of 3 quotes anyway (all purchases of over £1000 require 3 quotes here) and as much as i like all the suggestions i have, i'd be here forever if i didn't narrow it down asap