Storage...

[RSR]

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

I'd disagree with that personally myself, as you have all the advantages of the Snap tools to manage the Exchange. We had no problems with Exchange on a Netapp but we was using FC / iSCSI. Also Netapp has some of the best support I have experanced.

 

[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)

 

[khrall]

I'd disagree with that personally myself, as you have all the advantages of the Snap tools to manage the Exchange. We had no problems with Exchange on a Netapp but we was using FC / iSCSI. Also Netapp has some of the best support I have experanced.

From the Microsoft side of things, NFS and file based storage is an unsupported platform to run Exchange. I have no doubt with Netapp supporting Exchange on their equipment, but you could run into some issues from Microsoft support, if your running NFS and not block level. It's just an observation that needs to be taken into account with a production environment.

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)

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.

 

[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

 

[Caged]

Nimble are really good.

 

[bigredshark]

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

EMC don't care about anybody, it's not personal

We have an EMC spend in the millions (for the moment at least) and they are at best disinterested in our issues, they have a very 'well that's how it is' attitude to things.

 

[Hellsmk2]

The VNXe already mentioned is a safe bet. Otherwise, have a look at the Fujitsu SANs to- the DX200 can be had quite cheaply these days.

 

[Laser402]

VNXe 3300 isnt bad, we have one with an additional disk shelf.

Use it presenting NFS to 3 VMware hosts and CIFS for all users home directories.

~1000 Devices accessing it. 10VMs etc (High School)

Support has been very good if needed. However the interface is somewhat slow/laggy, although looks good (Web2.0).

Support after the initial 3 years is rather expensive though... I would use them again, however I wouldnt mind looking around.

 

[Caged]

Aren't you supposed to run to a competitor and trade them in after 3 years anyway for lots of discount and a press release because you're a school?

 

[Dogers]

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!

It's annoying, isn't it! You'd think vendors would include some tool to see how you're doing with what you've bought from them, but no..

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)

I had a quote of ~£15k for the CS210 and ~£20k for the CS215 back at the tail end of last year. Seems like good stuff, but not had hands on, as unfortunately it was out of our budget too.