We're looking at the same thing. We started out about 12 years ago with a NetApp. When we outgrew it (at 1TB), we went with HP EVA. Now we're looking at going back to NetApp. We're running a mixed environment of Windows and UNIX. HP uses Windows Storage Server on their NAS head and we have found that it just doesn't allow file sharing across platforms seamlessly. There always seems to be permissions issues. Also, it seems that Windows file sharing will tend to lock up if we are manipulating somewhere in the neighborhood of 120,000 files at one time. We never had an issue with the NetApp machine and performance comparisons between HP and NetApp were neck and neck. The main reason that we went with HP this time is because they offered incentives that NetApp didn't . Now for direct attached fiber channel storage, they work wonderfully. EVAs, though not openly supported, allow to grow your pool of storage even if all of your drive bays are filled by a process of remove a disk, relevel, add a disk, relevel, repeat. It's not the fastest way of doing things, but it is a way to grow if you paint yourself into a corner. I wish you could do the same with a NetApp box. I'm not sure how the EVA acts as just a CIFS file server alone. Again, if you have a mixed environment, I recommend NetApps.
-Paul From: Paul Hutchings [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 10:30 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: SAN Storage Looking for a little feedback folks. We've got a SAN replacement coming up in a few months. We're pretty much a vmware shop except where a service has to run on a physical server (IO cards etc.). The vendors I'm primarily looking at are Lefthand, Equallogic and Netapp, and possibly EMC since Dell can quote on an EMC solution as well as Equallogic. I've not had quotes yet, but so far my instincts are leaning towards Netapp, mainly because of the things I keep hearing about NFS for vmware, as well as the fact they seem to offer a lot of flexibility whereas Lefthand and Equallogic offer iSCSI and, well yeah, they offer iSCSI. Be interested to hear any experiences, especially around vmware and replication between SANs at live/backup sites (not a live failover site but a "this will take a little work but we have a copy of the data that's an hour old" site). ________________________________ MIRA Ltd Watling Street, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, CV10 0TU, England Registered in England and Wales No. 402570 VAT Registration GB 114 5409 96 The contents of this e-mail are confidential and are solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you receive this e-mail in error, please delete it and notify us either by e-mail, telephone or fax. You should not copy, forward or otherwise disclose the content of the e-mail as this is prohibited. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- You are currently subscribed to ntsysadmin as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/u?id=8236727.6db452a1ad32269a7efc51fb8 9c47637&n=T&l=ntsysadmin&o=9079415 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-9079415-8236727.6db452a1ad32269a7efc51fb89c47...@lyris.sunbelt-sof tware.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- You are currently subscribed to ntsysadmin as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/u?id=8142875.a9cf90b99baa17cb4fcf8293a59eb3b1&n=T&l=ntsysadmin&o=9079643 or send a blank email to leave-9079643-8142875.a9cf90b99baa17cb4fcf8293a59eb...@lyris.sunbelt-software.com
