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8,285 Views 12 Replies Last post: Nov 21, 2007 5:12 AM by bobross RSS
meistermn Master
meistermn
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Dec 7, 2004
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Jul 21, 2007 3:56 AM

Compellent or Netapp SAN

Anyeone tested Compellent and Netapp SAN.

Can they compete  against IBM DS and EMC or Hitachi?

Perry Mulcrone Novice
Perry Mulcrone
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Aug 9, 2005
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1. Jul 24, 2007 8:16 AM in response to: meistermn
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

Meistermn,

 

We tested NetApp and Compellent in our data center at Scott County, Mn two years ago and found the performance to even.  Scott County, Mn is one of the fastest growing Counties in the Nation.  Our test comprised with pushing different data sets (large and small and hundreds of thousand of files) to each accross ISCSI.   We selected the Compellent for its GUI interface and dynamic capacity, data progression, and replication software capabilites as well as its easy replay software.  It wasn't until we got it into our data center that we began running all of our VMWARE instances on the Compellent.  We looked initally to the Compellent SAN for storage conolidation and found with VMWARE the combination, we were able to accomplish server consolidation and Disaster Recovery as well. 

We run two compellents controllers in our production data center and one in our DR location.  We currently have nearly 30 windows instances (exchange, SQL , etc) on the SAN.  Using VMWARE and Compellents replication SW, we are able to make our instances highly available.  Works like a champ!  I have been impressed with the reliability and customer service of Compellent.  We did test the IBM DS3000 and did not like the command line interface and lack of software.  Performanc wasnt on par with NetApp and Compellent either.  I would stack Compellent up against EMC or Hitachi any day.

Good luck.

Perry

crazex Hot Shot
crazex
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2. Jul 24, 2007 8:32 AM in response to: meistermn
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

I don't have any hard numbers on the performance, but we are VERY happy with our Compellent SAN.  We are currently running about 22 production servers in our VI3 environment, most of which are SQL Servers, and we have had very good results.  I've actually been able to lower the minimum system requirements from our old Physical boxes.  When we were researching SANs the features that kept bringing us back to Compellent were: Thin Provisioning, Data Progression, Data Instant Replay, and the GUI interface.  We also liked that the Compellent gave us the ability to run both iSCSI and FC.  Before purchasing this, we researched Dell/EMC, Equallogic, and FalconStor, and the Compellent solution offered us the best price to performance. 

 

Also, I second the note that Compellents Service is top notch.  We've had 2 drives fail, since we implemented the solution, and both times, Compellent support has contacted me within 5 minutes of the alert.  If you go with Compellent you will not be unhappy.

 

 

-Jon-

-Jon- VMware Certified Professional
bdoellefeld Enthusiast
bdoellefeld
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Jan 31, 2007
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3. Jul 24, 2007 9:17 AM in response to: meistermn
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

We tested NetApp, Compellent, and IBM ( EVA3000).

 

In our tests the performace of the NetApp and Compellent was very close, the IBM tested poorly. In the end we chose a NetApp 3020 and have not been disappointed.

christianZ Virtuoso
christianZ
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4. Jul 24, 2007 9:48 AM in response to: meistermn
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

I heard many satisfied Compellent users  in forum - unfortunately nobody wanted to make the tests here:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=73745

 

All those are small/small-medium infrastructures and I can see only one type of storage head and maximum two of them, so I'm a bit sceptical about the performance by large environments.

 

But maybe I'm wrong here. Waiting for corrections.

meistermn Master
meistermn
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Dec 7, 2004
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5. Jul 24, 2007 12:01 PM in response to: christianZ
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

Yes I like to see a competition for enterprise environment.

We have today IBM DS8000.

I have although still my eyes on 3 Par.

dave.gerlach Novice
dave.gerlach
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Jul 24, 2007
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6. Jul 24, 2007 2:19 PM in response to: christianZ
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

I ran many similar IOMeter tests when I first implemented my compellent storage array back in January '07. I was concerned initially with being able to generate the IOPS for the number of drives in my drive pools, so I disabled read and write cache for that testing.  The results were that I was able to generate industry standard (100 - 150 IOPS) per drive in my drive pool. I would like to run your tests, but my storage arrays are now in production. The virtualization of drives does work very well and it tunes itself unlike EMC/HDS/IBM etc.

 

My initial system Compellent was 48TB configured for my SAN fabric of 125 FC hosts. We selected Compellent to replace a EMC Clariion CX600 and two HDS 9960's totaling 29TB.

 

There is no comparison regarding system management - Compellent wins hands down!

 

On the performance: we spent three months testing Compellent using JetStress and LoadGen. During the pretest build phase we generated over 600MBps of throughput against the Compellent front-end fiber ports and over 700MBps on the back-end for hours and hours at a time. The Compellent system just hummed along. The tests passed at over double our recommended loads for 6500 Exchange users with 7ms response times on the transaction logs.

 

When I moved my data from the CX600 (close to 14TB allocated) it only used 6TB of real space with Dynamic Capacity. This solved a huge SAN problem for me with EMC and Hitachi 9960's.

 

I am just budgeting to implement VMware this fall, but I have high confidence that Compellent is the right SAN storage solution.

 

-dave

meistermn Master
meistermn
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7. Jul 24, 2007 3:10 PM in response to: dave.gerlach
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

Faster is only RamSan

http://www.superssd.com/

christianZ Virtuoso
christianZ
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8. Jul 25, 2007 12:12 AM in response to: dave.gerlach
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

That sounds cogently.

Thanks.

crazex Hot Shot
crazex
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9. Jul 25, 2007 7:48 AM in response to: dave.gerlach
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

The Compellent SAN works great for Vmware.  Since Vmware typically requires significantly larger LUNs than standard servers, the Thin-Provisioning is great.  I like allocating 1TB of space that only gets used on demmand.  Also, being able to migrate the data, at a block level, down to lower cost storage is great.  You'll be surprised how little data actually sits in the Tier 1 RAID 10 set.

 

 

-Jon-

-Jon- VMware Certified Professional
ronrob Novice
ronrob
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Jul 31, 2007
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10. Jul 31, 2007 4:29 PM in response to: meistermn
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

Check out Netapp Storevault

 

Call for an online demo at 404-556-8828

 

IT Data Storage

christianZ Virtuoso
christianZ
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11. Jul 31, 2007 11:07 PM in response to: meistermn
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

Saw this here:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=710765&#710765

 

I would follow the issue.

bobross Hot Shot
bobross
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Nov 1, 2007
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12. Nov 21, 2007 5:12 AM in response to: dave.gerlach
Re: Compellent or Netapp SAN

 

Dave, how many primary ports did you use for your testing?  I would think that using 8 ports you should see double your throughput figures.  If you used 8 ports and only got 600 MB/sec, that is poor performance relative to several other arrays in the same price range and ease of use.

 

 

Bob Ross

 

 

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