Re: SAN Recommendation

VMware Cloud Community

Hi All,
Currently we have 3 DL 380 G5 servers running esx 3 planning to upgrade to esxi5 at the moment we don’t have a SAN just using the local disk so we are planning to purchase a new SAN since I don’t know much about SAN’s can someone suggest what should I get and why.

looking for 3 to 5 TB SAN.

Thanks in advance.

1 Solution

Accepted Solutions

Everyone has their opinion.

You have HP servers so I would recommend an HP SAN, for end to end support.

The options there are Lefthand/P4000 or the P2000 G3.

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12 Replies

Everyone has their opinion.

You have HP servers so I would recommend an HP SAN, for end to end support.

The options there are Lefthand/P4000 or the P2000 G3.

Hi Edi47,

welcoem to the community .

Could you please go through this link from where you an get basic idea. ?.

http://www.kcservices.com.au/images/San%20Primer.pdf

If at first you don't succeed; call it version 1.0"

I wouldn't be so sure about OEM Storage. Better go for NetApp or EMC storage. They are both leading the technology on storage solutions.

More reliable, easily scalable and less pain in your neck than OEM Storage.

Regards, Harold

Hi Edi47,

This depends on a lot of factors. The amount of available data in TB is really secondary nowadays, compared to the number of IOPs your infrastructure in generating.

With 3 hosts, I assume that iSCSI will be chosen technology. With Jumbo Frames enable, in a separate frabric (Dedicated switches), you get very impressive performance for a fraction of the "classic" Fiber Channel solutions.

As a consultant, I deploy both Dell and HP storage. The lower-end storage, like the MD3200 for Dell or the P2000 G3 for HP will give you good performance, and additionnal licenses can unlock interesting features. They range in the 10k for the array without disks. Those solutions offer little possibility for painless upgrades in IOPs or capacity.

If you can get the budget, the Dell EqualLogic solutions are quite impressive. Also based on iSCSI technology, they offer a buttload of features, without the additional licenses other vendor will require. If you need more performance or more storage, adding another unit is painless with their philosophy of "storage group".

Anyway, try sizing your IOPs requirement, then you can make a good decision on which array to buy!

Good luck!

yes storage capacity is absolutely bottom of the list when it comes to purchasing an array. you will need to do a performance capturing excercise across your vm's before you tink about which vendor to go with. if your mostly an ms shop then permon and a bit of googling should be able to give you a good idea on iops requied CURRENTLY.

From an array perspective ive had nothing but great experiences with emc vnxe kit nice and easy to install and a good feature set for the price.

Kind Regards Dale VCP3+5

I forgot,

Dell offers a tool that measures your iOPS then generate a reports that the tech sales guy can use to scope the right product for you.

http://content.dell.com/us/en/business/d/sb360/dpack-sc

Then contact Dell sales to generate the report with the *.iokit generated by the tool.

Good luck again!

Thank for the useful response everyone before we go any further i will give you description of our current environment:

we are running esx 3.5 as standalone using the local disks on each server.

ESX01 - DL380 G5 4VM 's

ESX02 - DL380 g6 5VM's

ESX03 DL380 G5 3 VM's

No Vcenter at the moment

We already have license for vsphere 5 so as you can see we are small organisation dont need a massive SAN however planning to grow in the near future so at the moment we require a SAN wih 5 TB capacity which is expandable.

Another question whats the best way to migrate VM's from ESX 3.5 to ESXI 5 w?

Bonjour,

Je vais être absent du bureau jusqu'à Lundi le 12 Mars 2012. Pour tout urgence, communiquer avec support@vertisoftpme.com.

Merci

Regarding upgrading from esx3.5 to 5, here are some resources:

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/upgrade-center/resources.html

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/324714

Regards, Harold

Is anyone using Dell EqualLogic PS4100X cause i got a decent qoute from Dell what do you guys suggest ?

Thanks in advance

Hi Edi,

This thread was originally about SANs as they pertain to upgrades from the obsolete version 3.5.

I'd recommend starting a new thread and discussing your existing environment and goals in it, which will be relevant to how suitable that unit is.

Granted you may be a "small" configuration, but your storage requirements and I/O requirements really dictate what you need for a storage solution.

iSCSI is definitely inexpensive compared to a fibre channel infrastructure, but if you need a lot of I/O and don't have the network infrastructure to support it, you will be disappointed.

As far as vendor, I'm a little biased, but EMC (and others in fairness) do have solutions for the smaller infrastructures. You should consult with your account reps and see what is available. You might be pleasantly surprised.