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Kevan
Contributor
Contributor

Experiences with the Dell/EMC AX150i or CX300i

Hi

Thank you to all the replies in my last post regarding setting up a ESX VM Environment for a maximum of 20 virtual Servers.

As we have always been a Dell shop I am being pushed in their direction and have been quoted for a Dell/EMC AX150i and a CX300i.

From the perspective of total Disk space I can not see us getting anywhere near the AX150i maximum of 6TB so logic says that this should do for us. However I am told that the CX300i will give us an infinitely better performance because of it's fiber channel architecture.

Have forum members had good a experience with these SAN's. Should we opt for the faster CX300i? or will the AX150i be perfectly OK for what we want to do? Or should I really look out side of Dell/EMC at the Equallogic Iscsi SAN's which I can see from these forums are very popular.

Driving some of this is the fact that ideally we would like to get everything from one shop. However it has to be right and if people consider that the Dell products are not right I would appreciate there comments so as we can make an informed decision.

Another determining factor in our choice of SAN will be that we intend to use some of its available storage to migrate about 750GB worth of Department and user data from an old PowerEdge 740 NAS box that is currently our Primary file server.

We will also use some more space for a SQL database. However the SQL database is not particularly busy.

All comments and suggestions appreciated. I am quiet new to this and still getting to grips with what I need to do.

Kevan

34 Replies
TomHowarth
Leadership
Leadership

Kevan

I have just installed a CX300i at a client site, I can say I am quite impressed with preformance, the Client was warned away from the AX150i as they stated it would have preformance issues so I can not comment on that particular product.

My only real gripe regarding the EMC/Dell Storage is that you loose a lot of space on the first 6 drives as they install their OS in a striped partition.

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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femialpha
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have the AX150i but it was a compromise purchase for our pilot. I would not recommend it unless you are really cash strapped. It is reliable but performance is on the low end and it is not scalable. The bigger clariions like the CX300 or the newer CX3-20 are goog performing devices but are much more complicated to manage when compared with Equallogic.

If you have the fibre infrastructure already and in-house expertise, the clariion is probably a good idea but if you are starting your SAN infrastructure from scratch, i will recommend you take a good look at iSCSI solutions like Equallogic. They perform well and are so easy to manage that a 'cave man could do it'.

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christianZ
Champion
Champion

Agreed.

When you haven't any fc san infrastructure yet the iscsi wiil be the better choice for you - iscsi infrastructure is simpler and more inexpensive as fc.

Add. the Equallogic administration is very intuitive and all licences are included (r/w snapshots, volume cloning, replication, etc.).

When you expanding you can always manage your Eql als one virtual storage (but expanding is only possible with full boxes).

I would preffer the iscsi hba (for esx) but for starting you can use the esx sofware iscsi initiator with nics too.

... and many guys here are working on EQL (myself too).

One iexpensive alternative to ax150 could be the Siemens box, FirbreCat sx 60/80 with sata/sas.

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acr
Champion
Champion

Look closely at Equallogics offerrings..

Exceptional iSCSI box, for raw I/O very impressive performance figures..

They used the same independant testing company as EMC use, and beat quite a few of there FC Boxes... They stripe the RAID across all of the disk so get very good I/O..

Every vendor has there pluses and minuses.. For me the the biggest win with Equallogics is that when you decide to scale your virtualization estate and start making use of DR, these boxes replicate to each other, or Clone, Snap, replicate etc.. For no extra charge..

Every other vendor will charge you for licensing on every feature you want to use...

well thats my 0.02p..

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TomHowarth
Leadership
Leadership

That's useful info Tony, Cheers

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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Kevan
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for all your replies so far. As we have no existing FC infrastructure if we were to decide on the larger of the 2 Dell/EMC options it would be the iSCSI version the CX300i not the fiber Chanel CX300.

If anyone has anything further to add I would be pleased to hear it.

Kevan

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nolent
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Also dont discount HP's offerings. I would take a HP EVA6000 over any of the iscsi offerings any day. The EVA's tend to be a little cheaper than the EMC offerings, and IMHO perform pretty well.

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CoreyIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I will add my 2 cents in here since I have used many of the products mentioned. If looking for at any of the newer Dell/EMC mid-level SAN's then you should be considering the cx3-20, which is a combination of iscsi and 4gb FC. The cx300i is an older model and is being phased out. The ax150i will likely not provide the performance you are looking for. We have two for development purposes and an eva 3000 for production.

The thing with equallogic, its great hardware and all BUT the biggest limiting factor is it comes fully loaded with disks. The p300 SATA based unit for example maxes out at 7tb raw, thats maybe 5.5tb usable. Also consider the fact that because its maxed out and equallogic only sells these units either half full or completly full you are paying full price for another unit if you need to expand in the future. This in comparison to other SANs that you can grow and scale as your needs dictate. However all licensing is included, as others have mentioned. If you were looking for a SAN purely for a virtualization environment then an Equallogic would probably be a smart move but if you are concerned or interested in using your SAN for backup-to-disk, data archiving, email, sql databses, etc then you are going to be limited in space and performance without spanning units.

We ourselves are looking at adding a new cx3-20 ourselves so we can continue to add more capacity as we grow.

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wcrahen
Expert
Expert

The CX300 will be around for awhile, no official phase out announced. The CX3-20 is higher-end and doesn't compare to the AX, however EMC announced the CX3-10, which is a great SAN with the lower costs.

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CoreyIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

the cx-300 will be entering end of life cycle starting end of summer this year.

pteeling
Contributor
Contributor

Kevan,

You may want to consider the CX3-10c, the latest addition in the EMC Ultrascale series. It is a box that has both FC and iSCSI connections, however the architecture is full FC4. Pricing is about the same as the CX300, which is the older model. Performance is stunning and it will keep on running when you want to make snapshots etc. Something other systems tend to have problems with....

christianZ
Champion
Champion

AFAIK exact the EMC boxes were those they had performance degradation after a few snapshots because they make "copy on write" (see here:

http://www.netapp.com/ftp/veritest-netapp-comp-analysis2005.pdf).

As once acr said - many vendors have modified their boxes to run with iscsi - but the Equallogic runs only iscsi from beginning !

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doubleH
Expert
Expert

if you expand an equallogic solution you not only get the additional storage, BUT additional performance as well which you don't get with other solutions. with equallogic you get additional controllers and thus even better performance.

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CoreyIT
Enthusiast
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Im not debating what you have just said, because truthfully you are correct in your statements. However we found (because we demo'd one from our Ontario supplier) the cost justification isn't there. Because 7TB raw on the PS300e (maybe 5-5.5 usable) would not have lasted us long we would have been forced to pay full price for another entire unit for the added capacity, improved performance or not.

\*We* are instead looking at robust systems that are good performers right from the start AND are scalable as \*our* requirements dictate. As mentioned, I am not debating the performance or quality of the Equallogic systems but I have noticed some customers do not take these limitations into account. So of course they wouldnt be a fit for every company and their needs, but they sure do well for intended purposes. Providing a solid performing iSCSI implementation, with easy administration and effective licensing.

I agree the EMC CX-10 is worth having a look at as well.

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doubleH
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fair enough. hey where abouts are you in ontario?

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CoreyIT
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London. You?

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doubleH
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kitchener area

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TomHowarth
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Last time I looked London was in the UK. Smiley Wink

however it is nice to see that Middlesex still exists some where in the world.

Message was edited by:

tom howarth

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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CoreyIT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Kitchener area as in Cambridge, Guelph, Woodstock, Brantford, Stratford? All could be considered relative I suppose Smiley Happy Off topic, so apologizes to the original poster.

To the original poster: Depending on your location and your regular suppliers/vendors and or relationship with Dell I would try and convince them in allowing you a 60 day eval of the unit. We order enough infrastructure from Dell in that they will be allowing us the run the cx3-20 for a few weeks when I have the time to devote to it. As mentioned we also had the chance to put the Equallogic PS300e through its paces. That might really help in your decision process as well. Make sure what ever vendors you are dealing with are aware of the other vendors you are also investigating. It creates some competition and will play in your favour.

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