Which SAN Hitachi vs EMC

[jam3s10]

Hello All

we are currently looking at purcashing a SAN to virtualize aroung 14 servers with about 3TB

we have contacted some resellers who have recommended two different SANS which are:

Hitachi AMS2100 and Brocade AMS 320

EMC AX4-5FDC and EMC DS-300B 8 port 8Gb switch

both seem to be around the same price and both fibre channel!

What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

what would you personal recommend?

Thanks for any help in advanced

James

[BKarciauskas]

Have you considered iSCSI versions of these? Or something like Lefthand or EqualLogic?

The reason I ask is that with vSphere 4.0 iSCSI performance (when designed and implemented correctly) gives comparable performance with FC, is cheaper and more flexible than FC.

I personally have recommended and used the iSCSI version of the EMC AX series box in an environment with similar requirements to yours and never had any major issues with it. The Navisphere express management console is a little clunky but once you get used to it is fine.

I can’t comment on the HDS box unfortunately.

Cheers,

Ben Karciauskas

Blog - http://karciauskas.wordpress.com

[PA911TEch]

The AMS2100 can have both FC and iSCSI ports on it so you can choose how you populate your arrays.

We have had an older AMS500 for almost 5 years and it's been problem free. We are looking to upgrade to a AMS2100 since it is better optimized for VMWare and there are some maintenance and licensing savings for us as well.

[mcowger]

I'd strongly recommend the AMS over the AX4 - its much more of a 'big boy' array, the management tools are quite good, and the HDP (Hitachi's wide striping) is also good.

I'd also recommend other arrays in that space if you are interested (over the AMS or AX4), but only if you haven't made up your mind.

--Matt
VCP, VCDX #52, Unix Geek, Storage Nerd

[HendersonD]

I would certainly look at Netapp which can do iSCSI, FCP, and NFS. Many customers run VMWare under NFS with performance on par with iSCSI and not far behind fibre. With a 10GB connection iSCSI and NFS can even outperform fibre.