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bonald
Contributor
Contributor

Best 6k$ SAN

What's the best SAN I can get for 6k$

1-2 TB of storage ?

NFS is a requirement.

Thanks.

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mcowger
Immortal
Immortal

Well, but NFS is NAS....are you wanting a blok storage array or a NAS array with NFS?






--Matt

--Matt VCDX #52 blog.cowger.us
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bonald
Contributor
Contributor

Well, what i really want is a shared storage device with NFS because Foundation doesn't support iSCSI.

I want to be able to grow the storage in the future easyly by just adding some disks.

I want to be able to run 15-20 VM on it.

One day we might upgrade to Standar/Enterprise version, so it's for a long term situation.

SATA is fine because we don't havve IO intensive servers. Most servers are idle.

The only one is our SQL server but it is doing 20MB/sec read max now with onboard storage.

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mcowger
Immortal
Immortal

Hrmm - normally, then I would recommend the Sun Unified Storage boxes - they are really awesome, but start at 10K.

Do you need it to be on the HCL?






--Matt

--Matt VCDX #52 blog.cowger.us
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bonald
Contributor
Contributor

It does not really need to be on the HCL but is prefered.

I can't beleive that there is no cheaper SAN/NAS out here around 6k$ with good performance that are listed on the HCL.

I'll have to double check tomorow but I beleive the version we got is the Acceleration kit and it support iSCSI.

But personally for simplicity i like NFS most.

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mcowger
Immortal
Immortal

The Overland Snap Server series might work for you.

I can also recommend just buying a regular x86 box and putting solaris 10 on it. While technically not supported, such a machine would be very close the supported config of a Sun x4500, and you get all the neat features of Solaris 10, ZFS, etc. for a really great cost (hardware cost only).






--Matt

--Matt VCDX #52 blog.cowger.us
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Craig_Baltzer
Expert
Expert

Well, what i really want is a shared storage device with NFS because Foundation doesn't support iSCSI.

Foundation does support iSCSI (have a look at down around page 4)

That will open up devices such as the HP MSA 2012i starting around $5K (single controller), though when you buy disk its going to blow your budget more than likely...

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bonald
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the tips.

This one looks like it will fit my budget. I'll try to call a rep.

Anything else to consider ?

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depping
Leadership
Leadership

For only 6K I would consider using one of the iSCSI Appliances!



Duncan

Blogging: http://www.yellow-bricks.com

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

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bonald
Contributor
Contributor

wich one?

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Craig_Baltzer
Expert
Expert

The Dell MD3000i is the same type of device, but I believe it is a bit more expensive than the MSA 2012i; might be worth a call to Dell just to confirm.

As Duncan mentioned things like the Adaptec Snap Server appliance (720i/730i/750i) and Promise VTrak appliance (M310i/M610i) are out there around the $5K mark. LeftHand Networks Virtual SAN appliance are also out there (LeftHand is now part of HP) , though the list of "conditions" of using it in a supported fashion are kind of long (plus I don't think version 7 is even available) - has some details

Overall doing a bit of digging around @ in the "Storage" tab (do a search on iSCSI) will give you a good check of "is it supported"...

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Jasemccarty
Immortal
Immortal

I've got 3 MD3000i iSCSI SAN boxes at my "other" job.

They work well, but are a little pricey.

I would have liked something else that had built-in hardware based replication.

I will say these have performed pretty well.

Jase McCarty

http://www.jasemccarty.com

Co-Author of VMware ESX Essentials in the Virtual Data Center

(ISBN:1420070274) from Auerbach

Please consider awarding points if this post was helpful or correct

Jase McCarty - @jasemccarty
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mcowger
Immortal
Immortal

Note that the Dell device does NOT support NFS as your originally requested.






--Matt

--Matt VCDX #52 blog.cowger.us
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bonald
Contributor
Contributor

vTrak m310i, this might be the one i'll buy. It's tempting since the price is cheap, but I can't find any review out there.

Anyone using the vtrak m310i in production ?

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Ken_Cline
Champion
Champion

See this thread

Ken Cline

Technical Director, Virtualization

Wells Landers

TVAR Solutions, A Wells Landers Group Company

VMware Communities User Moderator

Ken Cline VMware vExpert 2009 VMware Communities User Moderator Blogging at: http://KensVirtualReality.wordpress.com/
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SunnyC
Contributor
Contributor

You might also want to consider IBM's DS3300 iSCSI SAN Solution starting at around $5k USD.

If you would like to learn about more, I can schedule someone to talk with you if you are located in the US or Canada since I work for IBM.

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