thanks Paul,
1) Introducing fibre into your network will add an unnecessary extra layer of work/overhead/complexity. It is a small shop, there is no reason why iSCSI can't do the job you are trying to fill. Make sure you get switches capable of VLAN tagging and jumbo frames if you want all traffic to flow through the same network, otherwise just buy a dumb switch and have all iSCSI traffic through this switch from SAN to hosts.
I totally agree, I know FC has its advantage and benefit but only if you are confidence in configurating and managing them.
2) HP Dataprotector is absolute rubbish. Avoid at all costs if you can. A veeam or Commvault solution will be a better solution and possibly more cost effective, it depends if HP is throwing DP in as a freebie or an extra.
The only reason we keep this software in the quote as if we would like to keep a complete HP solution, so we only have to contact 1 vendor whenever a problem, they actually gave us a good bargain price for the DP software since we quoted with a full HP solution, no freebie of course.
3) Generally speaking I have had the most success with HP servers, especially in regards to management and problem resolution. IBM servers are very good though and worthy of your time. Dell servers in my experience are rubbish, especially their storage solutions (not including Compellant which has only recently been acquired and is still kind of okay, but wont be if it is fully integrated into Dell's model). Don't get me wrong, Dell desktops almost always win especially on price and they are reasonable machines, but they just don't know how to make good servers.
Well, if I have a choose, I won't even consider all these vendors, I will stay on my Intel hardware. Actually with the new VSA feature in vsphere5, I can do this, but of course, I have to run it pass the management and convince them it is not a "white box"
4) Lefthand is awesome. The product is fully featured out of the box, no hiden costs or requirements to upgrade licenses. Once you buy a Lefthand you get all functionality, not like other storage vendors.
I haven't use it myself, but from what it can do, it does miles better than the IBM DS3524.
5) Consider buying Ent+ licensing as this will come with NIOC, SIOC and Storage DRS. Incredibly useful and actually more affordable in a small environment.
asked long time ago, managers will not consider.
6) Consider getting smaller and faster disks for your array. I prefer 15k of course and try very hard to convince your boss that you don't want 7.2k, try to push for a minimum of 10k. You said yourself that you are only currently using 3TB.
no, 7.2k hdd will never be my cup of tea in server environment...
