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Clear Choice Test: iSCI SANs shootout

By Ryan Francis , Network World , 08/08/2008

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FAS2050 (dual controllers)

OVERALL RATING

4.2

Company:NetApp• www.netapp.com Cost: $69,960** Pros: Among highest performance in our tests; NAS and SAN features; heavy enterprise feature set; built-in high-availability capabilities; good snapshot agent support; expandable. Con: Very poor management interface needs revamp; two controllers separately managed.

StorageCenter

OVERALL RATING

4.1

Company: Compellent Technologies • www.compellent.com Cost: $68,800 Pros: Very expandable; outstanding management interface; data migration feature reduces management costs; flexible snapshot features. Cons: Low space efficiency; high availability requires completely separate controller.

StorageWorks 2012i Modular Smart Array

OVERALL RATING

4.1

Company: HP • www.hp.com Cost: $12,887 Pro: Mixes SAS and SATA drives in same chassis; easy expandability; above-average management toolset; built-in HA capabilities. Con: MPIO setup requires manual intervention; SATA performance poor.

PS5000XV

OVERALL RATING

4.0

Company: Dell • www.dell.com/equallogic Cost: $55,000 Pro: Heavy set of enterprise features; among highest performance in our tests; built-in HA capabilities; easy expansion into cluster. Cons: Weak reporting features.

NSM 2120 Storage Node

OVERALL RATING

3.9

Company: LeftHand Networks • www.lefthandnetworks.com Cost: $$96,000* Pro: Easy expansion and scalability; among highest performance in our tests; easy configuration for iSCSI initiators. Cons: Management model restrictive; high price for minimum high-availability configuration.

Storage Concentrator

OVERALL RATING

3.9

Company: StoneFly • www.stonefly.com Cost: $$26,436**** Pro: Very good performance for SATA-based system; simple GUI; good performance for SATA-based system; expandable with additional disk shelves over Fibre Channel; simple GUI. Cons: Unmanaged external arrays.

NSS-S12

OVERALL RATING

3.7

Company: FalconStor Software • www.falconstor.com Cost: $43,000 Pro: Strong snapshot agent support; strong replication feature set. Cons: No expansion capabilities; poor integration between RAID controller and rest of system.

9240 Unified Storage Gateway

OVERALL RATING

3.6

Company: Reldata • www.reldata.com Cost: $43,907 Pro: Excellent technical support; good security design; very expandable. Cons: Poorly designed GUI hard to use and buggy; unmanaged external arrays; no snapshot agent support.

EzSANFiler XD34S

OVERALL RATING

3.3

Company: Celeros • www.celeros.com Cost: $15,825 Pro: NAS and SAN capabilities; mixes SAS and SATA drives in same chassis; easy networking; expandable. Cons: iSCSI target configuration convoluted; no snapshot agent support; no HA capability; bad documentation.

NetCOR 7500

OVERALL RATING

3.3

Company: Kano • www.kanotechnologies.com Cost: $13,447 Pro: Built-in HA capabilities; six GigE ports per controller; easy expansion with mix of SATA and SAS drives. Cons: Limited snapshot features; no replication features.

DSN-3200-10

OVERALL RATING

3.1

Company: D-Link • www.dlink.com Cost: $12,475*** Pro: Lowest cost per gigabyte; offers eight Gigabit Ethernet data ports. Cons: Technical support level unacceptable; no HA capability; no snapshot capabilities; no expansion option.

SATABeast

OVERALL RATING

3.1

Company: Nexsan Technologies • www.nexsan.com Cost: $67,500 Pro: Incredibly high density; fastest management in this test; very good performance for SATA-based system; built-in high-availability capabilities. Cons: Poor security model; no replication or snapshots; high-availability not transparent.

* Quantity: three ** Includes dual controllers *** Includes 15 user-added 1TB disks **** Includes DNF FS 16F Array

SCORECARD	Interop-erability	Data Protection	Enterprise features	Mgmt.	Performance	Green	Final Score
	20%	20%	20%	20%	15%	5%
NetApp	5	5	4.5	2	5	3.5	4.2
Compellent Technologies	3.75	4.5	4	4.5	3.5	3.5	4.1
HP	4.25	3.5	5	3.5	4	4	4.1
Dell	4.25	3.5	4.5	3.5	4.5	3.5	4.0
LeftHand Networks	5	4.0	3.5	3.5	5	3	3.9
StoneFly	5	4.0	4.5	2	4	3.5	3.9
FalconStor Software	4.5	4.5	3	2	4.5	4	3.7
Reldata	5	3.5	4	2	3.5	3	3.6
Celeros	4.5	2.5	3	3	3.5	4	3.3
Kano Technologies	4.75	3	3.5	2	3	4	3.3
D-Link	3.75	2	2.5	3	4	4	3.1
Nexsan Technologies	4.5	2	3.5	2	3	4.5	3.1
Note: Products from NetApp, Compellent Technologies, Dell, LeftHand Networks and Reldata used SAS drives. Products from HP and Celeros used SAS and SATA drives. Products from StoneFly, FalconStor Software, Kano Technologies, Nexsan Technologies and D-Link used SATA drives.

Scoring Key: 5: Exceptional; 4: Very good; 3: Average; 2: Below average; 1: Consistently subpar

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Comments (1)

Flawed matrix - who wouldn't include cost as an element of comparisonBy Anonymous on January 20, 2009, 3:53 pmIt would seem like HP should be the clear winner, since it comes in at a fraction of the cost of it's closest competitors.

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