EQL (sumo) sans?

[beckhamk]

Anyone here using the Equallogic sumo sans (48 drives)? Either sata or sas versions?

[TrevorBell]

I use the standard ones 1 x 16tb and 1 x 2.4tb

[ZipTX]

We have two of them full of sata disks.

[joergr]

got many of them, some sata and some sas, even with new 10gb interfaces controllers (the large ones with 48 drives where the drives are not inserted in front but on top).

[beckhamk]

Wow what a great response... We are in the middle of looking to update our existing FC san which is HDA AMS based. Great product, and they now have a high density tray simular to the EQL sumos. So we decided to investigate the EQL line now since back in 2007 we were just getting into vmware and iscsi support wasnt anywhere near what it is today.

So I wanted to hear the goo/bad about these sumo and other EQL boxes. We have always been extreamly concerned about production performance - we run a web hosting company and everything runs off our vmware/san. So we primarily went with FC first. But now with 10gb we are seriously looking at this. I would say we are leaning more towards the SAS based models. But would love to hear about performance using the sata. For those of you with both, can you tell the difference. Lastly for those with more than two, if you use your in groups where the data is stripped across all of the members in the group - have you had any issues with corruption or anything like that?

[TrevorBell]

Hi,

I have 2 EQL SANS, firstly ps5000xv 16x 146gb sas 15k disks, Ps4000e 16x1TB SATA 7200 disks.

I put mission critical vm`s on the faster storage exchange,sql,iis, exchange archiving, etc.. around 10 vm`s over 2 data stores, then on the larger sata array i have around 30 vm`s over 2 data stores, the beuaty of eql is ease of setup you can be up and running out of the box in less than 10 minutes period! auto load balancing, snapshots etc good easy to use technology.

When it comes to firmware upgrade for the eql boxes which happens about once every couple of months or so i migrate all vm`s to larger eql array yes 40 vm`s running off one sata array it copes i/o goes upto medium use which means average in eql terms so nothign to worry about for the 5 minutes the upgrade takes which is very striaght forward through a gui interface..

I have to say i dont work for Dell but these units are very good and Dell offer then at decent pricing - dont take their first quote batter them down abit you will always get value from Dell

Only haqd one drive failure but wuth 4 hour enterprise cover the drive was here in 2 hours as i assigned 2 hot spares so all kept going seemlessly to users. also if you have issues with the san like a hd fail you just run log report sent it to the dell engineer he determinds the issue and tells you what parts are needed, i very easy process

how much data do you have/projected to use on an eql san ?

hope that helps

Trev...

[joergr]

we use eql since many years, even years before dell acquired them. as said before, many units, about 12 arrays. one of the best san systems i have ever seen. and i saw many. and no, i don´t work for eql