Need help deciding between starwind and equallogic

sielbear · Thu May 06, 2010 4:46 am

I went with some hitachi sata and corsair ssd.

Thu May 06, 2010 12:21 pm

Thank you! Why corsair SSD and not lovely Intel SSD? Just for my information

sielbear wrote:I went with some hitachi sata and corsair ssd.

sielbear · Mon May 10, 2010 3:14 pm

You know - that's the 2nd or 3rd time I've done that. I meant crucial SSDs...

We went witht he crucial SSDs primarily due to familiarity with the product. We've installed several dozen in other uses and have been very happy with the performance. Even when trim is not supported, we've found write performance to be very acceptable over time. We went with the C300s as we knew we would only run these drives with some type of serious CDP / snapshot system in place. We're a big "eat our own dog food" shop, so we thought we'd give it a go by really pushing the envelope in terms of consumer drives in a SAN system. I'm certain that one day we'll find a degraded / failed array and we'll know we've hit the lifespan of the MLC SSDs!

Mon May 10, 2010 5:40 pm

I see...

Yes, definitely SLC is an answer! And I think PCI-xxx and not SATA or SAS. But pretty expensive one

sielbear wrote:You know - that's the 2nd or 3rd time I've done that. I meant crucial SSDs...

We went witht he crucial SSDs primarily due to familiarity with the product. We've installed several dozen in other uses and have been very happy with the performance. Even when trim is not supported, we've found write performance to be very acceptable over time. We went with the C300s as we knew we would only run these drives with some type of serious CDP / snapshot system in place. We're a big "eat our own dog food" shop, so we thought we'd give it a go by really pushing the envelope in terms of consumer drives in a SAN system. I'm certain that one day we'll find a degraded / failed array and we'll know we've hit the lifespan of the MLC SSDs!

matty-ct · Sat May 15, 2010 1:47 am

I can't really add much regarding the IOPS calculations and so forth but I can add my thoughts on your server setup. I've been selling/configuring servers for over fifteen years. The whitebox servers you created are certainly excellent machines from a technical standpoint. And they might work perfectly well in their assigned roles. However, if something goes wrong that involves driver compatibility/stability or software compatibility, having a large number of vendors' products all in one box might turn into a nightmare for you. I've seen it happen any number of times where each vendor/manufacturer points the finger at the other, stating that the other vendor's driver/app/etc is at fault. In a highly complex system as needed for this type of solution, I wouldn't be shocked to see this type of situation arise. Even though they cost more, I'd advise going with a proven product from HP or even Dell. Heck, even the big boy vendors find compatibility issues in the their products requiring all types of driver/BIOS updates. The advantage is that you have one vendor standing behind the product that has sold the identical server solution to thousands of customers around the world. All the components have gone through extensive compatibility so you don't have to be the guinea pig. Anyway, I don't want to stray from the topic. I'd go Starwind HA on tricked out DL380G6's and a two StorageWorks arrays (or the Dell equivalent). This way you have HA redundancy for the cost of one Equalogic system. Good luck!

Wed May 19, 2010 3:28 pm

If you're big shop and you do walk thru the own server assembly process for a while you could have own scenarios / configurations proven working. So there's no sense in double overpay for just a sticker on the front panel. If you buy hardware only occasionally there's definitely another factor: you indeed can come up with a situation you end with a bunch of expensive, brand name but not working together hardware pieces. But in any case: "It's always good to have an option" (c) ...

matty-ct wrote:I can't really add much regarding the IOPS calculations and so forth but I can add my thoughts on your server setup. I've been selling/configuring servers for over fifteen years. The whitebox servers you created are certainly excellent machines from a technical standpoint. And they might work perfectly well in their assigned roles. However, if something goes wrong that involves driver compatibility/stability or software compatibility, having a large number of vendors' products all in one box might turn into a nightmare for you. I've seen it happen any number of times where each vendor/manufacturer points the finger at the other, stating that the other vendor's driver/app/etc is at fault. In a highly complex system as needed for this type of solution, I wouldn't be shocked to see this type of situation arise. Even though they cost more, I'd advise going with a proven product from HP or even Dell. Heck, even the big boy vendors find compatibility issues in the their products requiring all types of driver/BIOS updates. The advantage is that you have one vendor standing behind the product that has sold the identical server solution to thousands of customers around the world. All the components have gone through extensive compatibility so you don't have to be the guinea pig. Anyway, I don't want to stray from the topic. I'd go Starwind HA on tricked out DL380G6's and a two StorageWorks arrays (or the Dell equivalent). This way you have HA redundancy for the cost of one Equalogic system. Good luck!

tulsaconnect · Fri Jun 25, 2010 7:00 pm

The Dell PowerEdge R510 is a great box for building a StarWind SAN, while still using "enterprise" hardware that will be fully supported by one vendor.

Our recipe for this is:

Dell PE R510
12-bay hot-swap drive chassis option w/2 internal (non-hot swap) drives (internal drives can be used for OS)
PERC H700 RAID controller (6GB/SAS)
PERC6/e ext RAID controller w/MD1000 or MD1120 external JBOD array attached
Win2008 R2 + StarWind Ent Unlim

We use the 12 internal bays for 10K/15K SAS / highest performance volumes, then the external for SATA/near line SAS drives for where more capacity is needed. You can pop some 10GbE Intel NICs in if you want, and have a low cost, high performance SAN with Dell supported hardware. For even more bang for your buck, you can buy the R510s off the Dell Outlet site, then buy the drives on the aftermarket (lots of eBay vendors sell Dell-branded SAS drives for great prices).

Mon Jun 28, 2010 6:58 pm

Make sure you have a spare x4 or x8 PCIe slot. As future versions of StarWind will represent L2 cache (SSD assumed). FYI.

min · Mon Nov 22, 2010 6:27 am

anton (staff) wrote: StarWind does not allow to use snapshots / CDP with HA. FOR NOW. Upcoming version will have re-worked storage stack allowing to mix "containers" in any combinations. Also we're working on alerts / performance monitoring so you'll also see them soon.

Hi Anton,
can HA, snapshot/CDP be mixed for a volume now?

Mon Nov 22, 2010 6:50 am

StarWind V6 only (ETA is Jan-Feb 2011).

min wrote:
anton (staff) wrote: StarWind does not allow to use snapshots / CDP with HA. FOR NOW. Upcoming version will have re-worked storage stack allowing to mix "containers" in any combinations. Also we're working on alerts / performance monitoring so you'll also see them soon.
Hi Anton,
can HA, snapshot/CDP be mixed for a volume now?

hfourie · Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:09 pm

Hi,

Since it is now June 2011, when are we likely to see v6 as I would LOVE to use Snapshots / CDP with HA.

Many Thanks

PS: Love the product

Thu Jun 23, 2011 3:24 pm

Well... We've re-scheduled our features list and released planned de-duplication engine BEFORE updating HA with CDP stuff. Good news: new engine does support both CDP / snapshots / dedupe on the same code base. So you'll have everything at once

Stay tuned!

hfourie wrote:Hi,

Since it is now June 2011, when are we likely to see v6 as I would LOVE to use Snapshots / CDP with HA.

Many Thanks

PS: Love the product

david · Thu Jun 23, 2011 10:21 pm

Well... We've re-scheduled our features list and released planned de-duplication engine BEFORE updating HA with CDP stuff. Good news: new engine does support both CDP / snapshots / dedupe on the same code base. So you'll have everything at once Stay tuned!

Will this be available with the Enterprise HA license?

Fri Jun 24, 2011 6:16 am

Sure!

david wrote:
Well... We've re-scheduled our features list and released planned de-duplication engine BEFORE updating HA with CDP stuff. Good news: new engine does support both CDP / snapshots / dedupe on the same code base. So you'll have everything at once Stay tuned!
Will this be available with the Enterprise HA license?

hfourie · Thu Jun 30, 2011 3:28 pm

Can you tease us with an ETA on the all-singing-all-dancing release?

anton (staff) wrote:Well... We've re-scheduled our features list and released planned de-duplication engine BEFORE updating HA with CDP stuff. Good news: new engine does support both CDP / snapshots / dedupe on the same code base. So you'll have everything at once Stay tuned!