emc ns 700 v/s. netapp f 980

hi all
i am comparing a emc ns 700 (4 data movers) with a netapp f 980.
the emc box scales to 30 tb while the netapp one scales to 32 tb.
seemingly both seem equivalent but emc is offering the advantage of
mixing serial ata disks with fibre channel disks in the same chassis.
anyone used any of these or done any comparatives before please let me
know.
this is a big investment for my company abt a million usd and need to
get it right.
thanks in advance

NS700 with 4 data movers? All the EMC docs talk about just 2 data movers
max. If its more than 2 data movers, then you may need a symmetrix backend
so that rules out mixing serial ata disks with fiber and THAT is not their
NS700 series.
Beware of EMC's sales talk. we have been bitten by them a few times. We just
completed a project that replaced all our EMC celerras with NetApp gear. I
can go on with a list of issues we have with EMC.
-G

"vidyesh" wrote in message
om...
hi all
i am comparing a emc ns 700 (4 data movers) with a netapp f 980.
the emc box scales to 30 tb while the netapp one scales to 32 tb.
seemingly both seem equivalent but emc is offering the advantage of
mixing serial ata disks with fibre channel disks in the same chassis.
anyone used any of these or done any comparatives before please let me
know.
this is a big investment for my company abt a million usd and need to
get it right.
thanks in advance

First off - is this a point solution, or is it part of your
organization's storage strategy? Do you (or do you plan to) have any
other EMC or NetApp kit?

This is a good point. if you already have one of the vendors in house
it makes some sense to continue, but not always.


Personally, I feel comfortable using NetApp kit in a mid-size
environment. Outside of that, I think NetApp are slightly weaker. If
you think you're going to hit big league, I'd go with EMC - they have
almost everything you could possibly want, all from one vendor.

I think NetApp is fine in a very large environment. I have over 200TB
installed and they work well. I can't stand EMC, based primarily on
their sales demons. I had one say to me once that they had to offer
raid5 because they couldn't continue to charge their customers for
double the storage anymore. Really?! (idiot)


Now, if you're planning to expand to accomodate SAN based hosts also,
I'd go for EMC. I feel that NetApp work great in NAS-only
environments but their SAN side is much weaker.

NetApp SAN blows IMO. Not from a performance or scaleability
standpoint but purely on the basis that you can't upgrade the OS
without a reboot, and for DA fiber hosts that is a bad thing. I use
them for most things outside of that; NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, databases,
etc.


Hope this is useful.

Ditto.

~F

if it's only NAS that you need (CIFS and NFS only), ask Netapp about
their Spinserver system. It rocks. I'm running about 34TB of it now,
and the feature set is unreal.

till now we are a netapp shop. have deployed abt 25 tb of netapp
this is big from india standards . however emc is giving really
attractive prices. we will be expanding to abt 60 - 70 tb within the
next 12 months. we are a nas only company. dont see us going to san
very quickly. so a flexibility of san hosts etc. does not actually
mean much to us.
have you done any evaluations specifically for netapp v/s. emc in san
boxes which can help us take this decision.
thanks for the help


Faeandar wrote in message . ..

First off - is this a point solution, or is it part of your
organization's storage strategy? Do you (or do you plan to) have any
other EMC or NetApp kit?

This is a good point. if you already have one of the vendors in house
it makes some sense to continue, but not always.


Personally, I feel comfortable using NetApp kit in a mid-size
environment. Outside of that, I think NetApp are slightly weaker. If
you think you're going to hit big league, I'd go with EMC - they have
almost everything you could possibly want, all from one vendor.

I think NetApp is fine in a very large environment. I have over 200TB
installed and they work well. I can't stand EMC, based primarily on
their sales demons. I had one say to me once that they had to offer
raid5 because they couldn't continue to charge their customers for
double the storage anymore. Really?! (idiot)


Now, if you're planning to expand to accomodate SAN based hosts also,
I'd go for EMC. I feel that NetApp work great in NAS-only
environments but their SAN side is much weaker.

NetApp SAN blows IMO. Not from a performance or scaleability
standpoint but purely on the basis that you can't upgrade the OS
without a reboot, and for DA fiber hosts that is a bad thing. I use
them for most things outside of that; NFS, CIFS, iSCSI, databases,
etc.


Hope this is useful.

Ditto.

~F

ryt - it is basically 2 ns 700s with 4 data movers. no it is not a
symmetric backend. it is a cx 700 backend.
cud u tell me the issues u had with emc in a bit more detail as tht
will really help me see through their sales talk.
thanks and regards
vidyesh

"Net Worker" wrote in message om...
NS700 with 4 data movers? All the EMC docs talk about just 2 data movers
max. If its more than 2 data movers, then you may need a symmetrix backend
so that rules out mixing serial ata disks with fiber and THAT is not their
NS700 series.
Beware of EMC's sales talk. we have been bitten by them a few times. We just
completed a project that replaced all our EMC celerras with NetApp gear. I
can go on with a list of issues we have with EMC.
-G

"vidyesh" wrote in message
om...
hi all
i am comparing a emc ns 700 (4 data movers) with a netapp f 980.
the emc box scales to 30 tb while the netapp one scales to 32 tb.
seemingly both seem equivalent but emc is offering the advantage of
mixing serial ata disks with fibre channel disks in the same chassis.
anyone used any of these or done any comparatives before please let me
know.
this is a big investment for my company abt a million usd and need to
get it right.
thanks in advance

"vidyesh" wrote in message
om...
till now we are a netapp shop. have deployed abt 25 tb of netapp
this is big from india standards . however emc is giving really
attractive prices. we will be expanding to abt 60 - 70 tb within the
next 12 months. we are a nas only company. dont see us going to san
very quickly. so a flexibility of san hosts etc. does not actually
mean much to us.
have you done any evaluations specifically for netapp v/s. emc in san
boxes which can help us take this decision.
thanks for the help


Stay with NetApps. You will be happy.

Rob

did u buy it from netapp or from spinnaker systems before they got
bought out by netapp

"Mike Thompson" wrote in message ...
if it's only NAS that you need (CIFS and NFS only), ask Netapp about
their Spinserver system. It rocks. I'm running about 34TB of it now,
and the feature set is unreal.

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 22:56:35 +0100, HVB wrote:

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 19:48:42 GMT, Faeandar
wrote:

[I wrote]
Personally, I feel comfortable using NetApp kit in a mid-size
environment. Outside of that, I think NetApp are slightly weaker. If
you think you're going to hit big league, I'd go with EMC - they have
almost everything you could possibly want, all from one vendor.

I think NetApp is fine in a very large environment. I have over 200TB
installed and they work well. I can't stand EMC, based primarily on
their sales demons.

I'd be interested to know how you've found managing that much NetApp
storage. Are you using any of the NuView software?

nope, just scripts and an allocation web page. we have DFM but I
personally don;t use it much, although I may start since they produced
an API (better info to be had now).

~F

On 19 Aug 2004 02:56:36 -0700, (vidyesh) wrote:

till now we are a netapp shop. have deployed abt 25 tb of netapp
this is big from india standards . however emc is giving really
attractive prices. we will be expanding to abt 60 - 70 tb within the
next 12 months. we are a nas only company. dont see us going to san
very quickly. so a flexibility of san hosts etc. does not actually
mean much to us.
have you done any evaluations specifically for netapp v/s. emc in san
boxes which can help us take this decision.
thanks for the help

EMC is practically giving away their products because they are having
problems keeping NetApp at bay. I've heard of several shops halting
EMC purchases in favor of filers, and I've not heard this from NetApp
but rather the shop admins. By contrast I have yet to hear a NetApp
shop going the other way. New storage users frequently go with EMC
due to the price, but the value is just not there imo.

I agree with Mike; stay with NetApp, you'll be happy. Especially if
you are primarily NAS, they are nigh unbeatable in overall NAS
functions.

Of course the SpinFS stuff is very cool, but I just don't have the
time to deal with it. Plus we rely heavily on Snap* so it would be
difficult to integrate it, and with the code base of Ontap and SpinFS
on the way to merging I just didn't see it being worth the time.

As for tests between EMC and NetApp, I just never bothered. Call me
bigoted but I just haven't found anything out there that compares to
NetApp let alone surpasses it (Spinnaker not withstanding).

~F