Disk Enclosures
1748139 Members
4158 Online
108758 Solutions
New Discussion юеВ

EVA 4400 vs 6400 vs 8400

 
SOLVED
Go to solution
mujzeptu
Super Advisor

EVA 4400 vs 6400 vs 8400

I am looking at a new array.

The eva4400 appears to support faster FC throughput to the SAN, support more LUNs, and of course be cheaper. It also can still integrate into CV management software we already use (own a eva8000). Also, it is supported by SVSP which we are moving to.

The cons appear to be total capacity (not an issue as we are under 40TB even with growth). Also, it appears to have far less cache.

So, what should we go with? Cost is a factor, but please put it at the bottom of the list for now.

Is it better to get several 4400's instead of one 8400? How does the 6400 factor in? What about overall performance? We are going to be booting ~40 vmware images from SAN and will use several LUNs and the array for all vmware storage (from a C7000 Blade environment).

What else am i missing or not realizing? Why wouldnt I go with the 4400?
4 REPLIES 4
mujzeptu
Super Advisor

Re: EVA 4400 vs 6400 vs 8400

Also note, within the SVSP environment, we are going to have the eva8000 and a few MSA1500's.

Again we have probably 20TB right now of data, and want everything (file shares, vmware images, etc) all stored on the SAN.

Is the 4400 just not fast enough?

We are planning to put in 4 disk enclosures fully populated with 450GB 15k FC disks.
V├нctor Cesp├│n
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: EVA 4400 vs 6400 vs 8400

EVA4400: One loop, 8 enclosures, 4GB cache, 4 host ports
EVA6400: Two loops, 9 enclosures each, 8GB cache, 8 host ports
EVA8400: Three loops, 9 enclosures each, 14 or 22GB cache, 8 host ports

In the EVA4400 you can purchase the model with the integrated 8 Gb SAN switches, but internally the controllers are connected to the switches at 4 Gb.

So the EVA6400 and 8400 have more bandwidth for the SAN and more cache.

EVA6400 and 8400 support 2048 LUNs, EVA4400 only 1024

The firmware is the same, so the rest of the features are quite similar.

The performance while booting several VM will depend on the number of random I/Os the disks can do. This is proportional to the number of disks on the disk group.
mujzeptu
Super Advisor

Re: EVA 4400 vs 6400 vs 8400

Ok great, thanks for the info!

Do the loops constitute just how many enclosures it can support, or does it also up performance?

Also, is there any reason in the 8400 I should get 22GB cache vs the 14?

Do enclosures have to come in pairs?
Uwe Zessin
Honored Contributor

Re: EVA 4400 vs 6400 vs 8400

Additional loops should also increase performance as I/O can be done in parallel.

In the marketing sessions we've got told that the 22GB cache is mainly for, well, marketing.

I don't think that enclosures will have to be configured in pairs, but it does help the EVA to optimize the disk layout for VRAID-1 (although even the old EVA-3000 could separate the mirror pairs on 3 enclosures).
.