EVA 5000 vs EMC Clariion CX3-20

[Girish Inamdar]

We are at a stage where EVA 5000 needs an upgrade or we need to buy a different SAN device. Can anyone suggest if it is worth to get the EMC Clariion CX3-20?

[Tim Nelson]

It is difficult to compare especially between vendors without some requirements supplied.

What is your typicall IO load ?
How many servers attached and of what type ?

EVA5000s do somethings great and Clariion some other things just as great...

I believe the Clariions are cabable of more cache than an EVA5000. More cache is always better no matter what vendors say (unless you are heavy random OLTP then cache is null and void ).

If you are not going to drive the array to its limits then just about any over configured solution will work. The question is which blances best under load.

If you are loading with 500GB SATA/FATA drives in raid5 then performance is obviously not a concern and perhaps pure number of devices is a better way to look at it.

Something to think about.

[Peter Mattei]

Adding another array will increase management overhead and make it more difficult to balance load and capacities.

Also be careful when installing arrays of different vendors in the same SAN with common server access. The vendors may require different drivers, FW levels, multipathing Softwar and settings etc. which can make implementation and administration very time consuming and difficult

Cheers
Peter