We are looking to buy some additional storage for our remote sites. We will need between 100GB and 600GB per site. Originally I was thinking of using FC-60 arrays, but one vendor came back recommending teh VA7100. I am looking for any comparison/contrasts between the two. Real world experience would be great, fo course, but arguments favoring one or the other on design are welcome, too.
I just got done playing with a va7400, and it was the absolute easiest thing to build and manage. Web interface as well as command line. I think it kicks butt. The ease of adding more disks is just so damn easy, and can be done on the fly. If it's at a remote site, the va7400 is even a better deal than just a va7100 or an fc60.
The VA7400 I tested has 15-18gb drives, and 15-36gb drives with a 16 port brocade switch. We just purchase over 10million (us $) of EMC crap, and I wish we had cut that back and looked into the VA's for areas that don't need immediate data syncronization. The FC-60's, are you using sc10's or fc10's?
We are looking at fc10's in the fc60. I have been having a hard time finding an apples::apples comparison for performance on the VA7100 vs FC60. HPs storage site shows 90Mbs sustained read (30MBs write) for the VA7100, which is probably the most useful metric, but I can't find any corresponding numbers for the FC.
ALso, some loking throug thread history shows quite a few threads in which admins were confused abuot how much disk space they were losing through the RAID + hot swap configuration on the VA's. Did you have any similar issues?
For what it's worth, I wouldn't expect the FC60's to stay around all that much longer. The VA7xxx lineup will likely be HP's strategic future. If you have any plans for integrating your storage into a storage area network complete with backup devices, forget about the FC60's. They are not supported by HP in a mixed tape and disk storage area network.
Also, I wouldn't expect to see any improvements in performance or functionality on the FC60's. I would expect to see the VA7xxx line go to 2Gbps on the front-end fibre channel pretty soon. HP has just released a 2Gbps fibre channel card and Brocade has released a 2Gbps fibre channel switch. Look for the VA7xxx to follow suit pretty soon. I'd bet on an upgrade path even if you bought a VA7xxx today.
Finally, the VA7xxx offers a few other advantages over the FC60's:
VA7xxx offers RAID5DP (double parity) VA7xxx much easier to manage VA7xxx controllers can have more cache (1GB ea) VA7400 can take up to 7 15-slot disk cabs Software offerings are better for VA7xxx - business copy (data mirror) - LUN masking/security
We have both FC60's and VA7xxx's in our environment. Both have been solid performers, but the VA7xxx line is our strategic future for storage.
