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Re: VA7110 vs. MSA1000 performance

 
Carl Houseman
Super Advisor

VA7110 vs. MSA1000 performance

We've been using VA7110-based storage for our Oracle systems. Each VA7110 has 2 x 2048Gbps controllers. Each controller has 1024MB cache.

We are now looking to purchase a hot standby system and the vendor tells us they cannot sell (via HP's EMR division) the VA7110. They are proposing the MSA1000 as a substitute. Each MSA1000 2Gbps controller has 256MB cache. I can't see this solution as having as much I/O capacity as the VA7110.

Does anyone know differently, either from first-hand experience, published benchmarks, or something else (other than hearsay or opinion not based in fact or experience)?
10 REPLIES 10
Martin Smoral
Trusted Contributor

Re: VA7110 vs. MSA1000 performance

Looks like the MSA1000 in A/A mode is faster.

Performance ├в The MSA1000 and its components have been designed using standard 2 Gb interconnects and Fibre Channel technology. Performance is rated at a transmission rate of up to 30,000 IOPs from cache and bandwidth of up to 200 MB per second. With dual controller active/active configurations, performance increases to >43,000 IOP/s from cache and 367MB/s throughput. Performance can be substantially impacted by number of users and type of application.


Here is the 7410 Specs, Which is faster than the 7110. VA7410 With four back-end disk ports and faster array controllers, the va7410 is capable of up to 34,000 cached I/Os per second and up to 330 MBps sequential throughput.

Regards,
Martin
Carl Houseman
Super Advisor

Re: VA7110 vs. MSA1000 performance

Dual active/active controllers is nice, but even so that system still has only 512MB cache, vs. 1024MB in one VA7x10 controller. It's the quantity and speed of non-cached reads and writes that concerns me.

I guess I really only need "published benchmarks" or "first-hand experience" which has a basis of comparison between the VA7x10 and MSA1000 with a similar I/O load.
Peter Mattei
Honored Contributor

Re: VA7110 vs. MSA1000 performance

If your budget allows for I would consider the EVA4000 instead of the MSA1000.

I attach a comparison presentation I made recently.

Cheers
Peter
I love storage
Rao Uppuluri
Advisor

Re: VA7110 vs. MSA1000 performance

Carl
What did you finally do with your Stadnby project? Did you purchase a MSA1000? We are in exactly same situation as you, current production on VA7110 and need to buy a new disk system. EVA seems like big system for our data needs and I am worried about getting a MSA1000. Have you looked into MSA1500s?

Regards
Rao
Carl Houseman
Super Advisor

Re: VA7110 vs. MSA1000 performance

Since there was a budget to buy storage for the standby system, we used that to buy a VA7410 (2 x 2GB cache) with 15K drives on the used market, put that in production and the VA7110 is now used on the standby system.

The VA7410 is not only a good upgrade for the 2X cache per controllre but the fact that it can use both controllers at the same time.
Peter Mattei
Honored Contributor

Re: VA7110 vs. MSA1000 performance

We (HP) just announced the successor of the MSA1000/1500: The MSA2000fc.
I suggest you have a closer look at it.
The MSA2000 has an excellent price/performance ratio, very nice features and is available as of February 29.

See http://www.hp.com/go/msa2000

What OS are you looking for?
The MSA2000 currently supports Windows, Linux and VMWare with more OSes to come!

Cheers
Peter
I love storage
Carl Houseman
Super Advisor

Re: VA7110 vs. MSA1000 performance

Anything online for the MSA2000 yet? Just checking, I see that the MSA1000/1500 still maxes out at 1GB cache (when configured with dual controllers).
Rao Uppuluri
Advisor

Re: VA7110 vs. MSA1000 performance

Thank you all replies.
Carl,
Just worried about putting a 'used'(VAs are discontinued now right?) array on our new production system (BTW planning to buy rx6600 HP-UX 11i v3) running Oracle 10gR2. Who supports your equipment (VA7410) and are there any end of support dates on these VA storage arrays?

Peter,
Hhope that answered your question. I quickly checked MSA2000, it doesn't support HP-UX. Do you then suggest MSA1500 or 1000?
MSA 1000 can easily satisfy our data needs (size) but I am a little concerned about 'thoughput' compared to VA7110. Any suggestions, please?

Rao
Carl Houseman
Super Advisor

Re: VA7110 vs. MSA1000 performance

CSVDM doesn't appear to be supported under HP-UX 11iv3. So that rules out all VA7xxx storage for you unless you want to use 11iv2.

And lacking HP-UX support for MSA2000, and the lower cache sizes supported on MSA1000/1500, I'd say you've been firmly pointed in the EVA direction.

Regarding the other questions, HP added the VA7410 to our contract with no hassles whatsoever. Although I can't find any official HP document that says it, other HP personnel in this forum have said that end of support is scheduled for Nov 1 2010. Those dates have a way of getting extended if enough customers still have them on contract and they have enough spares.