Spec me a P4000 configuration?

[Paul Hutchings]

Open to all options and inputs on this one.

We have (as of right now, not allowing for growth) approx 8tb of data on a Windows File Server VM, and approx 2tb of other VM's including Exchange, SQL and a couple of dozen "general purpose" VM's.

Our IOPS profile is 3000 at 98th percentile.

I'm looking at:

BQ888A

HP StorageWorks
P4500 G2 Virtualization SAN Solution
HP StorageWorks P4500 G2 14.4TB SAS Virtualization SAN Solution
Virtualization SAN Software:
SAN/iQ Storage Clustering
SAN/iQ Network RAID (synchronous replication)
SAN/iQ Thin Provisioning
SAN/iQ Application Integrated Snapshots
SAN/iQ Remote Copy (asynchronous replication)
SAN/iQ Multi-Site/DR Solution (synchronous replication across locations)
SAN/iQ Solution Pack for Microsoft Windows
P4000 Replication for Remote Offices (VSA DR for 10 remote sites)
Virtualization SAN Hardware:

Dual redundant, active-active storage controllers
24 600 GB 15K SAS disk drives
12 GB RAM
Redundant hot swap power supplies
1,024 MB battery backed cache
Support for RAID 5, 10, 6
4 1Gbit NIC ports
iLO2 Management
Integrated DVD/CD-Rom

Plus AX701A Expansion Option: HP StorageWorks P4500 G2 7.2TB SAS Storage System

However I'm getting thoroughly confused over usable storage once you factor in snapshots and Network RAID on top of the physical RAID on the P4500's.

The main reason for looking at the above is that

a) the drives are 15k SAS, large capacity (for 15k) and there are lots of spindles

b) it includes a bunch of VSA licenses - one of the things we want to do is replicate to a DR site that is on the end of a 1-10gbps link. Right now we have an ESX box up there which is connected to a cheap cheerful SAN, slap a couple of VSA's on it and I have SAN level replication and (slow) DR capability until the kit is replaced at which point I can look at more hardware P4000's or just invest in a server with loads of DAS and stick with the VSA's.

I'm looking at various vendors, Lefthand does appeal however my concerns are more around HP and how easy it is to get someone who *really* knows the P4000, and the whole issue of how much capacity you can potentially lose - I don't want to be having to buy 20tb of storage to be able to utilize 8tb.

[Bryan McMullan]

Well rather than spec you out something, I'll just make a suggestion.

If you don't need the fastest solution on the block for your 8TB of fileshare storage, go with the SATA solutions. You sacrifice performance for storage, but it is a good tradeoff for lower performance requirements.

Then stick with the SAS boxes for your ESX implementation to get max performance.

To figure out how much storage you need, you have:

1. Local Box RAID:
Raid 0,10,5,6


Network RAID levels are:
0 = Volume Size
10 = Volume Size x 2
10 + 1 = Volume Size x 3
10 + 2 = Volume Size x 4
5 = Volume Size + Parity Stripe
6 = Volume Size + Double Parity Stripe

So think about it this way, a 12TB SAN module using RAID 10 will have 6TB of space free. Which equates to about ~3TB of usable space if all volumes are NW RAID-10, 2TB if NW RAID-10+1, or 1.5TB if NW RAID-10+2.

[Paul Hutchings]

I think SATA is a step too far but I did consider the MDL SAS Starter SAN.

We've had some initial special bid pricing from HP though and whilst I can't give the numbers, by the time you take into account that either one Starter SAN bundle, or one Virtualization SAN bundle isn't enough by itself, the virtualization SAN looks more attractive.

I'm hoping to have one of our resellers out next week and he has said he intends to bring someone from HP who is strong on Lefthand vs. a generic salesman so we can try and spec something up.