XP12000 vs. EVA 5000 --XP worth it?

[Derek_31]

Our company is looking at getting EVA5000s for our SANs. Due it it's limit of 512 LUNs and poor array-based continous access over very long distances, I'm wondering if the XP12000 is a better fit.

No, we don't need more than 35TB that the EVA 5000 can support, and we don't need breakneck I/O performance (Wintel servers with no particularlly high I/O loads). The XP12000 seems to have more robust CA (journaling in early 2005), higher availability, more LUNs, and more future expansion.

Of course all of that comes with a price. I'm also under the impression that the XPs are harder to manage (no vRAID?) and configure. I've configured an EVA before, and my MOM could do it...it's so simple.

Does anyone have an EVA and say XP1024? How do you rate the two? Does the XP have any reported unplanned downtime like I've seen for the EVA?

Also, what's the status of MPIO/VDS/VSS support on the XP? How about boot from SAN for Windows 2003? MPIO support on the EVA5000 is really lacking in robustness.

Thanks!

[Chris Bennett_9]

First, XP is far superior to EVA - period - end of story.

We have XP128's and 1024's here, and the difference BTW XP and EVA is astounding - in terms of stability.

MPIO on most UNIX variants, MPIO WinTel, and VDS/VSS are supported on XP arrays today.

The learning curve on XP's is different - I wouldn't say more difficult (if you REALLY have an in-depth understanding of EVA). the XP arrays are alot more mainframe oriented (their legacy), so you need to understand the concepts of LDEV and LUSE volumes - as opposed to the "SAN for Dummies" approach that the EVA takes.

BTW: Your mom shouldn't be able to run these things - how else could we command 6 digit salaries? :)

Hope this helps.

[Derek_31]

Thanks for the information! I'm pinging our HP SAN rep on some additional issues. It did seem from the quickspecs that the XP line is a much more enterprise product than the EVA.

[Chris Bennett_9]

Good luck - feel free to ask if you have any more questions...

[Craig Rants]

Having an EVA and EMC (XP clone) here is my experience.

XP technology is rock solid, you can set you watch by it. On the other hand you are not as flexible.

EVA technology is still iffy because it is emerging technology. There are some difficulties to work through. However the flexibility of it allows me to perform actions never thought of on a XP.

The question to me would be if price is no object, do you need reliability or flexibility?

GL,
C

[Alzhy · Accepted solution]

We have both EVA5000's and a Hitachi 9980 (basically the same HP StorageWorks/XP 1024). No question about it - the EVA in our experience (and use --- heavy HP-UX usage) is not an array you'd want for highly available systems. Here's our experiences so far:

1) Not suitable as a single array solution -- both HSV Controllers can fail and yer dead
2) Stability - we've had numerous failures on them in the last 4 months that we've deployed them.
3) Scaleability -- if you're doing Business Copy or doing intense IO on another server, then other servers are largely affected.

We were the early adopters of the Hitachi Technology back in 2000 (in fact one box has a serial number in the low single digits) and we've never had any problems with it. Performance is just great and perdictable too. RAS (reliability, availability and scalability) are tops in the industry... And it has that "phone home feature" to alert the vendor if a drive needs replacement or some components need servicing... This architecture just has the utmost redundancy in a single box.

Regarding the XP12000 (a.k.a. the Hitachi TagmaStore line) - well what I can say, Hitachi has yet again shocked and rocked the industry with this boxen. Just about the time when EMC was trying to catch up - it has pulled several light years away in the technology and performance and capacity they've put on this boxen.

But for your needs, I'd say if you can suffer downtime, then EVA 5K may be a fit for you... If you've deeper pockets and would like to sleep better at night.. then spend on an XP128 or 1024.

[Derek_31]

Thanks guys for all your input! Our team will put more focus now on the XP and see if it does everything we want. The only area that I see the EVA winning in is cost and ease of use.

For you guys that have an XP, do you have in house expertise to run it on a day to day basis, or do you have HP services do most of the work for you?

Are the HP XP classes good? I took the EVA class and I didn't have any complaints. I'd imagine the XP class circulium is more than 3 days long like the EVA.

Has anyone had any downtime with an XP? I've seen several stories about EVA down time but can't recall any about the XP.