Download - ENTERPRISE MIDRANGE ARRAY BUYER’S GUIDEs_2014...62 Oracle Sun ZFS Storage ZS3 63 Overland Storage SnapSAN S5000 64 Overland Storage SnapScale X2 65 Scale Computing ICOS Storage Nodes

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© 2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. Licensed to HP for distribution.

2014 ENTERPRISE MIDRANGE ARRAY BUYER’S GUIDETHE INSIDER’S GUIDE TO EVALUATING ENTERPRISE MIDRANGE ARRAYS

By Jerome Wendt and Ken Clipperton

http://www.dciginc.com

© 2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. Licensed to HP for distribution.

DCIG 2014 ENTERPRISE MIDRANGE ARRAY BUYER'S GUIDETHE INSIDER’S GUIDE TO EVALUATING ENTERPRISE MIDRANGE ARRAYS

Table of ContentsTable of Contents

i

1 Introduction

3 Executive Summary

5 How to Use this Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide

6 Disclosures

6 Enterprise Midrange Array Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

7 The 8-Step Process Used to Score and Rank Enterprise Midrange Arrays

8 DCIG Comments and Thoughts on Enterprise Midrange Array…

8 Value of Included Software

8 Automation

9 VMware Integration

9 Flash Memory Support

9 Reliability

9 Performance and Pricing

10 Observations and Recommendations Regarding Each Midrange Array Ranking

10 "Best-In-Class" Ranking

11 “Recommended” Ranking

11 “Excellent” Ranking

12 “Good” Ranking

12 “Basic” Ranking

13 Enterprise Midrange Array Scores and Rankings

14 Overall Scores and Rankings

16 Management Software Scores and Rankings

18 Enterprise Midrange Array Models19 Aberdeen AberSAN ZXP2 HA

High Availability ZFS SAN

20 Aberdeen XDAS D42F7 8GB FC

21 Aberdeen XDAS iSD41

22 Aberdeen XDAS iXD32 10G

23 Aberdeen XDAS T42F

24 Celeros SmartSAN XT23S-FC

25 Celeros SmartSAN XT235-iSCSI

26 Dell Compellent SC8000

27 Dell EqualLogic PS6100/PS6110 Series

28 Dell EqualLogic PS6500/PS6510 Series

29 Dot Hill AssuredSAN 3000 Series

30 Dot Hill AssuredSAN 4000 Series

31 Dot Hill AssuredSAN Pro 5000 Series

32 EMC VNX5700

33 EMC VNX7500

34 EMC VNXe3300

35 Hitachi Data Systems HUS 150

36 Hitachi Data Systems HUS VM

37 HP EVA P6550

38 HP StoreEasy 5000

39 HP StoreVirtual 4730 Storage

40 HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400

41 Huawei OceanStor S2600T

42 Huawei OceanStor S5800T

43 IBM DCS3700

44 IBM DS5300

45 IBM Storwize V7000U

46 IBM XIV Gen 3

69 Product Rankings Dashboard

Appendix

A-1 Appendix A—Definitions, Explanations and Terminology

B-1 Appendix B—Enterprise Midrange Array Provider Contact Information

C-1 Appendix C—Author Contact Information

D-1 Appendix D—Complete List of Midrange Arrays

47 IceWEB Unified Storage Appliance Model 7000

48 Imation Nexsan E60

49 Imation Nexsan NST5500

50 Infortrend EonStor DS B24F-R2852

51 Infortrend EonStor DS S16E-R2152-6 1GBE

52 Infortrend EonStor DS S16E-R2251 10GbE

53 Infortrend EonStor DS S16F-R2852-6 8G FC

54 Infortrend EonStor DS S48F-R2652-4 16Gb FC

55 Infortrend ESVA E60-2230

56 Infortrend ESVA F75-2830

57 NEC M500

58 NetApp E2600-12

59 NetApp E5460

60 NetApp FAS3250

61 Oracle Pillar Data Systems Axiom 600

62 Oracle Sun ZFS Storage ZS3

63 Overland Storage SnapSAN S5000

64 Overland Storage SnapScale X2

65 Scale Computing ICOS Storage Nodes M Series

66 Starboard AC4500

67 X-IO Hyper ISE 7-Series

68 X-IO ISE 200 Series

© 2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. Licensed to HP for distribution. 1


Introduction

Amid the ever-changing nature of technology and the advancements continually showing up throughout the data storage industry, one important aspect is unchanging: corporate data is being created at in ever greater quantities, and the pace is increasing in unpredictable ways.

According to one recent multi-university study of 26 corporations and large nonprofits, the volume of data is expanding by 35% to 50% every year in most organizations, which essen-tially doubles the volume of data stored every two years. The highest rate observed was 150% growth. Additionally, the researchers observed that in every organization studied, data growth far exceeded revenue growth.1

Because of this accelerating data growth, many organizations are evaluating storage purchases. There are many enterprise midrange storage arrays available to meet this data explosion. This Buyer’s Guide includes standardized data sheets for 50 arrays from 19 providers. In most cases, each data sheet represents an array series. As a result, the 50 data sheets actually represent well over 100 specific array models.2

The word “Enterprise” is new in the title for this year’s refresh of the DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide. The term “Enterprise Midrange Array” is intended to reflect busi-ness expectations regarding continuous availability, comprehensive features, and storage capacity.

The arrays highlighted in this Buyer’s Guide offer organizations the redundancy they are looking for along with data protection features like snapshots and replication capabilities. Although there is no official maximum on storage capacity for the arrays included in the DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide, those products included generally scale to less than one petabyte.

Although the word “Enterprise” is often associated with high costs, it is notable that both new entrants and dominant vendors now make enterprise features available in arrays at prices within reach for mid-sized organizations. Illustrating this price shift, the overall top scoring array in the 2014 Buyer's Guide has a starting list price under $50,000.

Like all prior DCIG Buyer’s Guides, this DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide does the heavy lifting for organizations as they look to purchase a midrange array by:

• Listing each individual midrange array model by storage provider

• Listing different midrange array features, whether or not they are supported and, where appropriate, how they are implemented

• Weighting these features according to what organizations consider most important

• Scoring these features

• Ranking each midrange array model

• Creating a data sheet for each midrange array model

1. Beath, Cynthia, Irma Becerra-Fernandez, Jeanne Ross, and James Short. "Finding Value in the Information Explosion." MIT Sloan Management Review RSS. MIT Sloan Management Review, 19 June 2012. http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/finding-value-in-the-information-explosion/.

2. Each array model represented in this Buyer’s Guide by the most robust model in that array series. Detailed data was collected on each model in the series and is available in the associated DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Interactive Buyer’s Guide. A comprehensive list of array models is given in Appendix D-1.



Introduction continued

The end result is that this DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide gives organi-zations the opportunity to do “at-a-glance” comparisons between many different arrays. This will enable them to more quickly sort through the many arrays to identify a short list of prod-ucts that meet their specific needs. Prospective purchasers can focus their product evaluation energies on those selected arrays and move more quickly to the competitive bid process.

Note that this Buyer’s Guide is not intended to be a substitute for bringing individual midrange arrays models in-house for testing. That function should still be done, if possible, since every array will perform differently under different application workloads and data center environments.

We hope you find that this Buyer’s Guide meets its intended purpose in your environment.

Ken & Jerome



The DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide is a tool designed to cut time and cost from the product research process. DCIG invested hundreds of hours design-ing a survey that would capture the data that matters most to prospective midrange array purchasers, gathering the relevant data, and then analyzing the results.

The data collection survey included 104 scored questions with 288 scored items per midrange array. The resulting data was categorized, standardized and distilled into summary scoring and ranking tables as well as a one-page data sheet for each array.1 This power-ful combination of summary data and data sheets make it easy to do quick, side-by-side comparisons of storage arrays.

On the demand side, multiple factors contribute to a newly dynamic and competitive environment. Enterprises are keeping more data and seeking to do more with the data they keep. Beyond data growth, consolidated virtual server environments create a highly random work load that is challenging for traditional storage arrays. Desktop virtualization creates yet another new set of challenging storage workloads.

On the supply side, advances in available CPU cores and DRAM capacity, coupled with the arrival of flash memory on the enterprise storage scene, have created new opportunities to meet storage capacity and performance demands through new storage architectures, super-sized caches, and storage software that provides advanced capabilities like dynamic automated storage tiering.

Meeting performance and reliability requirements at the lowest possible cost is a high priority for many enterprises; and they realize that gaining the ability to quickly understand what is happening in their storage environment and to automate manual processes gives them the opportunity to reduce the cost of managing their data center infrastructures. Therefore, this Buyer’s Guide incorporates data on integrated performance monitoring software and auto-mation hooks for provisioning and ongoing management of storage arrays.

Like previous Midrange Array Buyer’s Guides, VMware integration is broken out from other software-enabled capabilities because VMware integration is so critical for enterprise data centers. The majority of enterprises use VMware in their environments.

In addition, the depth of VMware storage-related API support can enhance server and stor-age performance while reducing administration overhead. Extensive VMware integration from a storage array equates to higher performance and a lower cost of ownership.

Although VMware dominates the enterprise virtualization space, other hypervisors are gain-ing traction with the install base for Microsoft Hyper-V having risen to nearly 28% this year.2 Multiple hypervisors in the data center is now embraced as an organizational strategy not merely an accident of acquisition. Consequently, when compared to previous editions, this year’s DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide incorporates more data about support for hypervisors other than VMware.

Executive Summary

1. Additional detail about the scoring and ranking process is included in “The 8-Step Process Used to Score and Rank Products” section of this Buyer’s Guide.

2. Jones, Steven D. “Microsoft Quietly Gains Share in Virtualization.” Digits: Tech News & Analysis from the WSJ. The Wall Street Journal, 31 May 2013. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/05/31/microsoft-quietly-gains-share-in-virtualization/



Although software capabilities are critical, robust hardware options are still of great importance when selecting a midrange array. As such, this Buyer’s Guide still scores and places a greater emphasis on controller configurations, hard drive capabilities and available ports on each array. CPU cores, cache size, storage density and storage capacity are also scored. Enterprise-level organizations require standards like hot swap drives and redun-dant controllers to ensure there is no single point of failure, and those necessary hardware elements are addressed.

The DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide is our largest Buyer’s Guide project to date. Although the print edition of the DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s

Guide includes 50 midrange array data sheets, at least 100 arrays are actually represented, because nearly every data sheet represents a series of arrays.

For example, the HP StoreVirtual 4130, 4330, 4530 and 4730 are represented only by the HP StoreVirtual 4730 in the print version. If you would like to more closely examine each model in a series, the data is broken out individually in the DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange

Array Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) module which users may subscribe to at http://www.

dcig.com/interactive-buyers-guide.html.

It is in this context that DCIG presents its DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s

Guide. As prior Buyer’s Guides have done, it puts at the fingertips of organizations a resource that provides them with a comprehensive list of midrange arrays that can assist them in this all-important buying decision while removing much of the mystery around how midrange arrays are configured and which ones are suitable for which purposes.

This DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide accomplishes the following objectives:

• Provides an objective, third party evaluation of midrange arrays that evaluates and scores their features from an end user’s viewpoint

• Includes recommendations on how to best use this Buyer’s Guide

• Scores and ranks the features on each midrange array based upon the criteria that matter most to end users so they can quickly know which midrange arrays are the most appropriate for them to use and under what conditions

• Provides data sheets for 50 midrange arrays from 19 different storage providers so end users can do quick comparisons of the features that are supported and not supported on each midrange array

• Provides insight into which features on a midrange array will result in improved performance

• Provide insights into what features midrange arrays offer to optimize their VMware integration

• Gives any organization the ability to request competitive bids from different providers of midrange arrays that are “apples-to-apples” comparisons

Executive Summary continued

http://www.dcig.com/interactive-buyers-guide.html

http://www.dcig.com/interactive-buyers-guide.html



How to Use this Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s GuideIn determining how to best use the information contained in this DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide, it is important to note that it is intended to help enterprise organizations in their purchase of a midrange array. The purpose of this Buyer’s Guide is NOT to tell users exactly which midrange array to purchase. Rather, it is to help guide them in coming up with a list of competitive products that have comparable features that meet their specific needs.

It is also important for users to note that just because a product scored the highest in a particular category or is ranked a certain way does not automatically mean that it is the right product for their organization. If anything, because of the scope of the midrange array models evaluated and analyzed, it may have features that are too robust for the needs of an individual department or organization.

However, what this Buyer’s Guide does is give users some sense of how each array compares to others classified as “midrange arrays” for enterprise organizations, as well as offers additional insight into what product offerings are avail-able on the market.

DCIG recommends that you use this DCIG 2014 Enterprise

Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide in the following seven ways:

• Eliminate the painstaking research associated with

coming up with a short list of midrange arrays that

meet their needs. This Buyer’s Guide ranks, scores and contains data sheets for 50 different models from 19 different providers. Each midrange array is scored and then ranked as “Best-in-Class,” “Recommended,” “Excellent,” “Good” and “Basic” based upon its score. On each array, over 100 different features were evalu-ated, weighted, scored and then ranked. All an organiza-tion has to do is look at the scores and features of each product in order to come up with a short list of products for consideration.

• Identify comparable apples-to-apples midrange

arrays from different storage providers. In today’s crowded storage market, it behooves organizations to get competitive bids from multiple storage providers. After all, when they compete, you win! But that tactic only works well when organizations know that they are receiving competitive bids on products that are roughly comparable. Using this DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange

Array Buyer’s Guide, organizations can do a better job of accomplishing that objective.

• Separate the apples from the oranges. Just as important as doing apples-to-apples comparisons is identifying when an orange is thrown into the mix. Sometimes it is very difficult for an organization to know if it is truly getting a good deal when bids come in from multiple storage providers that include different models. Now organizations can refer to the scores and rankings of each midrange array in this guide so they know when they are getting a good deal, a great deal or just a “so-so” one.

• Gain perspective on how models from less well

known storage providers compare against estab-

lished and better known brands. Anyone involved with storage has probably heard of Dell, EMC, HP, IBM and NetApp. This creates a certain built-in level of comfort when buying products from these companies and a corresponding built-in resistance to buying midrange arrays from companies that are perceived as unknown quantities.

This Buyer’s Guide helps to remove some of that apprehension about buying from a less well known provider or even a less well known model from an established provider. Using this Buyer’s Guide organiza-tions can see how these models from lesser known companies as well as lesser known models from established providers stack up.

• Take advantage of normalized storage terminology. Every computing industry has a proclivity to adopt acronyms and jargon that is specific to its lexicon. But the data storage industry seems to go out of its way to not only use unfamiliar terms but refer to the same technol-ogy in different ways. This Buyer’s Guide sifts through the acronyms and storage jargon and terms and normalizes them. This minimizes or even eliminates the need for users to try to understand all of the industry terminology.

• Do side-by-side comparisons. The product data sheets available from the different storage providers are rarely laid out in the same way or contain the same information. Some storage providers even have data sheet formats that vary from model to model within their own product portfolio. This Buyer’s Guide tackles the problem by creating a standard, easy to read data sheet for every midrange array. In this way, product data sheets



for individual products can be printed out, laid down side by side and then the features on them quickly compared.

• Justify technical buying recommendations to

business folks. Nothing is easier for those on the business side to understand than a number when doing comparisons. So at the top of every midrange array model data sheet, a product score is included so the business side of the house can quickly see how the different midrange array models compare.

DisclosuresOver the last few years the general trend in the US has been for both large and boutique analyst firms to receive some or all of their revenue from storage providers.

DCIG is no different in this respect as it also receives payment for the different services it performs for storage providers. The services that DCIG provides include blog-ging, case studies, product reviews, executive white papers, full length white papers and special reports. For more infor-mation on DCIG, visit www.dcig.com.

In the interest of being fully transparent, a number of the storage providers included in this DCIG 2014 Enterprise

Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide are, or have been DCIG clients. This is not to imply that they were given preferential treatment in the Buyer’s Guide. All it meant was that DCIG had more knowledge of their midrange arrays and that DCIG was aware that they offered arrays that might qualify for inclusion in this Buyer’s Guide.

In that vein, there are a number of important facts to keep in mind when considering the information contained in this DCIG

2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide and its merit.

• No storage provider paid DCIG any fee to develop this Buyer’s Guide

• DCIG did not guarantee any storage provider that its enterprise midrange array(s) would be included in this Buyer’s Guide

• DCIG did not imply or guarantee that a specific enter-prise midrange array model would receive a good score on this Buyer’s Guide ahead of time

• All research was based upon publicly available informa-tion, information provided by the storage provider and the expertise of those evaluating the information

• Because of the number of features analyzed, how these features were weighted and then how these enterprise midrange array models were scored and then ranked, there was no way for DCIG to predict at the outset how individual enterprise midrange array models would end up scoring or ranking

DCIG would like to emphasize that no storage provider was privy to how DCIG did the scoring and ranking of the midrange arrays. In every case the storage providers only found out the scores and rankings of its midrange array model(s) after the analysis was complete.

Enterprise Midrange Array Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria The term “midrange array” has become a nebulous term at best considering all of the new architectures and designs of midrange arrays that have emerged in the last decade. Terms like “scale-out storage” and “unified storage” have only further served to blur the lines of what constitutes a “midrange array.”

DCIG incorporated input from key users and vendors into defining the criteria we would use to decide what arrays belonged or did not belong in this Buyer’s Guide. This Buyer’s Guide attempts to take into consideration as many of these variables as possible, but likely failed to account for all of them. While this may have resulted in a specific model not being covered in this Buyer’s Guide when it rightfully may have belonged, DCIG believes the following criteria were consis-tently applied as we did our research and made our decisions.

The rationale that was used to determine the inclusion and exclusion of specific models in this Buyer’s Guide is as follows:

• It had to support either the Fibre Channel (FC)

or iSCSI block-based protocol. Well over half of the models included in this report supported both protocols but even if they supported only one, they were still included in the Buyer’s Guide. If the midrange array did not support at least one of these protocols, it was not included in this Buyer’s Guide.

• It had to scale to support at least 60 TBs of raw

capacity. 60 TBs is a previously established benchmark as DCIG specifically wanted to exclude the large number of midrange arrays that only supported a single drawer of sixteen (16) HDDs. It is understood that as arrays scale to



support 60 TBs or greater that many of the features that are of the most interest to organizations begin to surface.

• It had to support two controllers with some method

for failover. It needed to support some type of two controller configuration such that a second controller could take over the application workload should the primary controller fail. This failover switching could be a more advanced configuration with both controllers configured in an Active-Passive, Dual-Active, or Active-Active state. Configurations where the data is asynchro-nously replicated by the primary controller to a second controller for use in case of a failover were excluded from the DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide.

• There had to be sufficient information available to

DCIG to make meaningful decisions. DCIG made a good faith effort to reach out and obtain information from as many enterprise midrange array providers as possible by providing surveys to them for them to complete. However, in a few cases midrange array models may have been excluded because of a lack of reliable data.

• The model had to be shipping as of September 1, 2013. A cut off date had to be put in place or this Buyer’s Guide would never be published. Some allowances were made for feature or product enhancements that were made in August 2013 that did not adversely affect the analysis done in developing this Buyer’s Guide.

The 8-Step Process Used to Score and Rank Enterprise Midrange ArraysTo score and rank each midrange array model, DCIG went through an eight step process to come to the most objective conclusion possible.

1. DCIG listed out all of the features available on all of

the midrange arrays. Prior to selecting the features that were included in the final evaluation in the Buyer’s Guide, DCIG went through and quantified what features midrange arrays possessed. As part of this process, DCIG ‘normal-

ized’ the list of features available on midrange arrays such that a common name for each feature was established.

2. DCIG established which features would be included

in the Buyer’s Guide and which ones would not. One of the goals of this Buyer’s Guide was to try to only include features on each midrange array model that could be objectively and authoritatively analyzed.

For example, “Maximum Raw Storage Capacity” was evaluated as a feature instead of “Maximum

Usable Storage Capacity.” While usable storage capacity is what users ultimately care about, a consistent objective answer cannot be arrived at as most midrange arrays offer multiple RAID options. So “Maximum Raw Storage Capacity” was selected as the feature to be evaluated since an objective answer could be ascertained and supported.

3. Each feature had a weighting associated with it. The weightings were used to reflect if a feature was supported and potentially how well it was implemented. For example, the “Concurrent RAID Mix” feature is more of a “Yes” or “No” type of response whereas the “Internal

HDDs Connectivity” feature covered a number of different disk drive interfaces with varying connectivity options. As such each of these features were weighted and scored differently.

4. A survey that asked about all of the features

scored in this Buyer’s Guide was sent to each

storage provider. In addition to using the information that was publicly available on each storage provider’s website, each storage provider included in this Buyer’s Guide had the opportunity to respond to a survey sent to it by DCIG. The survey elicits more data than was available on any vendor web site to provide a more thorough analysis of each midrange array. This was done to both verify that the information DCIG found on the storage provider’s website was correct as well as remove any ambiguities that existed regarding how some of the features were implemented.

5. All vendors were given the opportunity to review

their data sheets before the final scores and

rankings were determined. To ensure the information presented in this Buyer’s Guide is up-to-date and reliable, DCIG provided each vendor a copy or copies of their data sheets that appeared in this Buyer’s Guide without the scores and rankings on them. In this way they had the opportunity to validate the information and correct it before it was publicly released.

6. All of the features were scored based upon the

information that was gathered. The weighting and scoring of the features were done by a DCIG research analyst.

7. The features were broken down into four general

categories. The features included in this Buyer’s Guide



broke down into a total of four broad categories that are reflected on each midrange array data sheet. These four categories include Management & Software, VMware Integration, Hardware, and Support.

8. The midrange arrays were ranked using standard

scoring techniques. One of the goals of this Buyer’s Guide is to establish clear lines of differentiation between midrange arrays with conclusions that are arrived at objectively. To accomplish this goal, the mean or average score for each classification was first determined and then the standard deviation.

Using the mean of the scores from all of the midrange arrays from which the standard deviation was calculated, DCIG developed a ranking for each midrange array model based upon the following in each classification:

• Those models that were .5 or greater standard devia-tions below the mean were given the rank of “Basic”

• Those models that were .5± standard deviations above or below the mean were ranked as “Good”

• Those models that were .5 – 1.5 standard deviations above the mean were ranked as “Excellent”

• Those models that were greater than 1.5 standard deviations above the mean were ranked as “Recommended”

• The model(s) with the highest score were given the designation of “Best-in-Class”

• It is for this reason that in each classification the number of models that achieved a certain ranking varied. Using this scoring and ranking method, DCIG feels confident that all of the models included in this report could be reasonably classified as midrange arrays suited for enterprise organizations.

DCIG Comments and Thoughts on Enterprise Midrange Array…Value of Included Software

Vendors that sell their arrays with all software features fully licensed as part of the standard array package create extra value for purchasers by reducing the number of decision points in the purchasing process and by smoothing the path to full utilization of the array’s capabilities.

Separate license fees for features can reduce the agility of the IT department in responding to changing business requirements because the purchase approval and ordering process may take several weeks. If implementation services are required, that may add additional weeks to the process.

Separate licensing fees may be minor, or they can have a noticeable impact on the overall cost of ownership for an enterprise midrange array. Therefore, the annual cost of software licenses and associated support contracts should be incorporated into TCO (total cost of ownership) and ROI

(return on investment) calculations.

This Buyer’s Guide acknowledges the value of included licenses by awarding a significant number of points to those arrays that ship with features already licensed. In particular, we give attention to licensing for snapshots, replication and thin provisioning features.

Automation

Data center automation is an area of emphasis for many organizations because it promises to facilitate efficient management of their data center infrastructure and enable a more agile response from IT to changing business require-ments. Ultimately, automation means more staff time can be spent addressing business requirements rather than manag-ing the routine tasks of a data center.

Organizations can implement automation in their environ-ment through management interfaces that are scriptable and offer additional enhancements with API and SDK support.

Support for automated provisioning is an area where improve-ment in the near future is expected. Currently, less than 20% of midrange arrays featured in this Buyer’s Guide expose an API for third-party automation tools, while 11% provide an SDK for integration with management platforms. As more organizations place a premium on automating their storage environment, these numbers should go up.

A higher percentage of these arrays support automated storage tiering, which is offered by 45% of arrays. This automated tiering capability can be important for achieving maximum benefits from flash memory when using flash for more than just a larger cache.

Similarly, 40% natively support the reclamation of freed blocks of thinly provisioned storage. These freed blocks are then available for reuse. Native support for this capability



eliminates the cost and additional infrastructure complexity associated with licensing a third party product or the inef-ficiency associated with manual reclamation processes.

Along the same lines, 21% of arrays are recognized by third party software, such as Symantec Storage Foundation, that can simplify storage management by reclaiming freed blocks of thinly provisioned storage automatically.

VMware Integration

In general, DCIG emphasizes advanced software features in the DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide. This is especially true of integration with VMware vStorage APIs such as VAAI (vStorage APIs for Array Integration) and VASA (vSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness). The VAAI and VASA APIs can dramatically improve overall data center performance.

Given the wide adoption of VMware by enterprises, it follows that they are seeking hardware that can take advantage of the “force multiplication” these APIs provide for existing and future VMware deployments.

The good news is that 62% of the midrange arrays in this Buyer’s Guide support all of the VAAI 4.1 APIs. However, only 10% of the arrays support the full set of VAAI v5 features. Of the VAAI v5 features, Dead Space Reclamation (SCSI

UNMAP) fares best with 26% of arrays supporting this feature.

Similar to the currently low support for VAAI v5.0, less than a fourth of the arrays support VASA. These integrations are key to the software defined data center and to minimizing ongoing management overhead for the large number of data centers that utilize VMware.

Robust VMware support is a product differentiator that matters to many potential array purchasers, and is an area where we expect to see further improvement in the coming year. Those organizations embracing VMware as their primary hypervisor will want to pay particular attention to how an array’s VMware support maps to their requirements

Flash Memory Support

Flash memory is clearly of growing importance in data center storage. Within the enterprise midrange array segment of the market, the importance of flash memory is demonstrated by the fact that 77% of the arrays in this Buyer’s Guide now support the use of flash memory in addi-tion to traditional disk drives.

Nevertheless, just 45% support automated storage tiering, a technology that helps get the most benefit from the avail-able flash memory. Also, only 15% of arrays implement any of the flash memory optimization techniques—such as write coalescing—that enhance both performance and reliability. So while support for flash memory in midrange arrays has grown dramatically, the depth of integration still varies widely.

Reliability

This Buyer’s Guide only attempts to provide some insight into a midrange array’s reliability by examining whether or not it has redundant hardware, hot swappable components and what type of technical support it provides.

For quick comparison purposes, all of the arrays in the DCIG

2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide include redun-dant fans and power supplies. Nearly all arrays in the Buyer’s Guide support hot-swap of drives, power supplies and fans, though a few featured redundant, but not hot-swappable fans.

It is a core expectation of the enterprise-level organization that the enterprise midrange array being purchased offers near continuous availability. The arrays in this Buyer’s Guide account for that baseline need.

Performance and Pricing

Two factors that strongly influence buying decisions are performance and cost. So it may come as a surprise to those who look at this DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange

Array Buyer’s Guide to see no performance benchmarks as to how any of the midrange arrays performed and only high-level pricing information. There are two core reasons why performance or detailed pricing information were not included in this Buyer’s Guide.

Performance will vary according to data center environment, the data being stored, and implementation decisions. So to introduce any type of performance metric would only result in the analysis and evaluations of the midrange arrays included in this Buyer’s Guide becoming more subjective, not less.

The intent of this Buyer’s Guide is to provide a near real-time snapshot of the enterprise midrange arrays currently available in the marketplace. If DCIG had tried to test and establish performance benchmarks for all of these midrange arrays, the next generation of midrange arrays from all of these storage providers could well be available before the testing was completed, making this Buyer’s Guide obsolete before it ever saw the light of day.



As for pricing, each midrange array data sheet provides only a starting list price for that midrange array. These list prices had no bearing in the weighting of any midrange array and are provided for reference purposes only.

DCIG recognizes that features like price and performance are relevant and even key considerations when buying an Enterprise Midrange Array. However, it is also almost impos-sible for a third party like DCIG to objectively measure these features on a large scale. Therefore, evaluating these factors is a part of the buying process that is still best left to end users.

Observations and Recommendations Regarding Each Midrange Array Ranking

"Best-In-Class" Ranking

The HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 earned the “Best-in-Class” ranking among enterprise midrange arrays evaluated this year. In comparison to its counterparts, this array stood out in the following ways:

• Achieved the highest score in three of the four scoring categories, including Management and Software, VMware Integration, and Support

• A single array can be scaled out to 4 mesh active controllers managing up to 864 TBs of data

• Offers HP 3PAR Peer Persistence and Remote Copy software to synchronously replicate data and then implement uninterrupted VM failover and failback without needing to implement a third party appliance or replication software

• Has “Best-in-Class” features, yet carries a starting list price below $50,000—which puts it within reach of many midsized organizations

Recommendations:

The HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 brings together the best of what both block and file have to offer: block storage services in the form of its 3PAR StoreServ family and file storage services with its 3PAR StoreServ File Controller. The new HP 3PAR StoreServ File Controller means organi-zations can trade up to the benefits that converged storage systems have to offer without needing to trade-off on either features or performance.

The HP 3PAR StoreServ is highly regarded for its perfor-mance due to its storage architecture and how it manages data placement within its system. As part of its architecture, HP 3PAR offers organizations the choice of using all hard disk drives (HDDs), a hybrid configuration consisting of both HDDs and solid state drives (SSDs), or an all flash memory array in the form of its new HP 3PAR StoreServ 7450.

To meet the increased performance demands that consolidated environments require as well as to deliver the higher levels of performance available on SSDs, HP 3PAR StoreServ scales up to four controllers in the 7400. As such there is minimal risk an organization's performance demands will outstrip the ability of HP 3PAR StoreServ to deliver on them.

The array further optimizes performance through the use of its wide striping technology. Wide striping places small chunks of data across all of the drives in a system to harness their collective throughput. Additionally, its Dynamic Optimization software ensures the chunks of data are on the right tier of storage. Wide striping places frequently accessed data on the most responsive tier of storage while moving infrequently accessed data to slower drives.

HP 3PAR StoreServ conserves storage capacity through its thin provisioning feature. The array allocates only as much storage to the application as it actually uses while holding the rest of the requested storage capacity in reserve until it is required. Another feature of thin provisioning is its Thin Persistence feature, which identifies the storage capacity no longer used by the application and automatically returns it to the available pool of storage.

Storage capacity used by the array’s replication and snapshot features is efficiently managed by the unique methods that HP 3PAR StoreServ uses to provision storage so organizations may use these features without detecting extra overhead on the system or having to buy extra storage capacity.

HP pairs these native HP 3PAR StoreServ features with its HP 3PAR StoreServ File Controller. Based on Windows Storage Server 2012, organizations have the immediate assurance that the HP 3PAR StoreServ converged storage system will non-disruptively integrate with their existing Windows environments.

The HP 3PAR StoreServ File Controller brings data dedu-plication and advanced file classification capabilities to



HP 3PAR storage. Files may first be classified based on their metadata. An organization can then create policies that perform tasks such as managing retention and plac-ing files on the appropriate tier of storage based on each file's profile and classification.

The emergence of OpenStack storage technology has, among other things, created more confusion for storage purchasers. The good news is that HP's support for these OpenStack block storage Cinder drivers on its 3PAR (FC and iSCSI) storage arrays coupled with its support matrices, close alliances with hypervisor providers, back-end support and wide use of HP 3PAR StoreServ among top service providers makes HP 3PAR storage a safe bet for enterprises that may wish to implement OpenStack in the future.

Some of the analysis presented above goes beyond the data collected for this Buyer’s Guide by drawing on earlier DCIG analysis. To learn more about DCIG’s business-value-oriented take on HP 3PAR storage, see http://hpstorage.dcig.com.

“Recommended” Ranking

Observations:

The EMC VNX7500 and VNX5700 arrays share the “Recommended” label with the Hitachi Data Systems HUS 150 and HUS VM and NetApp FAS3250 arrays.

The enterprise midrange arrays ranked as “Recommended” in this Buyer’s Guide generally shared the following characteristics:

• Scored at least 1.5 standard deviations above the mean in at least three of the four scoring categories

• Support all VAAI v4 and v5 features, and nearly all of the other VMware integration options measured—including SIOC, Storage DRS, VADP, VASA and VASRM

• Support multi-tenancy

• Scale well beyond 1 PB

• Support unified block (SAN) and file (NAS) storage

• Provide concurrent FC and iSCSI connections

• All five arrays have a starting list price above $50,000

Recommendations:

Like the “Best-in-Class” HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400, these arrays outshone the competition across the board. The EMC VNX7500 and VNX5700 arrays were distinguished by

comprehensive hypervisor and operating system support. The EMC arrays also provide superior file system support, including NFS v4.1 (pNFS), SMB 2.1 and 2.2. The EMC arrays provide API support for integrating into data center operations management tools and an SDK for integration with management software. The availability of the API may account for the ability of the EMC VNX arrays to integrate with CA Unicenter, HP Operations Manager, IBM Tivoli, Nagios XI and Zenoss Service Dynamics.

The Hitachi Data Systems HUS 150 and HUS VM and NetApp FAS3250 arrays also deserve serious consider-ation among enterprise midrange arrays. These arrays have native thin reclamation capabilities and Active-Active controllers. The HUS 150 also supports 16Gb FC and 40Gb Ethernet storage networking ports. The HDS arrays feature larger caches (160 GB and 384 GB) than the EMC (36 GB and 48 GB) or HP (64 GB) arrays.

The NetApp FAS3250 tops this category with a Hardware score in the “Recommended” range and all other scores in the “Excellent” range. The most comprehensive set of software and management features and the second highest VMware Integration score among “Excellent” arrays were key to its top ranking.

“Excellent” Ranking

Observations:

The midrange arrays ranked as “Excellent” in this Buyer’s Guide generally shared the following characteristics, with some exceptions:

• Scored “Excellent” in Management and Software and VMware Integration while achieving only a “Good” or “Basic” ranking in at least one category

• Support the big three data management tools of snapshots, replication and thin provisioning

• Support all VAAI v4 but not all VAAI v5 features

• Support unified block (SAN) and file (NAS) storage

In total, nine arrays earned an “Excellent” ranking. Eight vendors are represented, including two that also have arrays in the “Recommended” category—HP and EMC. Most of these arrays are from storage industry titans, but Overland Storage and startup Starboard Storage also have arrays that achieved “Excellent” rankings.

http://hpstorage.dcig.com



Beyond their shared characteristics, half of which include exceptions, these arrays diverge in most other measures. Seven of the nine arrays support FC and iSCSI, four are scale-out architectures and three support multi-tenancy. Despite the diversity of options, all of these arrays are characterized by a solid enterprise feature set.

Recommendation:

The Huawei OceanStor S5800T took “Best-in-Class” in the Hardware category. The Starboard Storage AC4500 achieving an “Excellent” ranking is remarkable in large part because Starboard Storage is a startup founded in 2010, and released their first arrays in February 2012. The AC4500’s little brother—the AC4000—won the 2013 Flash Memory Summit’s Best of Show award for Most Innovative Flash Memory Enterprise Business Application. Starboard’s products are unified hybrid flash-HDD arrays. The manage-ment team includes founders/co-founders of multiple stor-age companies, including LeftHand Networks.

“Good” Ranking

Observations:

The enterprise midrange arrays ranked as “Good” in this Buyer’s Guide generally shared the following characteristics:

• All support the big three data management tools of snapshots, replication and thin provisioning

• Support all VAAI v4 features, except for the HP EVA P6550, which does not support any VAAI features

• Limited or no support for VAAI v5 features and other VMware integrations

• Support iSCSI connections

• SAN block storage devices, with only the top scoring Nexsan NST5500 supporting unified block (SAN) and file (NAS) storage

Recommendation:

Arrays achieving a “Good” overall ranking are still suitable for enterprise data centers. More than half of the arrays scored in the “Excellent” range for at least one scoring category, yet are less feature complete overall than the arrays that achieved a “Recommended” or “Excellent” ranking.

The “Good” arrays include innovative new products as well as the current arrays in established series like the HP EVA

and IBM XIV. Depending on business requirements, data center technologies and vendor relationships, any of these may be suitable for a given organization.

“Basic” Ranking

Observations:

The 17 enterprise midrange arrays ranked as “Basic” in each classification of this Buyer’s Guide generally shared the following characteristics:

• Very limited or non-existent VMware integration

• No multi-tenancy

• No integration with Data Center Operations Management Software

• Support only a single SAN protocol (FC or iSCSI) at a time, except for IceWEB Unified Storage which supports both

• No support for NAS protocols, except for IceWEB Unified Storage and HP StoreEasy

• Only 7 of the 15 arrays support all three of the big data management tools of snapshots, replication and thin provisioning

Recommendation:

When choosing an array ranked as “Basic” an organiza-tion must understand its needs, and then let those needs determine which solutions are the best for its data center. A “Basic” array may address the need that prompted the organization to begin looking at enterprise midrange arrays in the first place. However, most of the “Basic” arrays provide significantly less deployment flexibility than their higher scoring competitors.



ENTERPRISE MIDRANGE ARRAY SCORES AND RANKINGS

The scores and rankings for the backup appliances contain the following information:

• A chart that includes the scores and rankings for all of the products

• The mean and the standard deviation that were used to establish how each backup appliance was ranked

• A summary of the primary findings



OVERALL SCORES AND RANKINGS

continued on next page

Enterprise Midrange Arrays Score Ranking

1. HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 147.00 Best-in-Class

2. EMC VNX7500 145.90 Recommended


4. HDS HUS 150 139.60 Recommended

5. HDS HUS VM 139.60 Recommended

6. NetApp FAS3250 134.50 Recommended

7. Dell EqualLogic PS6100/PS6110 114.50 Excellent

8. Huawei OceanStor 5800T 110.70 Excellent

9. Dell Compellent SC8000 107.20 Excellent

10. Starboard Storage AC4500 104.15 Excellent

11. EMC VNXe3300 103.50 Excellent

12. IBM Storwize V7000U 103.50 Excellent

13. HP StoreVirtual 4730 Storage 102.05 Excellent

14. Imation Nexsan NST5500 101.80 Excellent


16. Huawei OceanStor S2600T 99.35 Good

17. Oracle Pillar Data Systems Axiom 600 97.95 Good

18. Overland Storage SnapSAN S5000 95.85 Good

19. NetApp E5460 94.15 Good

20. Imation Nexsan E60 90.30 Good

21. Dot Hill AssuredSAN Pro 5000 Series 90.05 Good

22. NetApp E2600-12 89.65 Good

23. Infortrend EonStor DS S16F-R2852-6 8G FC 86.45 Good

24. Oracle ZFS Storage ZS3 84.55 Good

25. Infortrend EonStor DS B24F-R2852 80.85 Good

26. Infortrend EonStor DS S16E-E2251 10GbE 82.20 Good

27. Infortrend EonStor DS S48F-R2652-4 16Gb FC 82.20 Good

28. HP EVA P6550 80.35 Good

29. IBM XIV Gen 3 79.90 Good

30. Dot Hill AssuredSAN 300 Series 77.85 Good



Total Number of Products 50

Highest Score 147.00 Lowest Score 34.85 Average (Mean) 84.72 Standard Deviation 29.72

Recommended 129.31 – 147.00 Excellent 99.59 – 129.30 Good 69.86 – 99.58 Basic 34.85 – 69.85

Rankings

OVERALL SCORES AND RANKINGS (continued)


31. X-IO Hyper ISE 7-Series 73.85 Good

32. NEC M500 73.10 Good

33. Infortrend EonStor DS S16E-R2152-6 1GbE 69.90 Good

34. Aberdeen AberSAN ZXP2 HA ZFS SAN 69.70 Basic

35. Dot Hill AssuredSAN 4000 Series 68.05 Basic

36. Infortrend ESVA F75-2830 65.45 Basic

37. Infortrend ESVA E60-2230 64.65 Basic

38. X-IO ISE 200 Series 62.30 Basic

39. Scale Computing ICOS Storage Nodes M Series 58.80 Basic

40. Overland Storage SnapScale X2 54.60 Basic

41. IceWEB Unified Storage Appliance Model 7000 53.55 Basic

42. Aberdeen XDAS D42F7 8Gb FC 51.30 Basic

43. Aberdeen XDAS iSD41 49.55 Basic

44. IBM DS5300 49.10 Basic

45. IBM DCS3700 47.60 Basic

46. Aberdeen XDAS iXD32 10G 45.90 Basic

47. Celeros SmartSAN XT23S-FC 45.20 Basic

48. Celeros SmartSAN XT23S-iSCSI 42.20 Basic

49. HP StoreEasy 5000 42.05 Basic

50. Aberdeen XDAS T42F 34.85 Basic



Management Software Scores and Rankings

continued on next page


1. HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 66.70 Best-in-Class



4. HDS HUS 150 60.50 Recommended

5. HDS HUS VM 59.15 Recommended

6. NetApp FAS3250 52.90 Excellent

7. Starboard Storage AC4500 48.05 Excellent

8. Oracle Pillar Data Systems Axiom 600 47.35 Excellent


10. HP StoreVirtual 4730 Storage 45.55 Excellent

11. Huawei OceanStor 5800T 44.95 Excellent

12. IBM Storwize V7000U 44.20 Excellent


14. Overland Storage SnapSAN S5000 43.15 Excellent

15. EMC VNXe3300 42.60 Excellent

16. Dell Compellent SC8000 41.30 Excellent

17. Dot Hill AssuredSAN Pro 5000 Series 40.15 Good

18. Imation Nexsan NST5500 39.95 Good

19. Huawei OceanStor S2600T 39.95 Good

20. Oracle ZFS Storage ZS3 38.50 Good

21. Infortrend EonStor DS S16F-R2852-6 8G FC 34.85 Good

22. Infortrend EonStor DS B24F-R2852 34.85 Good

23. Infortrend EonStor DS S48F-R2652-4 16Gb FC 34.85 Good

24. Infortrend EonStor DS S16E-E2251 10GbE 33.85 Good

25. NetApp E5460 33.30 Good

26. NetApp E2600-12 32.80 Good

27. NEC M500 32.55 Good

28. Imation Nexsan E60 31.65 Good

29. HP EVA P6550 31.15 Good

30. IBM XIV Gen 3 28.85 Good



Total Number of Products 50

Highest Score 66.70 Lowest Score 6.00 Average (Mean) 34.06 Standard Deviation 14.40

Recommended 55.66 – 66.70 Excellent 41.26 – 55.65 Good 26.86 – 41.25 Basic 6.00 – 26.85

Rankings

Management Software Scores and Rankings (continued)


31. Infortrend ESVA E60-2230 28.70 Good

32. Overland Storage SnapScale X2 27.50 Good

33. Dot Hill AssuredSAN 300 Series 27.25 Good

34. Aberdeen AberSAN ZXP2 HA ZFS SAN 26.75 Basic

35. X-IO Hyper ISE 7-Series 26.35 Basic

36. Infortrend EonStor DS S16E-R2152-6 1GbE 26.00 Basic

37. Infortrend ESVA F75-2830 25.55 Basic

38. Scale Computing ICOS Storage Nodes M Series 24.65 Basic

39. Dot Hill AssuredSAN 4000 Series 21.15 Basic

40. Aberdeen XDAS iSD41 20.10 Basic

41. Celeros SmartSAN XT23S-FC 19.55 Basic

42. Aberdeen XDAS D42F7 8Gb FC 19.10 Basic

43. X-IO ISE 200 Series 18.10 Basic

44. Aberdeen XDAS iXD32 10G 18.00 Basic

45. IBM DCS3700 17.80 Basic

46. Celeros SmartSAN XT23S-iSCSI 17.55 Basic

47. IceWEB Unified Storage Appliance Model 7000 16.50 Basic

48. HP StoreEasy 5000 13.10 Basic

49. IBM DS5300 7.10 Basic

50. Aberdeen XDAS T42F 6.00 Basic



ENTERPRISE MIDRANGE ARRAY MODELS

DCIG Scores and Rankings

19

* The DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) contains additional data elements for this category that are reflected in the scores assigned to each array, but which were not able to be included on this one-page data sheet.

† The number specifies the number of different supported elements available. An “X” indicates no support for the feature. The specific elements supported for each product are available by accessing the IBG.

‡ See the IBG for a complete list of supported options. Supported UnsupportedAll information on this product is based strictly upon DCIG's own research and information found on the provider's web site.©2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. Licensed to HP for distribution.

SUPPORT

Hardware Warranty 5 Years

Contract Support Availability Business Day

Contract Support† (Total #) 1

Non-Contract Support‡

vSPHERE INTEGRATION*

VAAI v4† (Total #)


Other VMware Integrations

Snapshot Integration with vSphere‡

Performance Metrics for VAAI

vSphere Plug-in for Array Management

SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS

HARDWARE* (CONTINUED)

Supported Drives

FC or SAS HDD 7.2K, 10K, 15K RPM

SATA‡

SSD‡

SSD Optimization† (Total #) 1

Managed UPS/Battery Backup

RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*

Controller Config Active-Active

Cores (Max) 16 cores

Scale-out (Max controllers)

Cache (Max) 1616 GB

Raw Storage Capacity (Max) Unlimited

Inline Deduplication

Inline Compression

Storage Networking Ports (Max)

24 ports

1/10 Gb Ethernet Ports (Max)

16 ports / 8 ports

8/16 Gb Fibre Channel Ports (Max) 8 ports /

FC

FCoE

iSCSI

Concurrent FC & iSCSI

Concurrent SAN & NAS

RAID Options 0, 1, 5, 6

Multi-RAID / Erasure Codes /

Redundancy† (Total #) 8

Drives: Global Hot Spares

Anti-vibration

Advanced HDD Spin Down

HDD Interface SAS 6Gb

Concurrent HDD Mix In Controller‡

MANAGEMENT & SOFTWARE*

Snapshots† (Total #) 2

Asynch Replication

Synch Replication

Thin Provisioning† (Total #) 1

3rd Party Storage Reclamation

Feature License Included

Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning

Re-striping Data on New Disk/LUN

Mixed Drive Types in LUN

Multipathing† (Total #) 1

Hypervisor/OS† (Total #) 4

AST† (Total #) 2

Policy-based Provisioning†

(Total #)

Multi-tenancy

Performance Monitoring App

Mgt Interfaces† (Total #)

Notification† (Total #)

DCM Software† (Total #)

Network File Systems† (Total #)

2

Aberdeen AberSAN ZXP2 HA High Availability ZFS SANApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE

Management & Software* Hardware*

vSphere Integration* Support

69.70 26.75 33.45 0.00 9.50GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT BASIC GOOD


20




SUPPORT


Contract Support Availability Business Day










SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives

FC or SAS HDD 7.2K, 15K RPM

SATA‡

SSD‡

SSD Optimization† (Total #)


RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*

Controller Config Active-Standby

Cores (Max) 2 cores


Cache (Max) 8 GB

Raw Storage Capacity (Max) 696 TB


Inline Compression


8 ports

1/10 Gb Ethernet Ports (Max) /


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy


Mgt Interfaces† (Total #) 4

Notification† (Total #) 2



1

Aberdeen XDAS D42F7 8GB FCApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE



51.30 19.10 22.70 0.00 9.50BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC GOOD


21




SUPPORT


Contract Support Availability Business Day (local time)










SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 2 cores


Cache (Max) 4 GB



Inline Compression


12 ports

1/10 Gb Ethernet Ports (Max) 12 ports /

8/16 Gb Fibre Channel Ports (Max) /

FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






1

Aberdeen XDAS iSD41Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE





22




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max)

Raw Storage Capacity (Max) Unlimited


Inline Compression


4 ports

1/10 Gb Ethernet Ports (Max) / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning



Multipathing† (Total #)


AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






1

Aberdeen XDAS iXD32 10GApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE





23




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 2 GB



Inline Compression


8 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60




Anti-vibration


HDD Interface SATA, SAS 6Gb



Snapshots† (Total #)

Asynch Replication

Synch Replication

Thin Provisioning† (Total #)



Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning




Hypervisor/OS† (Total #)

AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






Aberdeen XDAS T42FApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE





24




SUPPORT


Contract Support Availability

Contract Support† (Total #)





Other VMware Integrations 2




SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*

Controller Config Dual-Active

Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 8 GB



Inline Compression


8 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






1

Celeros SmartSAN XT23S-FCApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE



45.20 19.55 20.15 1.50 4.00BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC BASIC


25




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max)


Cache (Max) 8 GB



Inline Compression


8 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






1

Celeros SmartSAN XT235-iSCSIApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE





26



‡ See the IBG for a complete list of supported options. Supported Unsupported

SUPPORT


Contract Support Availability 24×7×365




VAAI v4† (Total #) 3






SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*




Cache (Max) 128 GB

Raw Storage Capacity (Max) 960+ TB


Inline Compression


44 ports


20 ports / 20 ports

8/16 Gb Fibre Channel Ports (Max)

32 ports / 12 ports

FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration


HDD Interface FC-AL, SAS 6Gb




Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






Dell Compellent SC8000Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

©2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. Licensed to HP for distribution.

OVERALL SCORE



107.20 41.30 34.80 18.00 13.10EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT


27




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 8 cores

Scale-out (Max controllers) 36 controllers

Cache (Max) 8 GB

Raw Storage Capacity (Max) 1,536 TB


Inline Compression


128 ports


128 ports / 32 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)2

Multi-tenancy






2

Dell EqualLogic PS6100/PS6110 SeriesApproximate Starting List Price: $30,000


OVERALL SCORE



114.50 46.20 33.90 23.00 11.40EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD


28




SUPPORT

Hardware Warranty 1 Year











SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 4 GB



Inline Compression


4 ports


4 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)2

Multi-tenancy






Dell EqualLogic PS6500/PS6510 SeriesApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



100.25 43.30 24.55 24.00 8.40EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD EXCELLENT BASIC


29




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 2 cores


Cache (Max) 4 GB



Inline Compression


8 ports


8 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 50




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)3

Multi-tenancy






Dot Hill AssuredSAN 3000 SeriesApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



77.85 27.25 25.60 12.00 13.00GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT


30





Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant








SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS

SUPPORT





HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 2 cores


Cache (Max) 8 GB



Inline Compression


8 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 50




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)3

Multi-tenancy






Dot Hill AssuredSAN 4000 SeriesApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



68.05 21.15 25.50 9.00 12.40GOOD BASIC GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT


31




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 2 cores


Cache (Max) 8 GB



Inline Compression


8 ports


8 ports / 8 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 6, 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 2


(Total #)3

Multi-tenancy






Dot Hill AssuredSAN Pro 5000 SeriesApproximate Starting List Price: $50,000–$100,000


OVERALL SCORE





32




SUPPORT






Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant








SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS

HARDWARE*

Controller Config Dual-Active, Active-Standby

Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 36 GB



Inline Compression


72 ports


64 ports / 36 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 5, 6, 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 4


(Total #)2

Multi-tenancy




DCM Software† (Total #) 6


4

EMC VNX5700Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000–$100,000


OVERALL SCORE



143.70 61.95 37.15 30.50 14.10RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED


33




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*

Controller Config Active-Standy, Dual-Active

Cores (Max) 6 cores


Cache (Max) 48 GB



Inline Compression


160 ports


144 ports / 76 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 4


(Total #)2

Multi-tenancy






4

EMC VNX7500Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000– $100,000


OVERALL SCORE



145.90 60.95 39.35 31.50 14.10RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED


34




SUPPORT






Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant








SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS

HARDWARE*

Controller Config Active-Standby, Dual-Active

Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 24 GB



Inline Compression


16 ports


6 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 5, 6, 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)4

Multi-tenancy






2

EMC VNXe3300Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



103.50 42.60 26.70 23.00 11.20EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD EXCELLENT GOOD


35




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 220 GB



Inline Compression


40 ports


24 ports / 24 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)2

Multi-tenancy






2

Hitachi Data Systems HUS 150Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000–$100,000


OVERALL SCORE



139.60 59.15 38.45 30.00 12.00RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED EXCELLENT


36




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*




Cache (Max) 688 GB



Inline Compression


56 ports


24 ports / 16 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)2

Multi-tenancy






2

Hitachi Data Systems HUS VMApproximate Starting List Price: $150,000–$250,000


OVERALL SCORE



139.60 60.50 37.10 30.00 12.00RECOMMENDED RECOMMENDED EXCELLENT RECOMMENDED EXCELLENT


37




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 16 GB



Inline Compression


12 ports


8 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






HP EVA P6550Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE





38




SUPPORT






Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant








SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 8 cores


Cache (Max) 2 GB



Inline Compression


14 ports


10 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






3

HP StoreEasy 5000Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE





39




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives

FC or SAS HDD 10K RPM

SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*

Controller Config Single Controller, Active-Active

Cores (Max) 6 cores


Cache (Max) 4 GB

Raw Storage Capacity (Max) 22.5 TB


Inline Compression


8 ports


4 ports / 2 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)2

Multi-tenancy






2

HP StoreVirtual 4730 StorageApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



102.05 45.55 22.70 21.00 12.80EXCELLENT EXCELLENT BASIC EXCELLENT EXCELLENT


40




HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000

SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 6 cores


Cache (Max) 64 GB



Inline Compression


24 ports


8 ports / 8 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)7

Multi-tenancy






2


OVERALL SCORE



147.00 66.70 33.60 32.00 14.70BEST-IN-CLASS BEST-IN-CLASS EXCELLENT BEST-IN-CLASS BEST-IN-CLASS


41




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 2 cores


Cache (Max) 16 GB



Inline Compression


16 ports


8 ports / 8 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 50




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






2

Huawei OceanStor S2600TApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



99.35 39.95 33.20 17.50 8.70EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD


42




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 8 cores


Cache (Max) 192 GB



Inline Compression


24 ports


20 ports / 20 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 50




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






2

Huawei OceanStor S5800TApproximate Starting List Price: $100,000–$150,000


OVERALL SCORE



110.70 44.95 40.25 17.50 8.00EXCELLENT EXCELLENT BEST-IN-CLASS EXCELLENT BASIC


43




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 48 GB

Raw Storage Capacity (Max) 1,000+ TB


Inline Compression


16 ports


4 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10


Redundancy† (Total #)


Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






IBM DCS3700Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE





44




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 64 GB



Inline Compression


16 ports


16 ports / 8 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10




Anti-vibration


HDD Interface FC-AL, SATA, SAS 6Gb




Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






IBM DS5300Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE



49.30 7.10 31.00 0.00 11.00BASIC BASIC EXCELLENT BASIC GOOD


45




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores

Scale-out (Max controllers) 8

Cache (Max) 16 GB



Inline Compression


16 ports


4 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration


HDD Interface FC-AW, SAS 6Gb




Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 2


(Total #)6

Multi-tenancy






2

IBM Storwize V7000UApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE





46




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives

FC or SAS HDD 7.2K RPM

SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 96 GB



Inline Compression


24 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






IBM XIV Gen 3Approximate Starting List Price: $1,000,000

OVERALL SCORE



79.90 28.85 27.75 15.00 8.30GOOD GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT BASIC


47




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS

HARDWARE*

Controller Config Active-Standby, Active-Active

Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 1,024 GB



Inline Compression


26 ports


26 ports / 12 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60




Anti-vibration


HDD Interface FC-AL, FC-SW, SAS 6Gb



Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant



Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning




Hypervisor/OS† (Total #)

AST† (Total #) 1


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






2

IceWEB Unified Storage Appliance Model 7000Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

All information on this product is based strictly upon DCIG's own research and information found on the provider's web site.©2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. The information, product recommendations and opinions made by DCIG, LLC are based upon public information and from sources that DCIG, LLC believes to be accurate and reliable. Licensed to HP for distribution.

OVERALL SCORE



53.55 16.50 28.75 0.00 8.30BASIC BASIC GOOD BASIC BASIC


48




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 32 GB



Inline Compression


12 ports


8 ports / 8 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






Imation Nexsan E60Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



90.30 31.65 31.15 14.00 13.50GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT GOOD EXCELLENT


49




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*




Cache (Max) 384 GB



Inline Compression


16 ports


12 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI







Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 2


(Total #)1

Multi-tenancy






2

Imation Nexsan NST5500Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000-$100,000


OVERALL SCORE



101.80 39.95 35.55 15.50 10.80EXCELLENT GOOD EXCELLENT GOOD GOOD


50




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 32 GB



Inline Compression


12 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)1

Multi-tenancy






Infortrend EonStor DS B24F-R2852Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



83.45 34.85 26.40 13.00 9.20GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD


51




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 16 GB



Inline Compression


12 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






Infortrend EonStor DS S16E-R2152-6 1GBEApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE





52




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 16 GB



Inline Compression


4 ports


4 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)1

Multi-tenancy






Infortrend EonStor DS S16E-R2251 10GbEApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE





53




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 16 GB



Inline Compression


8 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)1

Multi-tenancy






Infortrend EonStor DS S16F-R2852-6 8G FCApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE





54




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 16 GB



Inline Compression


8 ports


8/16 Gb Fibre Channel Ports (Max) / 4 ports

FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)1

Multi-tenancy






Infortrend EonStor DS S48F-R2652-4 16Gb FCApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



82.20 34.85 25.15 13.00 9.20GOOD GOOD BASIC GOOD GOOD


55




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 8 GB



Inline Compression


4 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






Infortrend ESVA E60-2230Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



64.65 28.70 27.45 0.00 8.50BASIC GOOD GOOD BASIC BASIC


56




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 16 GB

Raw Storage Capacity (Max) 4,800+ TB


Inline Compression


12 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






Infortrend ESVA F75-2830Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



67.45 25.55 27.90 5.00 9.00BASIC BASIC GOOD BASIC GOOD


57




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 40 GB



Inline Compression


8 ports


8 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60, Triple Parity




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






2

NEC M500Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE



73.10 32.55 26.55 10.00 4.00GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD BASIC


58




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core





Inline Compression


8 ports


8 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






NetApp E2600-12Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



89.65 32.80 31.85 13.50 11.50GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT GOOD GOOD


59




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core





Inline Compression


16 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






NetApp E5460Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



94.15 33.30 33.85 15.50 11.50GOOD GOOD EXCELLENT GOOD GOOD


60




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives

FC or SAS HDD 10K, 15K RPM

SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*







Inline Compression


52 ports


52 ports / 24 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 4, 6




Anti-vibration


HDD Interface SAS 3GB, 6Gb




Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)1

Multi-tenancy






2

NetApp FAS3250Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000–$100,000


OVERALL SCORE



134.50 52.90 43.00 26.50 12.10RECOMMENDED EXCELLENT RECOMMENDED EXCELLENT EXCELLENT


61




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives

FC or SAS HDD 10K, 15K RPM

SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 48 GB



Inline Compression


32 ports


32 ports / 16 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 5, 10, 50




Anti-vibration


HDD Interface FC-SW




Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 2


(Total #)1

Multi-tenancy






2

Oracle Pillar Data Systems Axiom 600Approximate Starting List Price: $50,000–$100,000


OVERALL SCORE



97.95 47.35 33.10 9.00 8.50GOOD EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD BASIC


62




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*

Controller Config Active-Active, Active-Standby






Inline Compression


40 ports


40 ports / 24 ports

8/16 Gb Fibre Channel Ports (Max)

16 ports / 16 ports

FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 5, 6, Triple Parity


Redundancy† (Total #)


Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)2

Multi-tenancy






2

Oracle Sun ZFS Storage ZS3Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



84.55 38.50 37.55 0.00 8.50GOOD GOOD RECOMMENDED BASIC BASIC


63




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 16 GB



Inline Compression


8 ports


4 ports / 4ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 2


(Total #)5

Multi-tenancy






Overland Storage SnapSAN S5000Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE





64




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 32 GB

Raw Storage Capacity (Max) 512, 000 TB


Inline Compression


4 ports


4 ports / 4 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options




Anti-vibration


HDD Interface SAS




Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






2

Overland Storage SnapScale X2Approximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



54.60 27.50 18.90 0.00 8.20BASIC GOOD BASIC BASIC BASIC


65




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 1 core


Cache (Max) 96 GB



Inline Compression


80 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






3

Scale Computing ICOS Storage Nodes M SeriesApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000

OVERALL SCORE



58.80 24.65 22.15 5.50 6.50BASIC GOOD BASIC BASIC BASIC


66




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 8 cores





Inline Compression


10 ports


10 ports / 2 ports


FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 10, 50, Triple Parity




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 3


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






2

Starboard AC4500Approximate Starting List Price: $64,995


OVERALL SCORE



104.15 48.05 28.30 15.00 12.80EXCELLENT EXCELLENT GOOD EXCELLENT EXCELLENT


67




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 8 GB



Inline Compression


8 ports



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 5, 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #) 2


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






X-IO Hyper ISE 7-SeriesApproximate Starting List Price: $100,000–$150,000


OVERALL SCORE



73.85 26.35 24.00 9.00 14.50GOOD BASIC BASIC GOOD RECOMMENDED


68




SUPPORT












SIOC

VASA

AQDT

VADP

VASRM

Storage DRS


Supported Drives


SATA‡

SSD‡



RoHS Compliant

HARDWARE*


Cores (Max) 4 cores


Cache (Max) 8 GB



Inline Compression


8



FC

FCoE

iSCSI



RAID Options 5, 10




Anti-vibration






Asynch Replication

Synch Replication




Snapshot

Replication

Thin Provisioning





AST† (Total #)


(Total #)

Multi-tenancy






X-IO ISE 200 SeriesApproximate Starting List Price: Under $50,000


OVERALL SCORE



62.30 18.10 22.20 7.50 14.50BASIC BASIC BASIC GOOD RECOMMENDED



Product Rankings Dashboard

Aberdeen AberSAN ZXP2 HA High Availability ZFS SAN

Best-In-Class RecommendedExcellentGood Basic

Dell EqualLogic PS6100/PS6110 Series

Aberdeen XDAS D42F7 8GB FC


Dell EqualLogic PS6500/PS6510 Series

Aberdeen XDAS iSD41


Aberdeen XDAS iXD32 10G


Dot Hill AssuredSAN 3000 Series

Dot Hill AssuredSAN 4000 Series

Aberdeen XDAS T42F


Dot Hill AssuredSAN Pro 5000 Series

Celeros SmartSAN XT23S-FC


EMC VNX5700

Celeros SmartSAN XT235-iSCSI


Dell Compellent SC8000

OVERALL

SCORE

MANAG

EMEN

T & SO

FTWAR

E

MANAG

EMEN

T & SO

FTWAR

E

HARDWAR

E

HARDWAR

E

vSPH

ERE I

NTEGRAT

ION

vSPH

ERE I

NTEGRAT

ION

SUPP

ORT

SUPP

ORT

OVERALL

SCORE



Product Rankings Dashboard (continued)

EMC VNX7500


Huawei OceanStor S2600T

EMC VNXe3300



Hitachi Data Systems HUS 150


Hitachi Data Systems HUS VM


IBM DCS3700

IBM DS5300

HP EVA P6550


IBM Storwize V7000U

HP StoreEasy 5000


IBM XIV Gen 3

HP StoreVirtual 4730 Storage


HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400

OVERALL

SCORE

MANAG

EMEN

T & SO

FTWAR

E

MANAG

EMEN

T & SO

FTWAR

E

HARDWAR

E

HARDWAR

E

vSPH

ERE I

NTEGRAT

ION

vSPH

ERE I

NTEGRAT

ION

SUPP

ORT

SUPP

ORT

OVERALL

SCORE




IceWEB Unified Storage Appliance Model 7000


Infortrend ESVA E60-2230

Imation Nexsan E60


Infortrend ESVA F75-2830

Imation Nexsan NST5500


Infortrend EonStor DS B24F-R2852


NEC M500

NetApp E2600-12

Infortrend EonStor DS S16E-R2152-6 1GBE


NetApp E5460

Infortrend EonStor DS S16E-R2251 10GbE


NetApp FAS3250

Infortrend EonStor DS S16F-R2852-6 8G FC


Infortrend EonStor DS S48F-R2652-4 16Gb FC

OVERALL

SCORE

MANAG

EMEN

T & SO

FTWAR

E

MANAG

EMEN

T & SO

FTWAR

E

HARDWAR

E

HARDWAR

E

vSPH

ERE I

NTEGRAT

ION

vSPH

ERE I

NTEGRAT

ION

SUPP

ORT

SUPP

ORT

OVERALL

SCORE




Oracle Pillar Data Systems Axiom 600


Oracle Sun ZFS Storage ZS3


Overland Storage SnapSAN S5000


Overland Storage SnapScale X2


Scale Computing ICOS Storage Nodes M Series


Starboard AC4500


X-IO Hyper ISE 7-Series


X-IO ISE 200 Series

OVERALL

SCORE

MANAG

EMEN

T & SO

FTWAR

E

MANAG

EMEN

T & SO

FTWAR

E

HARDWAR

E

HARDWAR

E

vSPH

ERE I

NTEGRAT

ION

vSPH

ERE I

NTEGRAT

ION

SUPP

ORT

SUPP

ORT

OVERALL

SCORE



Appendix B—Storage Provider Contact Information

APPENDIXAppendix A: Definitions, Explanations and Terminology

Appendix B: Storage Provider Contact Information

Appendix C: Author Contact Information

Appendix D: Complete List of Midrange Arrays

© 2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. Licensed to HP for distribution. A-1


Appendix A—Definitions, Explanations and Terminology

Management & SoftwareSnapshots (Total #)

This score indicates if the array can do snapshots and, if it can, how many snapshot options it support. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of snapshot options it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which snapshots were supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a list of supported snapshot options for any particular array. Snapshot options covered in the IBG are:

AoW: Allocate-on-write snapshot. Blocks of data are locked down until all snapshot pointers to those blocks are no longer referenced.

CoW: Copy-on-write snapshot. Copies changes to stored data every time new data is entered or existing data is updated to a new location before the existing data is updated.

Split-Mirror: References all data on a set of mirrored volumes and, every time a snapshot is created, one of the LUNs or volumes and all of its data is split off from the other one.

Full Copy: References all data on a volume and, every time a snapshot is created, copies all of the data on the volume to another.

Asynch Replication Indicates if the array can asynchronously replicate data to another midrange array from the same storage provider. Asynchronous replication may be continuous or periodic. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a list of supported options for any particular array. Supported options may include:

Continuous: Every write I/O is copied, stored in a local disk cache and then replicated as soon as possible to a secondary midrange array.

Periodic: A snapshot of one or more volumes is periodi-cally taken with that snapshot and then replicated to a secondary midrange array.

Definitions, Explanations and TerminologyThis section contains brief definitions and/or explanations of the terms used and assumptions made when developing the data sheets found in the DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide. These terms are in the same order as they appear on the individual data sheets.

Synch ReplicationIndicates if the array can synchronously replicate data to another midrange array from the same storage provider. Write I/Os need to be received at the primary or source array and then copied and written to the secondary, or target array, with the write confirmed as complete by both before processing can continue. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

Thin Provisioning (Total #)Using thin provisioning, only as much storage capacity as the host consumes on the array is actually allocated to the host. The rest of the storage capacity remains in the storage array’s free storage pool until it is needed by the array. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of thin provision options the array supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which thin provisioning features were supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported options for any particular array.

3rd Party Storage ReclamationIndicates if the array is recognized by third party software, such as Symantec Storage Foundation, that can reclaim freed blocks of its thinly provisioned storage put back in a free storage pool. A midrange array may also natively support its own storage reclamation features.

Feature Software IncludedA check mark indicates if the array includes the Snapshot, Replication or Thin Provisioning feature without an extra licensing fee.

Re-striping data on new disk/LUNA check mark indicates the array offers the capability for data to be re-striped across all its disks or LUNs when new disks or LUNs are added to the Virtual Storage Pool. Possible options available to re-stripe data include Automatic (re-striping occurs as soon as disk or LUN is added), Manual (re-striping occurs only when the process is explicitly initiated), or Scheduled (re-striping



Appendix A—Definitions, Explanations and Terminology

occurs when the process is scheduled). See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported options for any particular array.

Mixed Drive Types in LUNA check mark indicates that a Virtual Storage Pool can contain disks of various types (SAS and/or FC, SATA, SSD) and/or LUNs of mixed RAID types (1, 5, 6, etc.).

Multipathing (Total #) Indicates if the array supports third party multipathing software. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of multipathing options it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which multipathing software was supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported options for any particular array.

Hypervisor/OS (Total #)Indicates the extent to which hypervisor host and/or client operating systems are certified with the array and on the operating system provider’s hardware compatibility list (HCL). Possible options supported include Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Windows, and HP-UX, among others. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of hypervisors/OSes it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which hypervisors/OSes were supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported hypervisors/OSes for any particular array.

AST (Total #)Automated Storage Tiering (AST) places data on the appropriate tier of storage (SATA, SAS, FC or SSD) within the array based upon policies that are either built into the storage array, set by the storage administrator or some combination of both. Moving data between tiers may occur at pre-scheduled times or dynamically. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of AST options it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which AST options were supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported options for any particular array.

Policy-based Provisioning (Total #)Policy-based provisioning automates some aspect of the provisioning process. Answer options include: Policy-based storage selection, create storage templates to include SLA/QoS requirements, provisioning via server groups linked to storage templates, self-service portal for server and/or storage administrators, automated reclamation when virtual server is decommissioned, scheduling and notification of provisioning activities, exposes APIs for use by 3rd party storage automation tools, support integration with ITSM products (Remedy, Tivoli), and SDK for integration with management software. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of policy-based provisioning options it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which policy-based provisioning options were supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported options for any particular array.

Multi-tenancy The array can securely serve multiple customers by controlling what resources on the array each customer can access through either hard or soft provisioning of storage array resources. It also offers the ability to control and allocate the resources to which they do have access. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

Performance Monitoring App The array provides an application that monitors and reports on how resources (disk drives, storage networking ports, cache, LUNs, VMs, etc.) within it are being utilized and how well they are performing. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

Mgt Interfaces (Total #)Answers the question, “In what ways is the array able to be managed?” Possible answers include: Web-based, Client/Server application, Command Line Interface (CLI), Telnet, SSH, Console, Application Programming Interface (API), and mobile application. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of management interfaces supported. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which management interfaces were supported.. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported options for any particular array.

Appendix A—Definitions, Explanations and Terminology (continued)




Notification (Total #)Indicates the type of system logging the array supports between available options of SMTP Notification, SNMP Logging and Notification, or Syslog. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of notification and logging options it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which notifica-tion and logging options were supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported options for any particular array.

DCM Software (Total #)DCM software indicates the number of data center opera-tions management (DCM) software options offered by the array. Options include CA Unicenter, CENTOROS, EMC Control Center, HP Operations Manager, IBM Tivoli, Nagios XI, nlyte Enterprise Edition, Quantum Vision, and Zenoss Service Dynamics. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of DCM software options it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which DCM software options were supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a complete list of supported options for any particular array.

Network File Systems (Total #)Network File System (NFS) is a protocol that allows the “mounting” of devices or file systems on other systems over a network. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of NFS options it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which NFS options were supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported options for any particular array.

Hardware Controller Config

Active-Active: Two controllers are configured with multipathing software and have concurrent access to the disk drives that are then presented as LUNs to attached hosts. In the event a controller fails or is taken offline, attached host(s) may detect little or no interruption in service as the other controller takes over for the failed unit

though a drop in performance may occur. This is consid-ered an enterprise class feature.

Active-Standby: All LUNs are controlled and assigned to a single active controller through which all storage I/O traffic is routed. A secondary standby controller takes over the storage I/O traffic for the active controller should it fail or be taken offline. The secondary controller also assumes control of the array’s LUNs at any time.

Dual Active: Both controllers are active and have concur-rent access to the disk drives that are presented as LUNs to the attached hosts. The difference from Active-Active is that half of the array’s LUNs are assigned to and controlled by one controller, and the other half of the LUNs to the other, so a LUN can only be accessed down one path through one controller at a time. If a controller should be taken offline or fail, the other controller assumes control for its LUNs.

Cores (Max)The number listed indicates the maximum number of processor cores available in the array’s controller.

Scale-out (Max controllers)Indicates the maximum number of controllers that the model can support in a single logical configuration. An “X” indicates that this array does not support a scale-out SAN configuration.

Cache (Max) The maximum number of gigabytes (GBs) of cache that the array controllers can support. This cache may consist of any combination of DRAM, NVRAM and SSD.

Raw Storage Capacity (Max)The maximum amount of raw storage capacity in terabytes (TBs) that the array can have under its management. However, this number only includes the array’s footprint and not the storage capacity of other systems it may have virtualized.

Inline DeduplicationDeduplication is a specialized data compression technique for eliminating duplicate copies of repeating data. Inline deduplication is the process where the deduplication hash calculations are created on the target device as the data enters the device in real time. If the device spots a block that it already stored on the system it does not store another new block, but instead references to the existing block. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.




Inline CompressionCompression involves encoding data to take up less storage space by finding repeatable patterns of binary 0s and 1s. The more patterns can be found, the more the data can be compressed. Inline compression is a process where data is compressed as it is stored in the array, rather than being compressed at a later time using the post-process method or left uncompressed. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

Storage Networking Ports (Max)The maximum number of ports available in any configuration to connect the array to hosts or to a dedicated storage network. Controllers that support both Ethernet and Fibre Channel may also support concurrent use of both technologies. See “Concurrent FC & iSCSI” for additional clarification. Controllers may also include ports for managing the array or interconnect-ing multiple storage controllers. Those ports are not included in this count.

1/10 Gb Ethernet Ports (Max)Indicates the maximum number of 1 Gb and 10 Gb Ethernet ports supported by the array in any configuration. An “X” indicates no support for the feature.

8/16 Gb Fibre Channel Ports (Max)Indicates the maximum number of 8 Gb and 16 Gb Fibre Channel ports supported by the array in any configuration. An “X” indicates no support for the feature.

FC (Fibre Channel)Fibre Channel (FC) is used as a networking protocol to transmit data between computer devices, such as a server and a storage device. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

FCoEFibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) allows Fibre Channel communication over selected full duplex IEEE 802.3 networks. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

iSCSIInternet Small Computer System Interface (iSCI) is a block-based protocol for running SCSI commands over Internet Protocol (IP) on Ethernet to access storage resources. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

Concurrent FC & iSCSIThe ability for the storage array to connect to hosts over Fibre Channel and iSCSI at the same time. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

Concurrent SAN & NASThe ability for the storage array to communicate with applications using both block (SAN) and network file system (NAS) clients at the same time.

RAID Options Lists the RAID levels supported by the array.

Multi-RAID/ Erasure CodesIndicates if the array concurrently supports different RAID levels on different HDDs. (E.g., within a single array controller, some HDDs can be configured as RAID 1, others as RAID 5 and still others as RAID 50.) A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

Erasure codes can be used to protect beyond the two-drive failures tolerated in RAID-6. Combining erasure coding with information dispersal algorithms can enhance storage durability by protecting data against multiple component failures and unrecoverable read errors. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

Redundancy (Total #)The elements that make up the Redundancy score include redundant and hot swap power supplies, fans, and drives. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of Redundancy features it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which Redundancy features were supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported options for any particular array.

Drives-Global Hot SparesIndicates if the array permits a disk drive to be designated as a global hot spare, and be used to automatically replace a failed HDD in a RAID set. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

Anti-vibrationIndicates if the array has anti-vibration technology to minimize and control HDD vibrations to prevent HDD failures. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.




Advanced HDD Spin DownIndicates the array offers advanced, user definable spin-down HDD functions, where the disk(s) can be set to sleep after a set timeframe, or period of inactivity, to save energy.

HDD InterfaceIndicates the interface(s) the controller uses to connect to the back-end HDDs. Options that may be supported include FC-AL, FC-SW, SATA SAS 3Gb and SAS 6Gb.

Concurrent HDD Mix in ControllerIndicates if the array supports a mix of HDD connection types (FC-AL, FC-SW, SATA, SAS) concurrently.

Supported DrivesFC or SAS HDD: Indicates disk speeds (7.2K, 10K, 15K RPM) of the FC and SAS HDDs, as supported on the array.

SATA: Indicates if the array supports Serial Advance Technology Attachment (SATA) drives.

SSD: Indicates if the array supports Solid State Drives (SSDs).

SSD Optimization (Total #)Indicates the extent to which specialized SSD techniques are supported by the array. Optimization techniques that may be supported include: Wear leveling, Wear monitor-ing and alerting, Buffering and/or coalescing of writes to match erasure block size (EBS), Variable RAID stripe sizing to match erasure block size (EBS), Tuning of data aging timers for write buffering, Inline deduplication, Block level compression, and Hardware accelerated compression. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of SSD Optimization techniques it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which SSD Optimization techniques it supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported options for any particular array.

Managed UPS/Battery BackupIndicates if the array offers a battery backup (i.e. integrated UPS in the array) in case of power failure. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

RoHS Compliant The Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) is a movement intended to limit certain dangerous substances commonly used in electronic and electronic equipment. Compliant components are tested for substances such as lead or mercury. A check mark indicates the array has achieved RoHS compliance.

VMware vSphere IntegrationVAAI v4 (Total #)

vSphere Storage APIs for Array Integration is a set of APIs introduced in ESX/ESXi 4.1 that provides for hardware acceleration of certain storage operations, reducing CPU overhead on the host. Answer options include: Block Zeroing, Full Copy, and Hardware Assisted Locking. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of VAAI v4 options it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which VAAI v4 options it supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a list of supported options for any particular array.

VAAI v5 (Total #)vSphere Storage APIs for Array Integration is a set of APIs introduced in ESX/ESXi 4.1 and extended with the release of VMware 5.0. Answer options include: Thin Provisioning Dead Space Reclamation (SCSI UNMAP), Full File Clone, Out-of-Space Conditions, Reserve Space, and Extended Statistics. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of VAAI v5 options it supports. An “X” indicates no support for this feature. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain which VAAI v5 options it supported. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed list of supported options for any particular array.

Other VMware Integrations This numeric score reflects all data related to VMware integrations other than VAAI v4 and VAAI v5. Data about specific integrations of particular interest are shown below this heading. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a list of supported options for any particular array.




Snapshot Integration with vSphereA check mark indicates the array supports snapshot integration with VMware vSphere, allowing the creation of virtual machine snapshots to be offloaded to the array.

Performance Metrics for VAAIA check mark indicates the array provides specific performance metrics to show the impact of VAAI on the array subsystem.

vSphere Plug-in for Array ManagementA check mark indicates the array has a vSphere plug-in to perform array based management functions.

SIOCStorage I/O Control (SIOC) for VMware is a dynamic control mechanism for proportional allocation of shared storage resources to VMs running on multiple hosts. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

VASAvSphere Storage APIs for Storage Awareness is a set of APIs that permit storage arrays to integrate with vCenter for management functionality. Storage Awareness collects configuration, capability and storage health information from storage arrays. This allows the administrator to build Storage Profiles based on capabilities. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

AQDTVMware ESX 3.5 Update 4 introduced an Adaptive Queue Depth (AQDT) algorithm that adjusts the LUN queue depth in the VMkernel I/O stack. This algorithm is activated when the storage array indicates LUN I/O congestion by returning a BUSY or QUEUE FULL status. When LUN congestion is detected, VMkernel throttles the LUN queue depth. The VMkernel attempts to gradually restore the LUN queue depth when LUN congestion conditions subside. AQDT prevents the array from being flooded with LUN I/O requests and enables the array to recover to a normal operational state. NOTE: This is not applicable for NFS mounted storage. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

VADPvStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) is a data protection framework introduced in vSphere 4.0. VADP enables centralized, off-host LAN free backup of vSphere

virtual machines, reduces ESX host resources to do backup processing, and enables flexible backup windows. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

VASRMvStorage APIs for Site Recover Manager (VASRM) offers remote replication features enabling a device to failover to a recovery site. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

Storage DRSStorage Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) provides virtual machine placement and load balancing mechanisms based on I/O and space capacity. A check mark indicates this feature is supported.

SupportHardware Warranty

Indicates the length of standard warranty for the array.

Contract Support AvailabilitySpecifies the hours when support is available when under service contract. Examples include “business hours” (9am–5pm, weekdays), “24x7” (24 hours a day, seven days a week, but not holidays) and “24x7x365” (24 hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays).

Contract Support (Total #)Methods of support may include phone, email, web chat, remote monitoring, remote login/problem resolution, dispatch technician onsite, dispatch technician onsite with 4-hour GTD response, same day delivery of replacement parts, and pre-failure shipping of replacement parts. A numeric score (if present) represents the number of contract support options available. An “X” indicates no support available. A check mark indicates support for this feature though insufficient information was provided by the vendor or vendor website to confidently ascertain levels of support it provided. See the DCIG Interactive Buyer’s Guide (IBG) for a detailed support list for any particular array.

Non-Contract SupportA checkmark here indicates the array vendor provides support for the model on a non-contract basis. Hours of availability and support methods may differ from those offered for on-contract arrays.

© 2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. Licensed to HP for distribution. B-1


Appendix B—Enterprise Midrange Array Provider Contact Information

Aberdeen10420 Pioneer Blvd.Santa Fe Springs, CA 90670 +1.562.903.1500http://www.aberdeeninc.com

Celeros949 Hamilton CourtMenlo Park, CA [email protected] +1.650.325.6900http://www.celeros.com

Dell1 Dell WayRound Rock, TX 78682+1.800.671.3355http://www.dell.com

Dot Hill Systems Corporation1351 S Sunset St.Longmont, CO 80501-6533 +1.303.845.3200http://www.dothill.com

EMC Corporation176 South StreetHopkinton, MA [email protected]+1.866.438.3622http://www.emc.com

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation2845 Lafayette StreetSanta Clara, CA 95050-2639+1.408.970.1000http://www.hds.com

Hewlett-Packard Corporation3000 Hanover StreetPalo Alto, CA 94304+1.866.625.0242http://www.hp.com

Huawei 5700 Tennyson Pkwy., Ste. 500Plano, TX 75024Phone: +1.214-919-6000 http://www.huawei.com/us

IBM Corporation1 New Orchard RdArmonk, NY [email protected]+1.800.426.4968http://www.ibm.com/storage

IceWEB Storage Corporation22900 Shaw Road, Suite 111Sterling, VA [email protected]+1.800.465.4637http://www.iceweb.com

Imation Nexsan Solutions1445 Lawrence DriveThousand Oaks, CA 91320+1.866.463.9726http://www.nexsan.com

InfortrendA division of Virtual Graffiti, Inc.9979 Muirlands Blvd.Irvine, CA [email protected]+1.949-870-3500 http://www.infortrend.com

NEC Corporation of America2880 Scott BlvdSanta Clara, CA 95050+1.408.844.1475http://www.necam.com

NetApp495 East Java DriveSunnyvale, CA 94089+1.877.263.8277http://www.netapp.com

Enterprise Midrange Array Provider Contact Information

http://www.aberdeeninc.com

mailto:info%40celeros.com%20?subject=

http://www.celeros.com

http://www.dell.com

http://www.dothill.com

mailto:info%40isilon.com%20?subject=

http://www.emc.com

http://www.hds.com

http://www.hp.com

http://www.huawei.com/us

mailto:callserv%40ca.ibm.com%20?subject=

mailto:sales%40IceWEB.com%20?subject=

http://www.nexsan.com

mailto:Sales%40InforStor.com%20?subject=

http://www.netapp.com

© 2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. Licensed to HP for distribution. B-2


Appendix B—Enterprise Midrange Array Provider Contact Information (continued)

Oracle Corporation500 Oracle ParkwayRedwood Shores, CA 94065+1.650.506.7000+1.800.392.2999http://www.oracle.com

Overland Storage9112 Spectrum Center BlvdSan Diego, CA 92123 USA+1.800.729.8725http://www.overlandstorage.com

Scale Computing 5225 Exploration DriveIndianapolis, IN 46241+1.877.SCALE.59http://www.scalecomputing.com

Starboard Storage Systems12303 Airport Way, Suite 230Broomfield, CO 80021+1.855.790.9996http://www.starboardstorage.com

X-IO Storage9950 Federal Drive, Suite 100Colorado Springs, CO 80921Phone: +1.866.472.6764http://xiostorage.com

Enterprise Midrange Array Provider Contact Information

http://www.oracle.com

http://www.overlandstorage.com

http://www.scalecomputing.com

http://www.starboardstorage.com

http://xiostorage.com

© 2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. Licensed to HP for distribution. C-1


Appendix C—Author Contact Information

DCIG, LLC7511 Madison StreetOmaha, NE 68127+1.402.884.9594

CONTACT

Jerome [email protected]

Ken [email protected]

WEBSITEwww.dcig.com

Author Contact Information

mailto:jerome.wendt%40dcig.com?subject=

mailto:ken.clipperton%40dcig.com?subject=

www.dcig.com

© 2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. Licensed to HP for distribution. D-1


Appendix C—Author Contact InformationAppendix D—Complete List of Midrange Arrays

Aberdeen AberSAN ZXP2 HA High Availability ZFS SAN

XDAS D21F7/D22F7

XDAS D21Hm/D22Hm

XDAS D31F7/D32F7

XDAS D31H/D32H

XDAS D42F7 8Gb FC

XDAS D42F

XDAS iSD11m/iSD12m

XDAS iSD21/iSD22

XDAS iSD21m/iSD22m

XDAS iSD31/iSD32

XDAS iSD41

XDAS iXD32 10G

XDAS T42F

Celeros SmartSAN XT23S-FC

SmartSAN XT23S-iSCSI

Dell EqualLogic PS6100 Series

EqualLogic PS6500 Series

Compellent SC8000

Dot Hill AssuredSAN 3000 series

AssuredSAN 3003 series

AssuredSAN 4000 series

AssuredSAN Pro 5000 series

EMC VNX5100

VNX5300

VNX5500

VNX5700

VNX7500

VNXe 3150

VNXe 3300

Hitachi Data Systems HUS VM

HUS 150

Vendor Midrange Array Model Name Vendor Midrange Array Model Name

HP 3PAR StoreServ 7200

3PAR StoreServ 7400

P6500 EVA

P6550 EVA

StoreEasy 5000

StoreVIrtual 4130

StoreVIrtual 4330

StoreVIrtual 4530

StoreVIrtual 4730


OceanStor S2200T

OceanStor S5500T

OceanStor S5600T

OceanStor S5800T

IBM DCS3700

DS5020

DS5100

DS5300

Storwize V7000U

XIV Gen 3

IceWEB Unified Storage Appliance Model 7000

Infortrend EonStor DS B24F-R2842/B24F-G2842

EonStor DS S16E-R2152-6 1GbE

EonStor DS S16E-R2251 10GbE

EonStor DS S16F-R2852-6 8G FC

EonStor DS S48F-R2652-4 16G FC

ESVA E10-2130

ESVA E60-2130

ESVA E60-2230

ESVA F10-2830

ESVA F60-2830

ESVA F75-2830

Complete List of Midrange Arrays available in DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Interactive Buyer’s GuideBelow is a complete list of all midrange array models, arranged by vendor, that were scored and ranked for inclu-sion in the DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide. Because the print edition of the 2014 Buyer’s Guide presents midrange array models as a complete series rather than individually, some arrays may appear only in the Interactive Buyer’s Guide. The 50 arrays found in both the print edition and the interactive edition of the Buyer’s Guide are presented in bold in the following list.

The EMC VNX2 has been announced but information on this product was available in time to make the cutoff for this Buyer's Guide.

© 2013 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. Licensed to HP for distribution. D-2


Appendix C—Author Contact InformationAppendix D—Complete List of Midrange Arrays (continued)

Complete List of Midrange Arrays available in DCIG 2014 Enterprise Midrange Array Interactive Buyer’s Guide

NEC M100

M300

M500

NetApp E2600-12

E2624

E2660

E5412

E5424

E5460

FAS3220

FAS3250

Imation Nexsan E18

E48

E60

NST5100

NST5500

Oracle Sun ZFS Storage ZS3

Pillar Data Systems Axiom 600

Overland Storage SnapSAN S5000

SnapScale X2

SnapSAN S1000

SnapSAN S3000

Scale Computing ICOS Storage Nodes M Series

Starboard AC2000

AC4000

AC4500

X-IO Hyper ISE 7-Series

ISE 19.2

ISE 200 Series

ISE 9.6

Vendor Midrange Array Model Name

Download - ENTERPRISE MIDRANGE ARRAY BUYER’S GUIDEs_2014...62 Oracle Sun ZFS Storage ZS3 63 Overland Storage SnapSAN S5000 64 Overland Storage SnapScale X2 65 Scale Computing ICOS Storage Nodes

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