UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE. By Tim Anderson, Ken Clipperton and Jerome Wendt

Transcription

1 A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE By Tim Anderson, Ken Clipperton and Jerome Wendt EMPOWERING THE IT INDUSTRY WITH ACTIONABLE ANALYSIS

2 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Table of Contents A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers 1 Introduction 3 Executive Summary 5 How to Use this Buyer s Guide 5 Disclosures 6 Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria 6 The Eight-Step Process Used to Rank Utility Storage Arrays 7 DCIG Comments and Thoughts 7 Storing Data On-premise versus in the Cloud 7 Performance 8 Pricing 8 Storage Capacities, Densities and Price per GB 8 Data Efficiency 9 MAID / Spin-down Technologies 9 Availability Features 9 Controller Configurations 9 Non-disruptive Upgrade Features 10 Multi-Protocol Support 10 Management Methods 11 DCIG Observations & Recommendations 11 Recommended Ranking 11 Excellent Ranking 12 Good Ranking 13 Basic Ranking 15 Utility Storage Array Rankings 19 Utility Storage Array Products 20 American Megatrends Inc. StorTrends 3500i 21 Dell EqualLogic PS4210 Series 22 Dell EqualLogic PS6100 Series 23 Dell EqualLogic PS6210 Series 24 Dell EqualLogic PS6510 Series 25 Dell EqualLogic PS6610 Series 26 Dell SC Dell SC Dell SCv Dell SCv EMC Isilon HD-Series 31 EMC Isilon NL-Series 32 EMC VNX-VSS EMC VNX EMC VNX EMC VNX EMC VNX EMC VNX EMC VNXe FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX60 S3 40 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX100 S3 41 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX200 S3 42 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX500 S3 43 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX600 S3 44 HDS VSP G HDS VSP G HDS VSP G HPE MSA HPE MSA HPE StoreVirtual HPE StoreVirtual Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5300 V3 52 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5500 V3 53 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5600 V3 54 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5800 V3 55 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 6800 V3 56 Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 1000 Series 57 Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 2000 Series 58 Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 3000 Series 59 Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 4000 Series 60 IXsystems TrueNAS Z20 61 ixsystems TrueNAS Z30 62 ixsystems TrueNAS Z35 63 NEC M NEC M NEC M NEC M NetApp E NetApp E NetApp E NetApp E NetApp E NetApp E Nexsan E18V 74 Nexsan E32V 75 Nexsan E48V(T) 76 Nexsan E60V(T) 77 Nexsan NST Nexsan NST Nexsan NST Overland Storage SnapScale X4 81 Seagate RealStor 3000 Series 82 Seagate RealStor 4000 Series 83 Seagate RealStor 6000 Series 84 Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-2U12 85 Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-2U24 86 Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-3U16 87 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS RZ-2U12 88 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS RZ-3U16 89 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS ZX-2U12 90 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS ZX-3U16 Appendices A-1 Appendix A Definitions, Explanations and Terminology B-1 Appendix B Utility Storage Array Provider Contact Information C-1 Appendix C Author Contact Information 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. i

3 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers Introduction Over the years organizations have taken a number of steps to better manage the data that they already possess as well as prepare themselves for the growth they expect to experience in the future. These steps usually involve either deleting data that they have determined they do not need or should not keep while archiving the rest of it on a low cost media such as optical, tape or even with public cloud storage providers. Yet many if not most organizations still adhere to a keep it all forever mentality when it comes to managing data for various reasons. Many do not have the resources or time to effectively and thoughtfully manage their data to the point where they can confidently delete their unneeded or unwanted data. Others have serious concerns about purposefully deleting data fearing that such a decision will someday come back to haunt them. Still others want to keep their data in case they identify some yet to-be-determined business requirement where that data is needed. These factors have led organizations to adopt a delete nothing approach to managing their data as this is often their most affordable and prudent option. The challenge with this technique is that as data volumes continue to grow and retention periods remain non-existent, organizations need to identify solutions on which they can affordably store all of this data on a media on which they can easily access it. Further, many want to keep at least a copy of this data on premise as opposed to storing it off premise with cloud providers where the data s security and/or speed of accessibility may be in doubt. Thanks to the continuing drop per GB in disk s cost that day has essentially arrived. The emergence of highly available and reliable utility storage arrays that scale into the petabytes at a cost of well below $1/GB opens the doors for organizations to confidently and cost-effectively keep almost any amount of data online and accessible for their business needs. Storage arrays configured as utility storage arrays represent a maturation of the storage array market. Storage arrays using hard disk drives (HDDs) are still the predominant media used to host and service high performance applications. But with the advent of flash and solid state drives (SSDs), hybrid and all-flash arrays that use these technologies are rapidly supplanting all-hdd storage arrays to host business-critical, performance sensitive applications as all-flash and hybrid arrays can typically provide sub-two millisecond read and write response times. However the high levels of performance these flash-based arrays offer comes with a price up to 10x more than HDD-based utility storage arrays. This is where HDD-based utility storage arrays are finding a new home as they are re-purposed to host and service applications with infrequently accessed or inactive data such as archived, backup and file data. Further, utility storage arrays still offer low millisecond response times (8 10 ms) for application reads and writes which is more than adequate for archival or infrequently accessed data. These arrays deliver millisecond response times while supporting hundreds of terabytes if not petabytes of storage capacity at under a dollar per gigabyte. This combination of price and performance explains, in part, why IDC recently forecast that the utility storage array market will grow at a 26.4 percent compound annual growth rate to $41.5 billion through 2018, or about six times the growth rate of the overall information technology market DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 1

4 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Introduction (continued) A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers The price points of utility storage arrays make it practical for organizations to keep more data for ever longer periods even as they lower their overall costs and management overhead. By storing archival, backup and/or infrequently accessed data on these arrays, they have more flexibility and budget to introduce hybrid or all-flash arrays into their environment to host their more active, performance sensitive data on them. Storing archival, backup or infrequently data on lower cost utility storage arrays also serves to minimize the risk, time, uncertainty and need to differentiate between which data they should keep or delete. Using utility storage arrays organizations get new options to keep their data indefinitely while minimizing the costs, time and overhead associated with doing so. Tim, Ken and Jerome 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 2

5 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers Executive Summary Amidst the introduction and adoption of flash in many enterprise storage arrays, it is easy for all-hdd arrays to get lost in the shuffle. However those organizations who are willing and able to look beyond flash-based arrays will find that they have access to a wide number of cost-effective, reliable and scalable HDD-based storage arrays that offer proven data management technologies. Unlike many other DCIG Buyer s Guides, price was evaluated in this Buyer s Guide as an inclusion criteria. Arrays included in this Buyer s Guide are available for a dollar per gigabyte or less, can scale to at least 75 TBs of raw capacity and minimally support one or more storage networking protocols (CIFS/SMB, FC, iscsi and/or NFS). The emergence of all-flash and hybrid arrays has prompted the storage array market to functionally break into two broad segments. One half consists of high performance arrays, such as all-flash and hybrid arrays, that offer sub-two (2) millisecond response times and are intended for use by business-critical, performance sensitive applications. However this performance comes at a cost with these arrays typically starting at about $3/GB and may be as high as $10/GB or more. The other half of the market is made up of utility or secondary storage arrays that are predominantly all-hdd configurations. These arrays still meet most enterprise expectations for availability and reliability though they lack the same levels of performance as flash and hybrid arrays. The upside is the cost of these arrays is below $1/GB while still providing reasonable single-digit milliseconds response times depending on the nature of the workloads. Utility storage arrays also support a tremendous amount of raw capacity. A product offered by Huawei, for example, could contain a maximum raw capacity of over 19 petabytes holding up to 113TBs per rack unit. Other products from providers such as Dell, Fujitsu, HDS, HPE, Infortrend, ixsystems, NEC, Nexsan and Seagate come in configurations as low as 144TBs and can scale to over six (6) petabytes. It behooves organizations to determine how each array is configured to scale its capacity and what impact that has on its performance and cost. These arrays scale capacity in at least three ways to include: Scale-up. Scale-up architectures are the most commonly used on arrays. These arrays leverage a two-controller configuration that sits in front of the HDDs. In this configuration, organizations will generally start with the amount of raw capacity that they initially need and then add more HDDs as their internal business demands dictate. Scale-out. In a scale-out architecture, each controller generally contains storage, compute and memory with each controller referred to as a node. Multiple nodes work together as a single logical architecture with organizations typically using at least three (3) nodes to create a highly available configuration. When organizations need more capacity, more physical nodes are added to the logical configuration to add more capacity and performance. Scale-up and scale-out. Available from only a few providers, this architecture gives organizations the option to either add more capacity to existing nodes or add nodes that contain both performance and capacity. This option combines the best features of both scale-up and scale-out architectures while mitigating the drawbacks of each DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 3

6 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE Executive Summary (continued) A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers Executive Summary (continued) The DCIG Utility Storage Array Buyer s Guide accomplishes the following objectives: Provides an objective, third-party evaluation of utility storage arrays that evaluates their features from an end user s viewpoint Includes recommendations on how to best use this Buyer s Guide and the products contained in it Ranks the features on each utility storage array based upon the criteria that matter most to end users so they can quickly know which utility storage array is the most appropriate for them to use and under what conditions Provides data sheets for utility storage arrays so end users may quickly compare features that are supported on each utility storage array 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 4

7 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers How to Use this Buyer s Guide This Buyer s Guide is intended to help users accelerate their product research and selection process driving cost out of the research process while simultaneously increasing confidence in the results. The purpose of this Buyer s Guide is NOT to tell users exactly which product(s) to purchase. Rather, it is to help guide them in coming up with a short list of competitive products that have comparable features that meet their specific needs. Just because a product ranks well does not automatically mean that it is the right product for an organization. If anything, because of the scope of the products evaluated and analyzed, it may have features that are too robust for the needs of an individual department or organization. However, this Buyer s Guide does give organizations some sense of how each product compares to other products covered in this Guide, as well as offers additional insight into what product offerings are available on the market. DCIG recommends that you use this Buyer s Guide in the following seven ways: 1. Eliminates the painstaking research associated with organizations coming up with a short list of products that meet their needs. This Buyer s Guide evaluates 71 different products from 15 different vendors with each product ranked as Recommended, Excellent, Good or Basic. More than 100 different product features were evaluated so organizations only need to look at product rankings and features to come up with a short list of products for consideration. 2. Does apples-to-apples comparisons of products from different vendors. In today s crowded utility storage array market, it behooves organizations to get competitive bids from multiple vendors. 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 Buyer s Guide, organizations can do a better job of accomplishing that objective. 3. Separates 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 vendors that include different products. Now, organizations can refer to the rankings of each product in this Guide so that they can know if they are getting bids on comparable products. 4. Provides perspective on how products from less well-known vendors compare against established and better-known brands. Anyone involved with storage has probably at least heard of EMC, Dell, HDS, HPE or IBM. But many companies providing reliable, cost-effective utility storage arrays are less well-known. Organizations can have greater confidence buying arrays from less well-known vendors or even less well-known models from established providers. Using this Buyer s Guide, organizations can see how products from lesser-known vendors as well as lesser-known products from established vendors stack up. 5. Normalizes complex terminology. Every segment across industries has a proclivity to adopt acronyms and jargon that is specific to it. This Buyer s Guide sifts through the acronyms and jargon and then normalizes these terms, providing a foundation for meaningful comparisons. Definitions for these normalized terms are provided in the Glossary in this Guide. 6. Creates a standardized data sheet. The product data sheets available from the different vendors are rarely laid out in the same way or contain the same information. Some vendors even have data sheet formats that vary from product to product within their own portfolio. This Buyer s Guide tackles this problem by creating a standard, easy-to-read data sheet for every product. In this way, data sheets for individual products can be printed out and laid down side by side so the features on them can be quickly compared. 7. Helps justify buying recommendations to business teams. When it comes to comparisons, business people find it easy to understand product rankings. So at the top of every product data sheet, a product ranking is included so the business side of the house can quickly see how different product models compare. Disclosures Over 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 vendors. DCIG is no different in that respect, as it also receives payment for the different services it performs for vendors. The services that DCIG provides 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 5

8 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers include blogging, customer validations, product reviews, executive white papers, special reports, and white papers. In the interest of being transparent, a number of the vendors included in this DCIG Buyer s Guide are or have been DCIG clients. This is not to imply that their products were given preferential treatment in the Buyer s Guide. It simply means that DCIG had more knowledge of their products and that DCIG would consider their product 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 Buyer s Guide and its merit. No vendor paid DCIG any fee to research this topic or arrive at pre-determined conclusions DCIG did not guarantee any vendor that its product would be included in this Buyer s Guide DCIG did not imply or guarantee that a specific product would receive a preferential ranking in this Buyer s Guide, before or after completion All research was based upon publicly available information, information provided by the vendor, and/or the expertise of those evaluating the data It is a misuse of this Buyer s Guide to draw any negative inferences against any vendor or products not included in this Buyer s Guide and it is inappropriate to make comparisons with that vendor or its products. Because of the number of features analyzed and weighted, there was no way for DCIG to accurately predict at the outset how individual products would end up ranking. DCIG wants to emphasize that no vendor was privy to how DCIG weighed individual features. In every case the vendor only found out the rankings of its product(s) after the analysis was complete. Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria For the purposes of this Buyer s Guide, the following criteria were used when determining whether or not to include specific utility storage array: Street price of less of than $1,000 per TB ($1/GB or less) in its largest configuration Support for at least one block (FC or iscsi) or file (CIFS or NFS) storage networking protocol Must scale to support at least 75 TB of raw capacity Ships in a highly available configuration (Active-Active, Dual-Active, Active-Passive or Scale-out) Must be generally available by the end of 2015 The Eight-Step Process Used to Rank Utility Storage Arrays To rank each product included in this Buyer s Guide, DCIG went through an eight-step process to come to the most objective conclusion possible. 1. DCIG identified a list of products that met the DCIG definition for utility storage array based upon the inclusion/exclusion criteria. 2. DCIG established which features would be included in the Buyer s Guide and which ones would not. Prior to selecting the features that were included in the final evaluation in the Buyer s Guide, DCIG went through and quantified the features possessed by the products. As part of this process, DCIG normalized the list of available features such that a common name for each feature was established. In cases where a feature could not be objectively defined or understood, it was excluded from consideration. 3. DCIG weighted each feature. The weighting of each feature was done by a team of DCIG research analysts. The weightings were used to reflect if a feature was supported and potentially how useful and/or important the feature was to end users. 4. The features were grouped into three (3) general categories. The features included in this Buyer s Guide grouped into a total of three broad categories that are reflected on each data sheet. These categories include Hardware, Software and Support. 5. DCIG completed a survey for each vendor s product(s) and then sent the survey(s) to each vendor for verification. Each vendor was invited to review their data and respond with any corrections or edits to the DCIG-completed survey(s). In every case, every vendor had the opportunity to review and respond to any DCIG-completed survey. 6. Features were weighted based on the information gathered from the surveys. Features were marked as either supported or unsupported and then scored 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 6

9 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers accordingly. Rankings were finalized after any updates received from vendors had been entered. 7. Product data sheets were created and sent out to the vendors for review before publication. Due to the large number of product features that DCIG evaluated, all information could not be included on the data sheets. DCIG generally prioritizes the inclusion of features on the data sheet based upon the features that have the most variance in data between them, the ones that DCIG weights the highest and those that are of the most interest to organizations The full list of product features may be accessed in the DCIG Analysis Portal available through DCIG s website: However, all information on each data sheet included in this published version of the Buyer s Guide was sent to the vendors prior to publication for their review and feedback. In every case, each provider had a chance to review the content included on its respective data sheet(s). 8. The arrays were ranked using standard scoring techniques. One of the goals of this Buyer s Guide is to establish clear lines of differentiation with conclusions that are arrived at objectively. To accomplish this goal, the mean or average score for each product was first determined and then the standard deviation. Using the mean of the scores from all of the arrays from which the standard deviation was calculated, DCIG developed a ranking for each array model. It is for this reason the number of models that achieved a certain ranking varied. DCIG Comments and Thoughts Storing Data On-premise versus in the Cloud Organizations of all sizes are adopting public cloud storage for a variety of uses, but many organizations still want or need to keep most or all of their data on premise using utility storage arrays for the following four reasons: 1. Ensuring the data s security. Many questions remain unresolved in the minds of organizations about the security of storing their data with some public cloud storage providers. While encrypting data stored with public cloud storage providers certainly helps to mitigate or eliminate the possibility of organizational data being compromised, not all organizations have the option or flexibility to encrypt their data prior to storing it with these cloud providers. Further, it is not always clear where the data is physically stored when placing it with some public cloud storage providers which may cause organizations to run afoul of specific government or industry specific regulations. In the midst of this uncertainty, it often makes sense for organizations to still store data locally. 2. Minimize or control costs with on premise storage. Storing data in the cloud may make sense for small or even relatively large amounts of data when one factors in all of the costs associated with keeping data on premise such as data center floor space, the purchase of the array itself, staffing requirements and heating, cooling and powering the array. However storing data with public cloud storage providers comes with its own set of costs that may outstrip the costs of using cost-effective, on premise storage. Public cloud storage providers charge monthly per GB storage fees as well as for the amount of bandwidth used plus the Internet service provider will also charge more for increased Internet connectivity and bandwidth. Together, these charges associated with storing data with public cloud storage providers may add up to more than the costs associated with deploying an on premise utility storage array. 3. Higher levels of performance. If application performance is a concern, storing data locally on utility storage arrays should have the net effect of providing higher levels of application performance. Storing data locally minimizes or eliminates the latency associated with retrieving data from a public cloud storage provider s site and helps to ensure applications get the performance that they may need. 4. Multi-use. As organizations look to retain their existing data for indefinite periods of time and look to capture new forms of data such as data generated by devices or the Internet of Things, they need storage solutions that enable them to address multiple use cases. On premise utility storage arrays may easily be used to function as backup or general purpose storage targets so organizations may perform their testing, development or run analytics. Attempting to perform this same functions using data stored with public cloud storage providers may prove to be neither cost-effective nor practical. Performance As with any DCIG Buyer s Guide, specific performance claims are not included in the data even though such 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 7

10 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers claims are often included on vendor data sheets. DCIG does not include performance data as it is too subjective and varies by data center environment, the type of data being stored, and implementation decisions. Introducing performance metrics would only result in the analysis in this Buyer s Guide becoming more subjective, not less. Moreover, this Buyer s Guide evaluates storage for an organization s secondary data. Scalable capacity, reliability, availability and cost per GB are typically the key selection criteria when making this decision. While performance is certainly a perk, it is usually not the first item that organizations prioritize when acquiring these types of arrays. Pricing DCIG s normal practice is to only provide a starting list price on each array model s data sheet (if available) with those list prices having no bearing on the ranking of any array evaluated. For this inaugural Utility Storage Array Buyer s Guide, DCIG changed that practice. DCIG both collected and evaluated pricing in terms of each array s estimated per TB street price and did not include utility storage arrays unless the price per TB could be arrived at with some degree of certainty. The challenge that organizations typically look to address with utility storage arrays is to store as much of their less active data as cost-effectively as possible on a solution that enables them to reliably keep it online and accessible for long periods of time with minimal intervention. It is for these reasons that pricing was evaluated as the arrays in this Guide, by and large, should meet these specific organizational technical requirements at a very attractive price point. Storage Capacities, Densities and Price per GB The combination of large amounts of storage capacity, high storage density levels and a low cost per GB enable an organization to retain existing and new forms of data for long periods of time. The reliability and continuous availability of utility storage arrays are two other factors that organizations consider when evaluating these arrays. 55% of the utility storage arrays in this Buyer s Guide scale to more than 1.5 petabytes (PB) with more than 30% of them scaling to at least 3 PB. Equally notable, these arrays pack impressive amounts of raw storage capacity into very small footprints. Most of them achieve 60TB/rack unit (RU) with the densest utility storage arrays reaching or exceeding 120TB/RU. The utility storage arrays in this Buyer s Guide tend to achieve much higher storage densities than even high end storage arrays. High end storage arrays often use 15K RPM SAS HDDs with their capacities often limited to GB per HDD to provide higher levels of performance. As a result, the storage densities in high end storage arrays may be as low as eight (8) TB/RU when HDDs are used. Nearly all utility storage arrays support 4TB 7200 RPM HDDs with more than one-third of them supporting 8TB HDDs. These enables the majority of them to achieve the 60 TB/RU median with a fourth of them achieving storage densities greater than 90 TB/RU. These densely packed, high capacity utility storage arrays also come with very attractive price points. Thirteen (13) arrays in this Buyer s Guide have a cost of less than $200/TB while another 21 arrays are available for less than $500/TB. These include products from Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, HPE, Infortrend, ixsystems, NEC, Nexsan and Seagate (formerly Dot Hill). Data Efficiency Data efficiency technologies such as compression and block-level or file-level deduplication can increase the effective capacity of a storage system while simultaneously driving down the cost per GB. The actual benefit achieved through compression and/or deduplication varies by data type and use case. A number of vendors offer free storage analytics tools that can estimate the capacity savings an organization is likely to achieve. The most common form of data efficiency among the arrays in this Buyer s Guide is compression, which is supported by 35% or 25 of the utility storage arrays while block-level and file-level deduplication are respectively found on 20% and 25% of the arrays. Data Efficiency Features Number of Arrays Percentage Compression 25 35% Block-level Deduplication 14 20% File-level Deduplication 18 25% 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 8

11 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers MAID / Spin-down Technologies Just over half of the utility storage arrays support spin down options that can help to reduce the power required to run the array. Over half of the arrays support MAID (massive array of idle disks) which enables the array to power down either individual disk drives or groups of disk drives when the disks are not required. In addition to reducing power and cooling requirements these features reduce vibration, extending HDD life and by extension overall reliability. MAID / Spin-down Technologies Number of Arrays Percentage Spin Down Options 38 54% Per Disk Pool 17 25% Per RAID Group 13 18% System Wide 11 16% Availability Features The majority of the utility storage arrays in this Buyer s Guide have multiple availability features and options. Sixty-four (64) of the arrays (90%) support eleven of the twelve availability features that DCIG measured with all of the arrays supporting redundant/hot-swap controllers, fans and power supplies. Beyond hot-swap capabilities, 68% of the arrays also support anti-vibration technology to reduce the number of HDD failures. Controller Configurations The utility storage arrays in this Buyer s Guide take a variety of approaches to high availability with a number supporting more than one configuration option. The majority (61%) support the standard dual active controller configuration where half of the LUNs are each assigned to one controller or the other. A fair number (46%) support the enterprise class Active-Active dual controller configuration that gives both controllers access to and control of back-end LUNs for improved application performance and workload balancing. Controller Configurations Non-disruptive Upgrade Features The non-disruptive operation of utility storage arrays is perhaps one of their more important attributes. While organizations typically will not expect nor need high levels of performance from these arrays, they still want to minimize the time they spend managing them. They want highly available, reliable arrays that minimize or eliminate the need to schedule application downtime to deal with routine maintenance issues such as hardware or software upgrades, hardware replacements or software patches or fixes. The utility storage arrays evaluated in this Guide overwhelmingly support these features. However it does behoove organizations concerned about these features to verify that the array models in which they may be interested do support the breadth of features that they may need. While over 90% of these arrays support features such as controller replacements, controller code upgrades and storage shelf and/or node additions, less than half support more specialized functions such as the upgrade or patches of disk enclosure firmware or network port firmware upgrades as the chart below illustrates. Non-disruptive Upgrade Features Number of Arrays Percentage Controller replacement 66 93% Controller code upgrade 60 85% Storage shelf/node addition 62 86% HDD firmware upgrade 39 55% SSD firmware upgrade 36 51% Disk enclosure firmware 34 48% Network port firmware upgrade 33 46% Controller addition 28 39% Number of Arrays Percentage Dual Active 43 61% Active-Active 33 46% Active-Standby 25 35% Scale-out 8 11% 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 9

12 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers Multi-Protocol Support This Guide includes utility storage arrays that support one or more of the following block and/or file storage networking protocols: CIFS/SMB, FC, iscsi or NFS. However, it is noteworthy that 94% support iscsi, 90% support FC and 44% of them provide unified storage functionality through the concurrent support of both block and file protocols. Protocols Number of Arrays Percentage iscsi 67 94% FC 64 94% NFS v % SMB 1 (CIFS) 36 51% SMB % NFS v % SMB % SMB % FCoE 15 21% NFS v % WebDAV 3 4% Management Methods Incorporating the management of utility storage arrays into the general management of the organization s broader data center infrastructure may be where these arrays still arguably need some work. Many organizations already use VMware to some degree and VMware vcenter to manage their virtualized infrastructure yet only 46 or 65% of these arrays evaluated support VMware vcenter. Further, organizations might expect that they could manage most if not all utility storage arrays using a browser interface. While over 80% of them support a web GUI, organizations should not assume this functionality is supported by default. This diversity in the tools available to manage these arrays dictates that organizations take a very careful look at the options each array offers for its management as the costsavings an organization may experience on the front end of an array s acquisition may be eroded by the time and effort they have to spend managing it due to the immaturity or incompleteness of its management features. Management Methods Number of Arrays Percentage SCVMM SMAPI 47 66% VMware vcenter 46 65% SSH 44 62% SMI-S 30 42% OpenStack Cinder 27 38% IPMI 12 17% 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 10

13 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers DCIG Observations & Recommendations Excellent Ranking Recommended Ranking FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX600 S3 HDS VSP G600 Observations The Recommended arrays distinguish themselves from the rest of the products in this Buyer s Guide in the following ways: Scale to support at least 16 CPU cores. Only 16 (23%) of the arrays evaluated scale to support this many CPU cores. Scale to at least 192GB of DRAM cache. Only 17 (24%) of the arrays evaluated scale to support this much DRAM cache. Support 32 or more storage networking ports. Scale to at least 4.3PB of raw capacity. The median for all arrays was 1.5PB. More complete non-disruptive upgrade and self-healing features than other arrays. More robust management integration to include support for VMware vcenter, OpenStack Cinder, SSH, SMI-S and SCVMM SMAPI. All Recommended arrays have comprehensive support options. These include pre-failure shipping of replacement parts (versus 43% of all arrays) and proactive remediation by the vendor (versus 67% of all arrays). Recommendations FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX600 S3 is the highest capacity Recommended array at 6.3PB (5th highest overall), with a storage density at 72 TB/RU. Flexible connectivity includes up to 32 8Gb FC or 16Gb FC ports, and 32 1GbE or 16 10GbE ports for FCoE, iscsi or NAS connectivity. HDS VSP G600 achieves a storage capacity of 4.3PB, and density of 45 TB/RU. Performance resources include 16 CPU cores, 256 GB of DRAM cache and up to 64 storage networking ports, the most of any Recommended array. The VSP G600 is also the only array in this group that supports multi-tenancy. Dell EqualLogic PS6610 Series EMC Isilon HD-Series EMC VNX5600, VNX5800, and VNX7600 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX100 S3, DX200 S3 & DX500 S3 HDS VSP G200 and VSP G400 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5800 V3 and 6800 V3 Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 1000 Series, DS 2000 Series, DS 3000 Series and DS 4000 Series ixsystems TrueNAS Z20, Z30 and Z35 NEC M510 and M710 Nexsan NST6000 Seagate RealStor 4000 Series and 6000 Series Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS ZX-3U16 Observations The 25 arrays earning an Excellent ranking distinguish themselves from other arrays in the following ways: Superior resources that contribute to high levels of performance as compared to arrays ranked either Good or Basic. 56% of the arrays have at least 12 CPU cores with five arrays scaling to support 24 or more CPU cores. 72% of the arrays have DRAM caches of at least 64GB and 44% have at least 128GB. 76% of these arrays support 16 or more storage networking ports. Maximum raw capacity ranges from 320TB to 50.1PB, with a median capacity of 3.0PB. 48% of the these arrays supply at least 100TB/U. Maximum raw storage density ranged from 20 to 120 TB/RU with a median storage density of 89 TB/RU. Nine of these arrays provide storage for less than $200/TB. More robust management options than lower ranked arrays, such as support for VMware vcenter (64%), OpenStack Cinder (56%) and SCVMM SMAPI (64%). Recommendations The Dell EqualLogic PS6610 Series scales to 8PB and 64 ports while providing up to 101 TB/RU. These capacities 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 11

14 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers are higher than most of the arrays ranked Excellent or even Recommended. The EMC Isilon HD-Series is a NAS-only array that scales to the highest level of raw storage capacity (over 50PB) of any array ranked as Excellent. Using its scale-out architecture, it also supports up to 288 Ethernet ports and nearly 7TB of DRAM cache. EMC VNX5600, VNX5800 and VNX7600 offer from 2PB to 4PB of capacity and more storage networking ports than most Excellent and Recommended arrays. These arrays distinguished themselves from one another in terms of storage capacity, DRAM cache size, and number of CPU cores. FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX100 S3, DX200 S3 and DX500 S3 are distinguished from the Recommended DX600 S3 array by their somewhat lower levels of storage capacity, DRAM cache size, number of CPU cores and number of storage networking ports. The DX100 S3 and DX200 S3 models also support SAS connectivity. HDS VSP G200 and VSP G400 primarily differ from the Recommended HDS VSP G600 in terms of their lower levels of storage capacity, smaller DRAM cache sizes and fewer CPU cores. Huawei Enterprise s aptly named OceanStor 6800 V3 is the third most scalable array overall with a maximum capacity of 19.2PB. The OceanStor 5800 V3 and 6800 V3 respectively support 224 and 160 storage networking ports. These two arrays differentiate themselves from other arrays with combined scale-up and scale-out architectures. The Nexsan NST6000 Hybrid Storage puts a unified storage controller in front of its high-density E-series SAN storage arrays which support up to 100 TB/RU and a maximum capacity of 5PB. The Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 1000 Series, DS 2000 Series, DS 3000 Series and DS 4000 Series tie with a couple other products for the highest raw storage density at 120 TB/RU. The arrays scale from 2.5PB to 3.5PB depending on the model. ixsystems TrueNAS Z20, Z30 and Z35 arrays distinguish themselves from one another in terms of their storage capacity, DRAM cache size, number of CPU cores and storage networking ports. The ixsystems TrueNAS systems are notable in that they all come in configurations available for under $160/TB. NEC M510 and M710 differ from one another in terms of cache size, port counts and maximum capacity. They respectively offer up to 3.6PB and 4.5PB of storage at a maximum density of 72 TB/RU. Seagate RealStor 4000 Series and 6000 Series offer some of the highest raw storage density of any product in this Buyer s Guide at 112 TB/RU. Seagate acquired these arrays, formerly marketed under the AssuredSAN brand, as part of its Dot Hill acquisition. Good Ranking American Megatrends Inc. StorTrends 3500i Dell SC8000 and SCv2080 EMC Isilon NL-Series EMC VNX5200 and VNX5400 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX60 S3 HPE MSA 2040 HPE StoreVirtual 4330 and 4530 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5300 V3, 5500 V3 and 5600 V3 NEC M110 and M310 NetApp E2712, E2760, and E5560 Nexsan E48V(T) and E60V(T) Nexsan NST2000 and NST4000 Overland Storage SnapScale X4 Seagate RealStor 3000 Series Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-2U12 and FX-2U24 Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-3U16 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS RZ-2U12 and RZ-3U16 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS ZX-2U12 Observations The thirty (30) arrays earning a Good ranking distinguish themselves from other arrays in the following ways: 60% of these arrays scale to support at least 8 CPU cores with 10 of them scaling to support 12 or more CPU cores. 90% of these arrays scale to support at least 16GB of DRAM cache while just over 40% scale to support at 64GB of cache DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 12

15 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers Over 90% of the arrays scales to support at least 8 storage networking ports (Ethernet and/or FC) with over 50% scaling to support 16 or more storage networking ports. Maximum raw capacity ranging from 168TB to 512PB, with a median capacity of 1.2PB. This is more than double the 500TB median capacity of Basic arrays. These arrays have a median raw storage density of 54 TB/RU. Only one of these arrays provides storage for less than $200/TB, the Seagate RealStor 3000 Series. Recommendations Many of the Good arrays are smaller siblings of arrays that have Excellent or Recommended rankings. These arrays distinguish themselves from their big brothers with lower levels of storage capacity, smaller DRAM cache size, and fewer CPU cores and storage networking ports. However, the inability of these arrays to scale to the levels of the higher-ranked arrays is not reflected in their price per TB. Rather, these arrays tend to cost more on a per TB basis. American Megatrends Inc. StorTrends 3500i features up to 768TB of storage capacity at 32 TB/RU. The 3500i can only be configured as a hybrid array. Dell Compellent SC8000 is a block-based dual-controller SAN that scales to 3PB. File protocol support can be added through the purchase of Compellent FS8600 NAS filer heads. The Compellent Storage Center OS provides extensive automated storage tiering and snapshot features. The SC8000 provides up to 48 storage networking ports. The EMC Isilon NL-Series is the lower cost brother of the EMC Isilon HD-Series. Like the HD-Series, the NL-Series is a NAS-only array that only supports SATA HDDs. The NL-Series differs in that users may use SATA HDDs of differing capacities in it. The Nexsan E48V(T) and E60V(T) support storage densities of 96 and 120 TB/RU, matching the highest density arrays in this Buyer s Guide. They provide up to 1.2PB and 1.4PB raw capacity, respectively. The Nexsan NST2000 and NST4000 arrays are unified storage arrays (as opposed to the block-only Nexsan E-Series storage) which scale to a maximum raw capacity of 168TB and 2.1PB respectively. NetApp E2712, E2760 and E5560 are members of the well-regarded NetApp E-Series of arrays. They provide up to 1.2PB, 1.2PB and 2.3PG of raw capacity respectively with each one achieving a storage density of 90TB/RU. The Overland Storage SnapScale X4 is the only product from Overland Storage that appears in this Guide. What makes this product notable is that, using its scale-out architecture, it can theoretically scale to support over 500PB in a single, logical configuration more than any other array evaluated in this Guide. Those who have been around IT for a long time may remember when hard disk drives were called Winchester disks. Winchester is still around, only now it develops purpose built storage systems for enterprises, government and the military. The Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS RZ-2U12, RZ-3U16 and ZX-2U12 provide ZFS-based storage arrays that range in capacity from 960TB to 3PB. Densities range from 37 to 120 TB/RU matching the highest density arrays in this Buyer s Guide. The Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-2U12, FX-2U24 and FX-3U16 offer from 1.4PB to 2.4PB of raw capacity at 37 TB/RU. Basic Ranking Dell EqualLogic PS4210 Series, PS6100 Series, PS6210 Series and PS6510 Series Dell SC4020 and SCv2020 EMC VNXe3200 EMC VNX-VSS100 HPE MSA 1040 NetApp E2612, E2660 and E5460 Nexsan E18V and E32V Observations The fourteen (14) arrays that earned a Basic ranking share these characteristics: These arrays only scale to a maximum of 8 CPU cores with four of them only scaling to support 4 CPU cores. More than half the arrays (64%) scale to support DRAM caches of 16GB or more. The majority of these arrays (71%) support a maximum of 8 storage networking ports (Ethernet or FC) DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 13

16 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers Maximum raw capacity ranging from 96TB to 1.5PB, with a median capacity of 500TB. Storage density ranged from 24 to 72 TB/RU, with a median raw storage density of 30 TB/RU. Recommendations As with the Good arrays, most of the Basic arrays are smaller siblings of arrays in the higher rankings, and are distinguished from their big brothers in terms of storage capacity, DRAM cache size, and number of CPU cores and storage networking ports. Despite the Basic ranking, these arrays may still be a good fit for specific use cases such as in small and mid-sized businesses or in departments where application needs are well defined. The HPE MSA 1040 offers 384TB of raw capacity at a storage density of 48 TB/RU. The MSA 1040 is an HDD-only array DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 14

17 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY RANKINGS 2015 DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 15

18 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY INGS Products Listed Alphabetically in Each Category RECOMMENDED FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX600 S3 HDS VSP G600 EXCELLENT Dell EqualLogic PS6610 Series EMC Isilon HD-Series EMC VNX5600 EMC VNX5800 EMC VNX7600 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX100 S3 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX200 S3 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX500 S3 HDS VSP G200 HDS VSP G400 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5800 V3 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 6800 V3 Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 1000 Series Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 2000 Series Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 3000 Series Infortrend Corporation EonStor DS 4000 Series ixsystems TrueNAS Z20 ixsystems TrueNAS Z30 ixsystems TrueNAS Z35 NEC M510 NEC M710 Nexsan NST6000 Seagate RealStor 4000 Series Seagate RealStor 6000 Series Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS ZX-3U16 continued on next page This Licensed Buyer s to Hewlett-Packard Guide Edition is licensed Corporation to ixsystems, with unlimited Inc. with and unlimited unrestricted and distribution unrestricted rights. distribution rights through April 1, DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 16

19 UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY BUYER S GUIDE A Comparison of Utility Storage Arrays from Enterprise Storage Providers UTILITY STORAGE ARRAY INGS Products Listed Alphabetically in Each Category GOOD American Megatrends Inc. StorTrends 3500i Dell SC8000 Dell SCv2080 EMC Isilon NL-Series EMC VNX5200 EMC VNX5400 FUJITSU Limited ETERNUS DX60 S3 HPE MSA 2040 HPE StoreVirtual 4330 HPE StoreVirtual 4530 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5300 V3 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5500 V3 Huawei Enterprise OceanStor 5600 V3 NEC M110 NEC M310 NetApp E2712 NetApp E2760 NetApp E5560 Nexsan E48V(T) Nexsan E60V(T) Nexsan NST2000 Nexsan NST4000 Overland Storage SnapScale X4 Seagate RealStor 3000 Series Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-2U12 Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-2U24 Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX-3U16 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS RZ-2U12 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS RZ-3U16 Winchester Systems FlashNAS ZFS ZX-2U12 continued on next page This Licensed Buyer s to Hewlett-Packard Guide Edition is licensed Corporation to ixsystems, with unlimited Inc. with and unlimited unrestricted and distribution unrestricted rights. distribution rights through April 1, DCIG, LLC. All rights reserved. 17