Affordable storage for the SME, part one
by Johan De Gelas on November 7, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Pricing, Continued
We wanted to calculate how much a small SAN with failover would cost. We assumed that four servers would share a dual controller SAN. We opted for a 16-port switch as we assume that additional servers will use this SAN in the future, and 16-port switches probably give the best port/price ratio. Note also that we can easily expand our 12 disk SAN with several JBODs if those servers need more disk capacity.
First, we checked out several tier one storage vendors. To keep things simple, we made an average of the prices that we encountered at Dell/EMC, IBM, and HP at the end of October 2007. The table below is not a precise calculation or a "best buy" recommendation; it is simply an estimate to give us a reasonable overview of the costs.
Several things make a typical FC SAN quite expensive. One of most important ones is the high quality, very low latency FC Switch (a Brocade Silkworm for example). Secondly, the FC HBA required for each server that gets access to the SAN is rather expensive. Other small components also quickly push the cost higher: LC optic cables are still expensive and each link between your switch and the storage rack needs a small form-factor pluggable (SFP). These compact optical transceivers are yet another cost that is usually not included in your storage rack.
SFPs add to the price of the already expensive FC SAN
The result is that for a relatively simple HA SAN configuration with less than 1.7 TB of raw storage capacity, the total cost quickly rises to $35,000 or more. It is nearly impossible to get under $20,000, even without double path HA.
Let us compare this to a SAN based on a storage appliance that leaves all options open. We tried to keep the components the same as much as possible:
The idea is clear: you save a lot of money if you can pick your own switch, your own hard disks, and your own HBAs. In both configurations (HA and no HA) the Promise configuration is significantly less expensive (25-30% less) than a typical tier one configuration. Of course, it may take a bit more effort to put your configuration together depending on your skill. You also need one reliable reseller who can sell you everything, so you have one point of contact if something goes wrong. Even with this stipulations, you can save quite a bit of money.
If this is still too expensive, iSCSI comes to the rescue. iSCSI appliances are not much cheaper than FC appliances; in fact, in some cases they are priced almost as high as their FC counterparts. However, the pricing of switches, cables, and HBAs is significantly lower. That allows you to build a basic SAN for less than $10000.
Intel's SSR212MC2 barebones starts at prices as low as $2500, bringing the price of a basic storage device down ~$3500. Naturally, you have to install the iSCSI software yourself. If you feel that's either too time consuming or too difficult, quite a few resellers offer complete ready-to-use iSCSI boxes based on the Intel SSR212MC2.
We wanted to calculate how much a small SAN with failover would cost. We assumed that four servers would share a dual controller SAN. We opted for a 16-port switch as we assume that additional servers will use this SAN in the future, and 16-port switches probably give the best port/price ratio. Note also that we can easily expand our 12 disk SAN with several JBODs if those servers need more disk capacity.
First, we checked out several tier one storage vendors. To keep things simple, we made an average of the prices that we encountered at Dell/EMC, IBM, and HP at the end of October 2007. The table below is not a precise calculation or a "best buy" recommendation; it is simply an estimate to give us a reasonable overview of the costs.
 |
Several things make a typical FC SAN quite expensive. One of most important ones is the high quality, very low latency FC Switch (a Brocade Silkworm for example). Secondly, the FC HBA required for each server that gets access to the SAN is rather expensive. Other small components also quickly push the cost higher: LC optic cables are still expensive and each link between your switch and the storage rack needs a small form-factor pluggable (SFP). These compact optical transceivers are yet another cost that is usually not included in your storage rack.
SFPs add to the price of the already expensive FC SAN
The result is that for a relatively simple HA SAN configuration with less than 1.7 TB of raw storage capacity, the total cost quickly rises to $35,000 or more. It is nearly impossible to get under $20,000, even without double path HA.
Let us compare this to a SAN based on a storage appliance that leaves all options open. We tried to keep the components the same as much as possible:
- A Brocade M4400 FC Switch
- Seagate ST3146755SS 146GB SAS 15K RPM hard drive
- FC HBA: Emulex LPe1150-F4
 |
The idea is clear: you save a lot of money if you can pick your own switch, your own hard disks, and your own HBAs. In both configurations (HA and no HA) the Promise configuration is significantly less expensive (25-30% less) than a typical tier one configuration. Of course, it may take a bit more effort to put your configuration together depending on your skill. You also need one reliable reseller who can sell you everything, so you have one point of contact if something goes wrong. Even with this stipulations, you can save quite a bit of money.
If this is still too expensive, iSCSI comes to the rescue. iSCSI appliances are not much cheaper than FC appliances; in fact, in some cases they are priced almost as high as their FC counterparts. However, the pricing of switches, cables, and HBAs is significantly lower. That allows you to build a basic SAN for less than $10000.
 |
Intel's SSR212MC2 barebones starts at prices as low as $2500, bringing the price of a basic storage device down ~$3500. Naturally, you have to install the iSCSI software yourself. If you feel that's either too time consuming or too difficult, quite a few resellers offer complete ready-to-use iSCSI boxes based on the Intel SSR212MC2.
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Lifted - Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - link
I'm just wondering this sentence was linked to an article about a Supermicro dual node server. So you considere Supermicro an SME, or are you saying their servers are sold to SME's? I just skimmed the Supermicro article, so perhaps you were working with an SME in testing it? I got the feeling from the sentence that you meant to link to an article where you had worked with SME's in some respect.
JohanAnandtech - Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - link
no, Supermicro is not an SME in our viewpoint :-). Sorry, I should have been more clear, but I was trying to avoid that the article lost it's focus.I am head of a serverlab in the local university and our goal is applied research in the fields of virtualisation, HA and Server sizing. One of the things we do is to develop software that helps SME's (with some special niche application) to size their server. That is what the link is going towards, a short explanation of the stresstesting client APUS which has been used to help quite a few SMEs. One of those SMEs is MCS, a software company who develops facility management software. Basically the logs of their software were analyzed and converted by our stresstesting client into a benchmark. Sounds a lot easier than it is.
Because these applications are used in real world, and are not industry standard benchmarks that the manufacturers can tune to the extreme, we feel that this kind of benchmarking is a welcome addition to the normal benchmarks.
hirschma - Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - link
Is the Promise gear compatible with Cluster File Systems like Polyserve or GFS? Perhaps the author could get some commentary from Promise.JohanAnandtech - Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - link
We will. What kind of incompatibility do you expect? It seems to me that the filesystem is rather independent from the storage rack.hirschma - Thursday, November 8, 2007 - link
I only ask because every cluster file vendor suggests that not all SAN systems are capable of handling multiple requests to the same LUN simultaneously.
I can't imagine that they couldn't, since I think that cluster file systems are the "killer app" of SANs in general.
FreshPrince - Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - link
I think I would like to try the intel solution and compare it to my cx3...Gholam - Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - link
Any chance of seeing benchmarks for LSI Engenio 1333/IBM DS3000/Dell MD3000 series?JohanAnandtech - Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - link
I am curious why exactly?And yes, we'll do our best to get some of the typical storage devices in the labs. Any reason why you mention these one in particular (besides being the lower end of the SANs)
Gholam - Thursday, November 8, 2007 - link
Both Dell and IBM are aggressively pushing these in the SMB sector around here (Israel). Their main competition is NetApp FAS270 line, which is considerably more expensive.ninjit - Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - link
It's a good idea to define all your acronyms the first time you use them in an article.Sure, a quick google told me what an SME was, but it's helpful to the casual reader, who would otherwise be directed away from your page.
What's funny, is that you were particular about defining FC, SAN, HA on the first page, just not the title term of your article.