EMC VNX5400

Riccochet

Riccochet

Fully [H]
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Apr 11, 2007
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Anyone have any experience with these? We're looking to upgrade our storage and this looks promising from the specs alone. Our data sets are large. 5-100 GB databases, 10-200 GB attachment databases that aren't compressible. I know an all flash array would be ideal, but the pricing just isn't where it needs to be to make it cost effective. These seem to offer a good amount of front end flash cache to keep reads and writes on the lower end of latency.

What say you [H]?
 
Worked with the VNX line since it was released. Great product. FAST Cache does a great job accelerating transactional DBs so if you can afford to add that to your config I'd do it.

FAST VP (auto-tiering) also works well but have EMC or EMC partner analyze your workload before deciding to go that route. FAST Cache can respond faster to IO demand so it's better to invest there first before going for FAST VP.
 
A few. :) Honestly...they've been rock solid. We have zero customer sat issues with the VNXs. Just work horses and can do almost anything.
 
We've used EMC Clariion, VNX/VNX2, and Symmetrix for almost 15 years. All of the arrays Including VNX/VNX2 have been pretty bullet proof. We are currently running a VNX5700, 2xVNX5400s, and a VNX7600, haven't had an issue with any of them. We have been required to do several code upgrades to address bugs, but they have all been non-disruptive.
 
What kind of performance could I expect out of a 5400? Our current limiting factor is IOPS.

Sucks that there's no real good information out there about the actual performance of these products. Or any SAN.

Might be time to give Varrow a call. lol
 
That's kind of like asking "what kind of performance can a computer have". I'd work closely with your partner to determine what system / configuration will suit your needs.
 
Eulogy said:
That's kind of like asking "what kind of performance can a computer have". I'd work closely with your partner to determine what system / configuration will suit your needs.
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I can look on [H] and see reviews of CPU's, memory, SSD's, motherboards and piece together what I can "expect". Not so with SAN's. Not even maximum theoretical IOPS being published.

Do people really take crap shots with 100's of thousands of dollars?
 
HydroBudz said:
30,000+ due to large datasets and large amounts of uncompressible data.
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Talk with EMC Sales or your local Partner to help size things out. Keep in mind that EMC does have best practices for each different feature you'll want to account for. For instance, Fast cache has a specific use case you'll want to adhere to or risk tanking all your IO/response time to pools/Luns utilizing fast cache.

They are workhorses and smash through a ton thats thrown at them. VNX2 has the reworked OS so it takes advantage of the multicore processors a ton better. All of my customers running VNX2s have had nothing but good things to say. Just make sure to work closely with a good SE to plan out the disks/sizing/feature set for your data.

Keep us updated on what you plan out!
 
Partners have sizing tools. It depends on how many spindles, how much flash, what kind of spindles, how we distribute them across pools, how much front-end SSD cache...and any tuning. We can estimate it using tools that we have.
 
Solid arrays, but uninspiring and getting old in the tooth imho. There are some scaling issues that can catch you if you start going above 100k iops pretty fast - if you're using the Cellera heads for anything. FC only it's solid.
 
I have a few of them and I like them.

Sizing should be easy. Do you know your current IOPs and response time needs?

Your EMC TC or partner should have this nifty internal excel spread sheet that does what they call a swag report. You don't build VNXs anymore off of how many spindles but capacity and iops. You tell them the capacity you need and they with a quick swing off of best practices will tell you how many spindles, and flash cache you need. If you provide them some NAR files they will be able to take a better stab at it.

I actually replaced an NS480 fully popped with mixture between SSD, FC, and sata drives that spanned 2 full racks and half a rack with a single vnx 5400 that took up just a single 3rd of a rack and I got 3x performance increase.

They are beefy little boxes for sure.
 
samborarocks said:
We've used EMC Clariion, VNX/VNX2, and Symmetrix for almost 15 years. All of the arrays Including VNX/VNX2 have been pretty bullet proof. We are currently running a VNX5700, 2xVNX5400s, and a VNX7600, haven't had an issue with any of them. We have been required to do several code upgrades to address bugs, but they have all been non-disruptive.
Click to expand...

agreed with all the above. ;)
 
EMC arrays are the kind that you plug in when commissioning them and they stay running until decommissioned.

That comes with a price.

Performance requirements are met based on the array's configuration of cache/SSD/spindles.
 
Agreed.

Price is subjective. You get what you pay for. Buy cheap, get cheap. Good luck with that overly complicated ZFS solution when it takes a dump on you during your busiest time of the year. You could easily go out of business if your storage doesn't come back online.

Agree. BUT, to add.. You have to think a little differently in how you size these things then traditional arrays. Most people are still stuck in 2008, where spindle count still mattered. Today, it does not.
 
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