[rescue] RE: somewhat OT: secondary market storage?

[Derrick D. Daugherty]

It's rumored that around Mon, Apr 01, 2002 at 10:17:11PM +0100
Chris Byrne <chris at chrisbyrne.com> wrote:
> I used to work for a storage company. We had Hitachi and EMC online, ADIC
> libraries, and we had test Shark boxes, Auspex, NTAP, and a few other
> solutions. Here's what I found generally

my brother is now at adic, so if you guys need any info lemme know.
he was at dell for about a decade... did their storage lines, but don't
yell at him if yer percII dies.

> EMC: Their technology is crap, their reliability blows chunks by today's
> standards, their tech support is horrible, and they want to control the box
> completely. Every time you want to make a change they want to do it for you,

I completely agree.  I called IBM "we can't compete with them"  I later
find out it's because they don't have a storage rep in austin.  HDS,
they didn't call me until the day i sent the PO to emc.  i had a three
week window to get and implement.

> a sale. I personally and directly know of one sale that involved the hiring
> of prostitutes. Once they sell you THEY OWN YOUR ASS. or at least that's how
> they see it. VERY VERY expensive and a poor value for money

I'd always kid my guy about this.  he'd tell me horror story after
another about the slovenly troll that would want a steak for lunch and
lapdances/bj or dessert.  in all fairness, he was just as discusted as
you or I.

> Can ya tell I don't like EMC maybe, just a little bit.

the product i hate.  _some_ (4) of the guys i like. 

> Hitachi: Their performance and technology are great, but their marketing and
> sales are very weak. Their tech support can be great can be shit depending

my first question:  "can i turn the thunder into the lightning?"  (same
chasis it would seem) "no"  

second question: "are you switched or on a bus"  "switched"

WOOOOO!   i can't express enough what leaps and bounds that does for
most everything.  that kicks the shite outta emc and *.  IBM's servers
are a switched arch, but again, ibm said "here talk to this guy" and
it's an old friend from HS who wants to sell me HDS.

question no one will answer:  is sun's 9910 the same as the HDS Thunder?

> NetApp: Sales force with half a clue. Not too bad software wise especially
> for their NAS solution but their hardware isn't the greatest in comparison
> to say HDS. Good professional services but poor field service and tech
> support Expensive, but a good value

I LOVE netapp, BUT, it's not the right fit for what i need.  I want SAN
not NAS.  two totally different markets.  Although they want to make
them the same, it's NOT.  I wish they'd grasp that.

> Auspex: The storage company I worked for was full of ex auspex employees.

hahahahhahahhahahahhahhaahhaahahah  ;)

i use them as a contender _just_ to piss off other storage providers.
i like to provoke

> MTI: Good product. Not the highest performance out there, somewhere in the
> middle of the pack but highly modular and very customisable. Not great for
> very large transactions, very good for large numbers of small transactions.

i have asssss-loads of 500k xactions.  so small quick speed is good.
the hds systems have 512k cache on the disks from what i hear.... so the
write should be instant.  these are 500k writes, the reads are tons of
serial reads of these records.

> Good tech support but mediocre field service. Sales force is VERY spotty.
> They let go most of their southern and midwestern US sales people wholesale
> last year. Their European sales staff is great. Professional service people
> are good at storage but not very good with systems and clueless about
> security.  Relatively low cost per meg, and a good value for money

well, i'm all for taking care of it meself. just give me the hardware if
it fails.   this is a _huge_ win for HDS.  I can manage the luns/config
myself...ie  NO BIN FILE

> IBM: The large shark boxes are somewhere near the EMC and HDS for
> performance depending on model and specs. The smaller ones are shit, and way

i can't get anyone at ibm to even try and sway me.  i've tried 4 times.
it all seems to tie back to "no storage rep in this area"  wtf?  my
concern was with "opensystems" ie, i'm solid sun and no mainframe/escon
shite.  i'd love to see their offering tho.

> >From my standpoint if you need VERY high performance with large transactions
> then Hitachi is the way to go. Hitachi is also rebadged/branded and sold by
> HP and Sun. They are very expensive without a doubt starting at the 500K
> mark and going up to the 5 Mil range depending on the setup, but they are
> also Super fast and can scale into the high multiterr range easily.
> 
> If you need medium performance, or are doing primarily small transactions
> then you can't beat MTI

Thank you a millionX10^69 for this info.  It has been/is extremely helpful.

Sincerely,
^D