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

[Derrick D. Daugherty]

It's rumored that around Mon, Apr 01, 2002 at 04:54:10PM -0500
Brian Hechinger <wonko at arkham.ws> wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 01, 2002 at 10:17:11PM +0100, Chris Byrne 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
> 
> here's what i've run across over the years:
> 
> > EMC: Their technology is crap, their reliability blows chunks by today's
> > Can ya tell I don't like EMC maybe, just a little bit.
> 
> i hate EMC.  their hardware is not great and their support BLOWS.  we have

i hate them too

> anyway, i'm wandering from the point.  there are a bunch of utilities that are
> on those four RS/6000 machines the handle the FC stuff.  i couldn't get them
> to do what they were supposed to, so i called one of the other tier3 guys
> since he's pretty clueful about AIX and i'm not, so we farted around for a
> while and found out that these utilities are written by EMC.  no online docs
> on the AIX boxes, so i called the cage and got the EMC guy on the phone (you
> know, needing to control the situation, becuase i'm SURE we aren't smart
> enough to change a fucking fibre switch ourselves) and he was a hardware guy

if you're speaking of powerpath/srdf/timefinder then just email me...

> > Hitachi: Their performance and technology are great, but their marketing and
> > but they are a little less anal about it. Very expensive, but worth it
> 
[snip}
> you can't stop it from calling home or they will void your support contract.
> that's ok, it's nice getting a phone call, "hey, you lost a disk, i'm 
> downstairs with a new one, could you let me in?"

{snip}

this is what i'm hearing.. I *LIKE* to have control of the box.

> > 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
> 
> does NetApp even do "direct attach" stuff?  i thought they were all NAS.

no.  two.five years ago i was told "we're working on it"  same as their
dual -48dc attachments to their disc shelves.  it would seem they
acomplished one. their latest-greatest shelf will do an a and b feed of
-48.  as far as speaking fc?  not a chance to a swith or host.  it's
head to shelf only.  it's "not on their radar"  from the techie side,
and it's "in the near future" from the sales side.

> i've dealt with them quite often, and they kick a large amount of NAS ass.
> if i have to pick a NAS, that's the one i'll pick.  we have EMC NAS boxes and
> they are JUNK.

netapp, hands down, is nas king.  no one is even close, at all.

> > Auspex: The storage company I worked for was full of ex auspex employees.
> > MTI: Good product. Not the highest performance out there, somewhere in the

hahhahahhahhahahahahhhahhh