80 tb storage recommendation for Dell R440 servers
What would be a good SAN recommendation to back-end (3) Dell R440 servers running VMware or Hyper-V? Solution is not only for running VM load, but disk backups and Azure copy. 80tb would cover storage load that includes double growth. And what would be best connectivity option for them?
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Dell servers so I'd go for a Dell ME4, 3 servers so the SAS host attached variant which goes up to 4 hosts redundantly attached. Would have to buy through a reseller rather than their website though as the web form forces you to fill the expansion enclosure right up whereas you may only need a few disks in it.
Sorry, but there isn't enough information to give a good answer here.
What kind of performance do you need?
How much data is hot?
What data services are you looking for?
What a do you mean by Azure copy?
Hopefully you're not planning to store backups of these same VMs on the same storage. That wouldn't be a backup, but just a copy.
Are you looking to replicate to something else?
Could you be adding or removing hosts in the future? Would anything other than the hosts need to connect?
How price sensitive are you?
Do you already have 10G or higher switching infrastructure? Do you have FC infrastructure?
Have you looked at a hyperconverged infrastructure?
Will you need to support multiple hypervisors?
Do you already have the servers? Do they have 1 or 2 CPU installed (impacts whether or not they can take an add in card). What NICs are already installed?
What kind of technical expertise does the organization have access to?
Do you need to buy all capacity up front, or can you add over time?
What kind of performance do you need?
How much data is hot?
What data services are you looking for?
What a do you mean by Azure copy?
Hopefully you're not planning to store backups of these same VMs on the same storage. That wouldn't be a backup, but just a copy.
Are you looking to replicate to something else?
Could you be adding or removing hosts in the future? Would anything other than the hosts need to connect?
How price sensitive are you?
Do you already have 10G or higher switching infrastructure? Do you have FC infrastructure?
Have you looked at a hyperconverged infrastructure?
Will you need to support multiple hypervisors?
Do you already have the servers? Do they have 1 or 2 CPU installed (impacts whether or not they can take an add in card). What NICs are already installed?
What kind of technical expertise does the organization have access to?
Do you need to buy all capacity up front, or can you add over time?
80TB Is not a lot of storage in today’s world, easily achievable with 8 or fewer disks, but as Kevin pointed out there are a lot of other variables to consider, ie (to name just a few) performance, business continuity, legalities
(incidentally Tera is normally written with a capital T, and the de facto standard is B = Byes, b = bits)
(incidentally Tera is normally written with a capital T, and the de facto standard is B = Byes, b = bits)
ASKER
Thank you for the recommendations and comments everyone. There is a lot to consider. We are in a position to replace the aged infrastructure as we migrate mission critical business applications to Azure. I'm concerned about vendor lock-in when looking at hyperconverged solutions but basically would like to move away from local disk storage on the R440s to a SAN for running VMs for localized services as well as a storage location for less used network files. Local services would be mainly RDServices for approx 90 thin clients and various localized applications with some room for growth.
Hyper-converged doesn't mean hardware vendor lock-in, you're just tied to whichever iSCSI vSAN software you use and if that's VMware's vSAN rather than StarWind or other independent software then you're tied in anyway.