back to article Make sure your storage can grow with your business

The average SME has a modest infrastructure which has grown organically: a file server of some sort, probably an email server, then a handful of application servers hosting things like finance systems or the database back-ends to business applications. In most cases server A is pushing the limits of its storage capacity while …

  1. SnowCrash

    Not always inexpensive

    Sadly I'm stuck with 1gb iscsi interfaces. Upgrading the storage, switching and enclosure would need about £20k. I haven't had that sort of budget since before 2008 (in fact my predecessor had that kind of budget, hence i have two c7000 chassis and only 6 out of 32 bays in use). I can dream though

    1. romanempire
      Happy

      Re: Not always inexpensive

      Check out the HP MSA 1040. The client has 3 x DL380 G7 with VMware Essentials Plus and I'm just putting one of these in with a couple of HP 1920-8G switches to create a proper SAN. The MSA + disks + switches + cables came to less then £7k. It can scale in performance and capacity easily.

      P.

      1. SniperPenguin

        Re: Not always inexpensive

        @romanempire

        Surely the port buffers on the 1920 switches would mean that the SAN performance would be very poor?

        1. romanempire

          Re: Not always inexpensive

          Original setup had the NAS type storage 3 switches (inc 2x 2510G) away from the hosts and other servers on an un-segmented LAN.

          2510G-48 - packet buffer size: 1.5 MB

          1920-8G - packet buffer size: 4.1 Mb

          So it should be an improvement in terms of performance. It will certainly be an improvement in resilience and upgrades will be easier to implement (without having to take everything down). Granted its nowhere near the sort of enterprise environments I usually work in but, given the budget constraints, its better then what they had.

          P.

      2. Magic Hair

        Re: Not always inexpensive

        You're much better to SAS attach the HP 1040 and eliminate the unnecessary switching infrastructure

        http://searchsolidstatestorage.techtarget.com/news/4500249916/HP-revamps-MSA-1040-2040-arrays-with-front-end-SAS

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not always inexpensive

      well that's your fault for wasting money on HP gear in the first place.

      1. SnowCrash

        Re: Not always inexpensive

        I would point my finger at my predecessor but that would be mean

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