I'm looking for any people with experience using the EMC IP4700 who could lend their advice and experiences with me.
We are considering the IP4700 or the NetApp F740/F760.
Our main storage need is to support an engineering/CAD department with 20 active users. There will be an additional 30 light scale users performing standard office tasks. I would like the system to scale to 100 users total with 30-40 active engineering users.
My take on the current situation follows:
EMC Pros Largest name in enterprise storage. Known for high quality and very reliable storage systems. Very aggressive on pricing to get into this business. Best service in the industry. Sales/Pre-Sales people have been very professional
EMC Cons NAS is a new business for EMC. Very small installed base of IP4700. Limited user experience.
Network Appliance Pros Defined the NAS device as it exists today. Large installed base. WAFL seems to be unique and have advantages, although It's operation isn't clear to me.
Network Appliance Cons Sales/Pre-Sales engineers have consistently relied on FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) to sell their product.
I have had all of the following items told to me by NetApp Sales:
1. IP4700 performance figures (SPECrfs97) will drop by 400% after RAID-5 and snap-shot overhead is calculated. Repeatedly claimed that the F85 is a superior solution in terms of performance and features. I suspect this is their interpretation of an earlier thread in this group. EMC claims that RAID-5 performance will be lower, but perhaps by 30%, and that snapshot overhead is minimal. Since NetApp appeared to have solid performance figures, I asked them to substantiate their performance claims. I have not received anything from them after asking for this data twice.
2. I ask NetApp. "Why would EMC introduce a product to market and compare it to an F820, when it really compares to an F85?" So far, the only answer I have from them is "They did."....Hmm...That's very convincing.
3. On the IP4700, the size of a file system can be no larger than a single raid group. A single raid group is one shelf of drives plus a hot spare. Therefore, you cannot construct very large file systems. EMC claims that this is false, a file system can span over multiple raid groups.
4. NetApp claims that the IP4700 communicates at a block rather than file level with clients. This is utterly laughable, but illustrative of the type of BS that I've been putting up with from them.
5. NetApp claims that if a processor fails on the IP4700, that the failover will require a fsck type of process to bring the file system back on-line. While this may be an issue compared to a clustered configuration, a single head F740/F760 will be dead and service will be called to bring their system up under our circumstance.
6. NetApp claims that when adding a disk to the array, that a formatting process could take up to an hour before the drive is available. EMC claims that this is false, the drive is available immediately.
7. NetApp claims that the user interface to the IP4700 requires creating a separate users list as well as creating and administering shares. In essence, I would have to keep track of multiple users lists. Admittedly, NetApp does have control of their device via SMC on the Windows side. However, EMC states that the only administration required is to create/delete/modify shares. No user lists are necessary.
I am looking for any advice I can get on the various items mentioned above, or any user experience with the IP4700.
When I look at the way that NetApp has responded to the IP4700, I can't help thinking that they are afraid of something. The overall response from them has been that the IP4700 wouldn't be suitable as a doorstop to a building. This attitude makes me very leery of NetApp and curious about the IP4700.
I'm sure that the F740 is a good NAS box. On the same token however, I believe that EMC is very serious about addressing the NAS market. The IP4700 is an attempt to push into NetApp's market.
Thank you in advance for any response,
Chris Van Genderen Software Engineer & Applications Manager NexFlash Technologies, Inc. chris_van_genderen@nexflash.com