Bruce,
One of the items that I did not mention was that we are a start up company that is using the back-end infrastructure of our parent company. I have been given the task of not only buying a NAS device for company wide storage, but also to build the entire network infrastructure and server infrastructure for our new location. So, what ever we purchase will need to go online immediately and support the company in a new location. I don't have the "test-bed" to test anything.
As you can also guess, via my title, I am not a MIS person either. So, I've been going through a fairly steep learning curve in many areas. I am weary about compatibility issues with NFS and our engineering/CAD Sun machines. In this area, I feel because of their industry experience, NetApp has the edge. I've talked with EMC on this issue, and they re-assure me that the IP4700 will not have compatibility problems. However, this is much different than having users of the product claim that their are no compatibility problems.
My gut feeling is to go with the F740 because of the existing installation base, and the maturity of the product. I'm just a little miffed that NetApp has been trying to use my inexperience and limited knowledgebase against me during the sales process; it doesn't give me the feeling that I can trust them.
Chris Van Genderen Software Engineer & Applications Manager NexFlash Technologies, Inc. chris_van_genderen@nexflash.com
"Bruce Sterling To: toasters@mathworks.com, Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com Woodcock" cc: (bcc: Chris Van Genderen/Santa Clara/ISSIHQ) <sirbruce@ix.n Subject: Re: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740 etcom.com>
05/09/01 03:45 PM
Most of what you seem to be weighing are nebulous issues of who says what. Why don't you just find out for yourself?
Ask Netapp for an F760 to try out for 2 weeks.
Ask EMC for an IP4700 *at the equivalent price and disk capacity, with RAID* to try out for 2 weeks.
See which has better performance for your users and which you can administer easier. Build large RAID groups, test simultaneous file sharing from NFS and CIFS, fail drives, do rebuilds, etc.
Bruce
Chris,
I'm the person that started the F85 vs. IP4700 thread. Here is one data point. When we benchmarked the F85 it was able to do a single threaded read at 90-95 Mbits/sec and writes at 85-90 Mbits/sec. This was on a 100BaseT full-duplex connection to a linux box. When we tried the same benchmark with the IP4700 it showed 40-50 Mbits/sec read and 20-25 Mbits/sec write. This clinched the deal for the F85's for us. EMC compares the IP4700 to the F8xx line. If the system cannot even keep up with an F85, I think that EMC needs to take a look at what is going on. Also, you should check with EMC regarding their snapshot implementation. Netapp's snapshots don't have to copy old data when a data block is updated. A new block is allocated and then written. I've heard, but haven't verified that the IP4700's filesystem acts more like a copy on write system. First the old data block has to be copied to a new location then the modified data is written. If this is actually the case then the performance of the filesystem will be compromised. I know that there are EMC folks on this list. Maybe one of them can respond.
barry
Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com wrote:
Bruce,
One of the items that I did not mention was that we are a start up company that is using the back-end infrastructure of our parent company. I have been given the task of not only buying a NAS device for company wide storage, but also to build the entire network infrastructure and server infrastructure for our new location. So, what ever we purchase will need to go online immediately and support the company in a new location. I don't have the "test-bed" to test anything.
As you can also guess, via my title, I am not a MIS person either. So, I've been going through a fairly steep learning curve in many areas. I am weary about compatibility issues with NFS and our engineering/CAD Sun machines. In this area, I feel because of their industry experience, NetApp has the edge. I've talked with EMC on this issue, and they re-assure me that the IP4700 will not have compatibility problems. However, this is much different than having users of the product claim that their are no compatibility problems.
My gut feeling is to go with the F740 because of the existing installation base, and the maturity of the product. I'm just a little miffed that NetApp has been trying to use my inexperience and limited knowledgebase against me during the sales process; it doesn't give me the feeling that I can trust them.
Chris Van Genderen Software Engineer & Applications Manager NexFlash Technologies, Inc. chris_van_genderen@nexflash.com
"Bruce Sterling To: <toasters@mathworks.com>, <Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com> Woodcock" cc: (bcc: Chris Van Genderen/Santa Clara/ISSIHQ) <sirbruce@ix.n Subject: Re: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740 etcom.com> 05/09/01 03:45 PMMost of what you seem to be weighing are nebulous issues of who says what. Why don't you just find out for yourself?
Ask Netapp for an F760 to try out for 2 weeks.
Ask EMC for an IP4700 *at the equivalent price and disk capacity, with RAID* to try out for 2 weeks.
See which has better performance for your users and which you can administer easier. Build large RAID groups, test simultaneous file sharing from NFS and CIFS, fail drives, do rebuilds, etc.
Bruce
re: snapshots, I thought that everyone else's snapshot functionality other than Netapp's must be based on a "copy on write" method because Netapp has a patent on continuously writing new blocks. (their WAFL filesystem intellectual property and patents). If you can't take advantage of the method of writing modified blocks as new blocks and not touching the original block pointed to by the snapshot, doesn't that mean that you have to reserve some amount of storage, that is free blocks, for holding the copy on write changed blocks to maintain the snapshots?
-----Original Message----- From: owner-dl-toasters@netapp.com [mailto:owner-dl-toasters@netapp.com]On Behalf Of Barry Lustig Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 5:30 PM To: Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com Cc: sirbruce@ix.netcom.com; toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740
Chris,
I'm the person that started the F85 vs. IP4700 thread. Here is one data point. When we benchmarked the F85 it was able to do a single threaded read at 90-95 Mbits/sec and writes at 85-90 Mbits/sec. This was on a 100BaseT full-duplex connection to a linux box. When we tried the same benchmark with the IP4700 it showed 40-50 Mbits/sec read and 20-25 Mbits/sec write. This clinched the deal for the F85's for us. EMC compares the IP4700 to the F8xx line. If the system cannot even keep up with an F85, I think that EMC needs to take a look at what is going on. Also, you should check with EMC regarding their snapshot implementation. Netapp's snapshots don't have to copy old data when a data block is updated. A new block is allocated and then written. I've heard, but haven't verified that the IP4700's filesystem acts more like a copy on write system. First the old data block has to be copied to a new location then the modified data is written. If this is actually the case then the performance of the filesystem will be compromised. I know that there are EMC folks on this list. Maybe one of them can respond.
barry
Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com wrote:
Bruce,
One of the items that I did not mention was that we are a start up company that is using the back-end infrastructure of our parent company. I have been given the task of not only buying a NAS device for company wide storage, but also to build the entire network infrastructure and server infrastructure for our new location. So, what ever we purchase will need to go online immediately and support the company in a new location. I don't have the "test-bed" to test
anything.
As you can also guess, via my title, I am not a MIS person either. So, I've been going through a fairly steep learning curve in many areas. I am weary about compatibility issues with NFS and our engineering/CAD Sun machines. In this area, I feel because of their industry
experience,
NetApp has the edge. I've talked with EMC on this issue, and they re-assure me that the IP4700 will not have compatibility problems. However, this is much different than having users of the product claim that their are no compatibility problems.
My gut feeling is to go with the F740 because of the existing
installation
base, and the maturity of the product. I'm just a little miffed that
NetApp has
been trying to use my inexperience and limited knowledgebase against
me during
the sales process; it doesn't give me the feeling that I can trust them.
Chris Van Genderen Software Engineer & Applications Manager NexFlash Technologies, Inc. chris_van_genderen@nexflash.com
"Bruce Sterling To:toasters@mathworks.com, Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com
Woodcock" cc: (bcc: ChrisVan Genderen/Santa Clara/ISSIHQ)
<sirbruce@ix.n Subject: Re: EMCIP4700 vs NetApp F740
etcom.com> 05/09/01 03:45 PMMost of what you seem to be weighing are nebulous issues of who says what. Why don't you just find out for yourself?
Ask Netapp for an F760 to try out for 2 weeks.
Ask EMC for an IP4700 *at the equivalent price and disk capacity, with RAID* to try out for 2 weeks.
See which has better performance for your users and which you can administer easier. Build large RAID groups, test simultaneous file sharing from NFS and CIFS, fail drives, do rebuilds, etc.
Bruce
Chris,
Your description of how the IP4700's Snapshot copy-on-write mechanism works is right on. The original data is copied to a new location and the new data is written to the original block. Yes this compromises performance. Yes you have to allocate physical disk space to accomplish this. No you cannot shrink the amount of disk space you have allocated for this process if you find that it is too much.
Paul Brosseau - Netapp SE Former EMC SE
-----Original Message----- From: owner-dl-toasters@netapp.com [mailto:owner-dl-toasters@netapp.com]On Behalf Of Ferd Berfl Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 10:02 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: RE: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740
re: snapshots, I thought that everyone else's snapshot functionality other than Netapp's must be based on a "copy on write" method because Netapp has a patent on continuously writing new blocks. (their WAFL filesystem intellectual property and patents). If you can't take advantage of the method of writing modified blocks as new blocks and not touching the original block pointed to by the snapshot, doesn't that mean that you have to reserve some amount of storage, that is free blocks, for holding the copy on write changed blocks to maintain the snapshots?
-----Original Message----- From: owner-dl-toasters@netapp.com [mailto:owner-dl-toasters@netapp.com]On Behalf Of Barry Lustig Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 5:30 PM To: Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com Cc: sirbruce@ix.netcom.com; toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740
Chris,
I'm the person that started the F85 vs. IP4700 thread. Here is one data point. When we benchmarked the F85 it was able to do a single threaded read at 90-95 Mbits/sec and writes at 85-90 Mbits/sec. This was on a 100BaseT full-duplex connection to a linux box. When we tried the same benchmark with the IP4700 it showed 40-50 Mbits/sec read and 20-25 Mbits/sec write. This clinched the deal for the F85's for us. EMC compares the IP4700 to the F8xx line. If the system cannot even keep up with an F85, I think that EMC needs to take a look at what is going on. Also, you should check with EMC regarding their snapshot implementation. Netapp's snapshots don't have to copy old data when a data block is updated. A new block is allocated and then written. I've heard, but haven't verified that the IP4700's filesystem acts more like a copy on write system. First the old data block has to be copied to a new location then the modified data is written. If this is actually the case then the performance of the filesystem will be compromised. I know that there are EMC folks on this list. Maybe one of them can respond.
barry
Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com wrote:
Bruce,
One of the items that I did not mention was that we are a start up company that is using the back-end infrastructure of our parent company. I have been given the task of not only buying a NAS device for company wide storage, but also to build the entire network infrastructure and server infrastructure for our new location. So, what ever we purchase will need to go online immediately and support the company in a new location. I don't have the "test-bed" to test
anything.
As you can also guess, via my title, I am not a MIS person either. So, I've been going through a fairly steep learning curve in many areas. I am weary about compatibility issues with NFS and our engineering/CAD Sun machines. In this area, I feel because of their industry
experience,
NetApp has the edge. I've talked with EMC on this issue, and they re-assure me that the IP4700 will not have compatibility problems. However, this is much different than having users of the product claim that their are no compatibility problems.
My gut feeling is to go with the F740 because of the existing
installation
base, and the maturity of the product. I'm just a little miffed that
NetApp has
been trying to use my inexperience and limited knowledgebase against
me during
the sales process; it doesn't give me the feeling that I can trust them.
Chris Van Genderen Software Engineer & Applications Manager NexFlash Technologies, Inc. chris_van_genderen@nexflash.com
"Bruce Sterling To:toasters@mathworks.com, Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com
Woodcock" cc: (bcc: ChrisVan Genderen/Santa Clara/ISSIHQ)
<sirbruce@ix.n Subject: Re: EMCIP4700 vs NetApp F740
etcom.com> 05/09/01 03:45 PMMost of what you seem to be weighing are nebulous issues of who says what. Why don't you just find out for yourself?
Ask Netapp for an F760 to try out for 2 weeks.
Ask EMC for an IP4700 *at the equivalent price and disk capacity, with RAID* to try out for 2 weeks.
See which has better performance for your users and which you can administer easier. Build large RAID groups, test simultaneous file sharing from NFS and CIFS, fail drives, do rebuilds, etc.
Bruce
that's a fixed or semi fixed, non-flexible disk space allocation for "copy on write" changed blocks, right? On the Network Appliance filer, isn't' that "reserve" more of an accounting mechanism than a physical disk space allocation? I thought you could use snapshots on the network appliance system without setting any reserve if you wanted.
-----Original Message----- From: Paul Brosseau [mailto:paulb@netapp.com] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 9:01 AM To: ferdberfl@netzero.net; toasters@mathworks.com Subject: RE: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740
Chris,
Your description of how the IP4700's Snapshot copy-on-write mechanism works is right on. The original data is copied to a new location and the new data is written to the original block. Yes this compromises performance. Yes you have to allocate physical disk space to accomplish this. No you cannot shrink the amount of disk space you have allocated for this process if you find that it is too much.
Paul Brosseau - Netapp SE Former EMC SE
-----Original Message----- From: owner-dl-toasters@netapp.com [mailto:owner-dl-toasters@netapp.com]On Behalf Of Ferd Berfl Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 10:02 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: RE: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740
re: snapshots, I thought that everyone else's snapshot functionality other than Netapp's must be based on a "copy on write" method because Netapp has a patent on continuously writing new blocks. (their WAFL filesystem intellectual property and patents). If you can't take advantage of the method of writing modified blocks as new blocks and not touching the original block pointed to by the snapshot, doesn't that mean that you have to reserve some amount of storage, that is free blocks, for holding the copy on write changed blocks to maintain the snapshots?
-----Original Message----- From: owner-dl-toasters@netapp.com [mailto:owner-dl-toasters@netapp.com]On Behalf Of Barry Lustig Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 5:30 PM To: Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com Cc: sirbruce@ix.netcom.com; toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740
Chris,
I'm the person that started the F85 vs. IP4700 thread. Here is one data point. When we benchmarked the F85 it was able to do a single threaded read at 90-95 Mbits/sec and writes at 85-90 Mbits/sec. This was on a 100BaseT full-duplex connection to a linux box. When we tried the same benchmark with the IP4700 it showed 40-50 Mbits/sec read and 20-25 Mbits/sec write. This clinched the deal for the F85's for us. EMC compares the IP4700 to the F8xx line. If the system cannot even keep up with an F85, I think that EMC needs to take a look at what is going on. Also, you should check with EMC regarding their snapshot implementation. Netapp's snapshots don't have to copy old data when a data block is updated. A new block is allocated and then written. I've heard, but haven't verified that the IP4700's filesystem acts more like a copy on write system. First the old data block has to be copied to a new location then the modified data is written. If this is actually the case then the performance of the filesystem will be compromised. I know that there are EMC folks on this list. Maybe one of them can respond.
barry
Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com wrote:
Bruce,
One of the items that I did not mention was that we are a start up company that is using the back-end infrastructure of our parent company. I have been given the task of not only buying a NAS device for company wide storage, but also to build the entire network infrastructure and server infrastructure for our new location. So, what ever we purchase will need to go online immediately and support the company in a new location. I don't have the "test-bed" to test
anything.
As you can also guess, via my title, I am not a MIS person either. So, I've been going through a fairly steep learning curve in many areas. I am weary about compatibility issues with NFS and our engineering/CAD Sun machines. In this area, I feel because of their industry
experience,
NetApp has the edge. I've talked with EMC on this issue, and they re-assure me that the IP4700 will not have compatibility problems. However, this is much different than having users of the product claim
that their
are no compatibility problems.
My gut feeling is to go with the F740 because of the existing
installation
base, and the maturity of the product. I'm just a little miffed that
NetApp has
been trying to use my inexperience and limited knowledgebase against
me during
the sales process; it doesn't give me the feeling that I can
trust them.
Chris Van Genderen Software Engineer & Applications Manager NexFlash Technologies, Inc. chris_van_genderen@nexflash.com
"Bruce Sterling To:toasters@mathworks.com, Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com
Woodcock" cc: (bcc: ChrisVan Genderen/Santa Clara/ISSIHQ)
<sirbruce@ix.n Subject: Re: EMCIP4700 vs NetApp F740
etcom.com> 05/09/01 03:45 PMMost of what you seem to be weighing are nebulous issues of who says what. Why don't you just find out for yourself?
Ask Netapp for an F760 to try out for 2 weeks.
Ask EMC for an IP4700 *at the equivalent price and disk capacity, with RAID* to try out for 2 weeks.
See which has better performance for your users and which you can administer easier. Build large RAID groups, test simultaneous file sharing from NFS and CIFS, fail drives, do rebuilds, etc.
Bruce
_________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
"Ferd Berfl" ferd_berfl@yahoo.com writes:
re: snapshots, I thought that everyone else's snapshot functionality other than Netapp's must be based on a "copy on write" method because Netapp has a patent on continuously writing new blocks. (their WAFL filesystem intellectual property and patents). If you can't take advantage of the method of writing modified blocks as new blocks and not touching the original block pointed to by the snapshot, doesn't that mean that you have to reserve some amount of storage, that is free blocks, for holding the copy on write changed blocks to maintain the snapshots?
I am not sure what the NetApp patents claim, but if they claim to have originated the idea of always writing an updated block in a new location, that's an old idea with plenty of prior art.
For example, EDF minidisks under VM/CMS had exactly that idea, including the concept of consistency points. (It wouldn't have been all that big a stretch to have invented snapshots for them, actually.) Of course that was in the context of a mostly-single-user filing system.
In the context of database implementations rather than general-purpose filing systems, I can recall these ideas being used in the early 1970s.
Chris Thompson University of Cambridge Computing Service, Email: cet1@ucs.cam.ac.uk New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG, Phone: +44 1223 334715 United Kingdom.
Are there any other commercial filesystem or filesystem appliance vendors who who use a the method of always writing an updated block in a new location, and taking advantage of that in their "snapshot" functionality?
just for jollies i did a patent search and i found this, it does look like they have a patent on the that file sytem methadology:
United States Patent 5,963,962 Hitz , et al. October 5, 1999
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Write anywhere file-system layout
Abstract The present invention provides a method for keeping a file system in a consistent state and for creating read-only copies of a file system. Changes to the file system are tightly controlled. The file system progresses from one self-consistent state to another self-consistent state. The set of self-consistent blocks on disk that is rooted by the root inode is referred to as a consistency point. To implement consistency points, new data is written to unallocated blocks on disk. A new consistency point occurs when the fsinfo block is updated by writing a new root inode for the inode file into it. Thus, as long as the root inode is not updated, the state of the file system represented on disk does not change. The present invention also creates snapshots that are read-only copies of the file system. A snapshot uses no disk space when it is initially created. It is designed so that many different snapshots can be created for the same file system. Unlike prior art file systems that create a clone by duplicating the entire inode file and all of the indirect blocks, the present invention duplicates only the inode that describes the inode file. A multi-bit free-block map file is used to prevent data from being overwritten on disk.
Here's another one of the patents they have:
United States Patent 5,819,292 Hitz , et al. October 6, 1998
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Method for maintaining consistent states of a file system and for creating user-accessible read-only copies of a file system
Abstract A method is disclosed for maintaining consistent states of a file system. The file system progresses from one self-consistent state to another self-consistent state. The set of self-consistent blocks on disk that is rooted by a root inode is referred to as a consistency point. The root inode is stored in a file system information structure. To implement consistency points, new data is written to unallocated blocks on disk. A new consistency point occurs when the file system information structure is updated by writing a new root inode into it. Thus, as long as the root inode is not updated, the state of the file system represented on disk does not change. The method also creates snapshots that are user-accessible read-only copies of the file system. A snapshot uses no disk space when it is initially created. It is designed so that many different snapshots can be created for the same file system. Unlike prior art file systems that create a done by duplicating an entire inode file and all indirect blocks, the method of the present invention duplicates only the inode that describes the inode file. A multi-bit free-block map file is used to prevent data referenced by snapshots from being overwritten on disk.
-----Original Message----- From: Chris Thompson [mailto:cet1@cus.cam.ac.uk] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 9:41 AM To: ferdberfl@netzero.net Cc: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Re: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740
"Ferd Berfl" ferd_berfl@yahoo.com writes:
re: snapshots, I thought that everyone else's snapshot
functionality other
than Netapp's must be based on a "copy on write" method because
Netapp has a
patent on continuously writing new blocks. (their WAFL filesystem intellectual property and patents). If you can't take advantage of the method of writing modified blocks as new blocks and not touching the original block pointed to by the snapshot, doesn't that mean
that you have
to reserve some amount of storage, that is free blocks, for
holding the copy
on write changed blocks to maintain the snapshots?
I am not sure what the NetApp patents claim, but if they claim to have originated the idea of always writing an updated block in a new location, that's an old idea with plenty of prior art.
For example, EDF minidisks under VM/CMS had exactly that idea, including the concept of consistency points. (It wouldn't have been all that big a stretch to have invented snapshots for them, actually.) Of course that was in the context of a mostly-single-user filing system.
In the context of database implementations rather than general-purpose filing systems, I can recall these ideas being used in the early 1970s.
Chris Thompson University of Cambridge Computing Service, Email: cet1@ucs.cam.ac.uk New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG, Phone: +44 1223 334715 United Kingdom.
_________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
"Ferd" == Ferd Berfl ferd_berfl@yahoo.com writes:
> re: snapshots, I thought that everyone else's snapshot > functionality other than Netapp's must be based on a "copy on > write" method because Netapp has a patent on continuously > writing new blocks.
WAFL uses copy-on-write. Here, straight from the horse's mouth:
WAFL uses a copy-on-write technique to minimize the disk space that Snapshots consume.
http://www.netapp.com/tech_library/3002.html
Now, Netapp's implementation may be unique, but to say that WAFL doesn't use copy-on-write and to make a claim like "copy-on-write is slow, Netapp doesn't use it" is bogus.
j. -- Jay Soffian jay@loudcloud.com System Administrator 408 744 7584 Loudcloud, Inc.
Hi Jay,
You are right that the terminology is confusing.
One way to look at it is to think of two ways of copy-on-write: when you are updating a block of a file you can: 1) Either write the NEW UPDATED block to a new location 2) Or move the OLD block to a new location AND THEN write the new updated block in place of the old one.
Taking a snapshot with both methods involves copying the inode file BUT obviously there could be serious performance impact using the second method (for each update, the write request needs to 'wait' until the old block gets copied to a new location).
Network Appliance's WAFL uses the first method which does not have any impact on performance and is (IMVHO) much more elegant.
Thanks, Eli
______________________ Eli Lopez Systems Engineer Manager Network Appliance, Israel (+972) - 50 - 304 - 733 Eli.Lopez@Netapp.com ______________________
----- Original Message ----- From: Jay Soffian jay@loudcloud.com To: toasters@mathworks.com Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 7:00 PM Subject: Re: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740
"Ferd" == Ferd Berfl ferd_berfl@yahoo.com writes:
> re: snapshots, I thought that everyone else's snapshot > functionality other than Netapp's must be based on a "copy on > write" method because Netapp has a patent on continuously > writing new blocks.WAFL uses copy-on-write. Here, straight from the horse's mouth:
WAFL uses a copy-on-write technique to minimize the disk space that Snapshots consume.
http://www.netapp.com/tech_library/3002.html
Now, Netapp's implementation may be unique, but to say that WAFL doesn't use copy-on-write and to make a claim like "copy-on-write is slow, Netapp doesn't use it" is bogus.
j.
Jay Soffian jay@loudcloud.com System
Administrator
408 744 7584 Loudcloud,
Inc.
Chris,
Another point that came up in our testing had to do with the volumes on the IP4700. The box comes configured with 2 volumes across the drives on the shelf. Each drive is split in half (an A side and a B side) and a RAID5 is created across the halves of the drives. One RAID5 is all of the A sides and the other the B sides. I tried to delete both of the volumes using the GUI, but it refused. I wanted to do this so that I could create a single large volume. As far as I could tell I couldn't add additional singles drives to a volume to increase its size. Also, I found the lack of a command line interface annoying. In our application we plan on many hundreds of devices in the field. With a command line I can script changes. With a web browser-based interface that isn't an option.
All in all, I would second Bruce's suggestion of getting an IP4700 and either an F85 or F8xx and play with the boxes for a week or two. I think that you'll find fairly quickly which of the systems works best. You don't need to have a formal testing environment to do the playing. You can do simple throughput tests with a single client box.
barry
P.S. As to FUD, we got hit with a whole lot of it from the EMC side. I think that FUD can't be isolated to either side. Take a look at the toasters archives and see the email that I quoted from the EMC sales person.
Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com wrote:
Bruce,
One of the items that I did not mention was that we are a start up company that is using the back-end infrastructure of our parent company. I have been given the task of not only buying a NAS device for company wide storage, but also to build the entire network infrastructure and server infrastructure for our new location. So, what ever we purchase will need to go online immediately and support the company in a new location. I don't have the "test-bed" to test anything.
As you can also guess, via my title, I am not a MIS person either. So, I've been going through a fairly steep learning curve in many areas. I am weary about compatibility issues with NFS and our engineering/CAD Sun machines. In this area, I feel because of their industry experience, NetApp has the edge. I've talked with EMC on this issue, and they re-assure me that the IP4700 will not have compatibility problems. However, this is much different than having users of the product claim that their are no compatibility problems.
My gut feeling is to go with the F740 because of the existing installation base, and the maturity of the product. I'm just a little miffed that NetApp has been trying to use my inexperience and limited knowledgebase against me during the sales process; it doesn't give me the feeling that I can trust them.
Chris Van Genderen Software Engineer & Applications Manager NexFlash Technologies, Inc. chris_van_genderen@nexflash.com
"Bruce Sterling To: <toasters@mathworks.com>, <Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com> Woodcock" cc: (bcc: Chris Van Genderen/Santa Clara/ISSIHQ) <sirbruce@ix.n Subject: Re: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740 etcom.com> 05/09/01 03:45 PMMost of what you seem to be weighing are nebulous issues of who says what. Why don't you just find out for yourself?
Ask Netapp for an F760 to try out for 2 weeks.
Ask EMC for an IP4700 *at the equivalent price and disk capacity, with RAID* to try out for 2 weeks.
See which has better performance for your users and which you can administer easier. Build large RAID groups, test simultaneous file sharing from NFS and CIFS, fail drives, do rebuilds, etc.
Bruce
Kinda humorous in a wistful sense.
I started at NetApp in January '94, 18th person in the door.
We were a start-up company, I came from Mother Sun. It wasn't long before the sys admin team consisted on Byron Rakitzis (employee number 4 - first non-founder, developmwent engineer), Brian Ehrmantraut (hired immediately before me, development), I suspect Bruce Clarke (director of customer service) and myself.
One really cool thing about NetApp was the company ran on a single FAServer 400 (is that right model # for first box?).
It certainly was the least of our administration issues:-) (Though the F330 design for serviceability grew from customer support and internal management of that box).
Anyway - if you're a part time admin, perchance you want to minimize the amount of care and feeding of file servers. And anything else you possibly can.
I remember the Internet connections giving us the most stomach upset.
beepy
Bruce,
One of the items that I did not mention was that we are a start up company that is using the back-end infrastructure of our parent company. I have been given the task of not only buying a NAS device for company wide storage, but also to build the entire network infrastructure and server infrastructure for our new location. So, what ever we purchase will need to go online immediately and support the company in a new location. I don't have the "test-bed" to test anything.
As you can also guess, via my title, I am not a MIS person either. So, I've been going through a fairly steep learning curve in many areas. I am weary about compatibility issues with NFS and our engineering/CAD Sun machines. In this area, I feel because of their industry experience, NetApp has the edge. I've talked with EMC on this issue, and they re-assure me that the IP4700 will not have compatibility problems. However, this is much different than having users of the product claim that their are no compatibility problems.
My gut feeling is to go with the F740 because of the existing installation base, and the maturity of the product. I'm just a little miffed that NetApp has been trying to use my inexperience and limited knowledgebase against me during the sales process; it doesn't give me the feeling that I can trust them.
Chris Van Genderen Software Engineer & Applications Manager NexFlash Technologies, Inc. chris_van_genderen@nexflash.com
"Bruce Sterling To: <toasters@mathworks.com>, <Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com> Woodcock" cc: (bcc: Chris Van Genderen/Santa Clara/ISSIHQ) <sirbruce@ix.n Subject: Re: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740 etcom.com> 05/09/01 03:45 PMMost of what you seem to be weighing are nebulous issues of who says what. Why don't you just find out for yourself?
Ask Netapp for an F760 to try out for 2 weeks.
Ask EMC for an IP4700 *at the equivalent price and disk capacity, with RAID* to try out for 2 weeks.
See which has better performance for your users and which you can administer easier. Build large RAID groups, test simultaneous file sharing from NFS and CIFS, fail drives, do rebuilds, etc.
Bruce
Chris, I think that you will find the NetApp F740 very compatible with your Sun CAD environment. I maintain 12TB of NetApp storage, all F760's and F840's. We have 3 HP workstations and over 2000 Sun workstations all accessing the filers via NFS version 2 and 3 over TCP where available. Our primary CAD tools are Cadence and Mentor Graphics but have on occasion seen AutoCAD. Please let me assure you that you will not see any problems with the NetApp F740 NFS compatabilities.
Now that I have sung the praises of NetApp, I which that I could do the same with EMC but not having used their product, I must leave that to those who have.
If you need any help with your NetApp, the folks on this list are always ready to lend a helping and and sympathetic ear.
Sincerely,
Glen D. Geen
Brian Pawlowski wrote:
Kinda humorous in a wistful sense.
I started at NetApp in January '94, 18th person in the door.
We were a start-up company, I came from Mother Sun. It wasn't long before the sys admin team consisted on Byron Rakitzis (employee number 4 - first non-founder, developmwent engineer), Brian Ehrmantraut (hired immediately before me, development), I suspect Bruce Clarke (director of customer service) and myself.
One really cool thing about NetApp was the company ran on a single FAServer 400 (is that right model # for first box?).
It certainly was the least of our administration issues:-) (Though the F330 design for serviceability grew from customer support and internal management of that box).
Anyway - if you're a part time admin, perchance you want to minimize the amount of care and feeding of file servers. And anything else you possibly can.
I remember the Internet connections giving us the most stomach upset.
beepy
Bruce,
One of the items that I did not mention was that we are a start up company that is using the back-end infrastructure of our parent company. I have been given the task of not only buying a NAS device for company wide storage, but also to build the entire network infrastructure and server infrastructure for our new location. So, what ever we purchase will need to go online immediately and support the company in a new location. I don't have the "test-bed" to test anything.
As you can also guess, via my title, I am not a MIS person either. So, I've been going through a fairly steep learning curve in many areas. I am weary about compatibility issues with NFS and our engineering/CAD Sun machines. In this area, I feel because of their industry experience, NetApp has the edge. I've talked with EMC on this issue, and they re-assure me that the IP4700 will not have compatibility problems. However, this is much different than having users of the product claim that their are no compatibility problems.
My gut feeling is to go with the F740 because of the existing installation base, and the maturity of the product. I'm just a little miffed that NetApp has been trying to use my inexperience and limited knowledgebase against me during the sales process; it doesn't give me the feeling that I can trust them.
Chris Van Genderen Software Engineer & Applications Manager NexFlash Technologies, Inc. chris_van_genderen@nexflash.com
"Bruce Sterling To: <toasters@mathworks.com>, <Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com> Woodcock" cc: (bcc: Chris Van Genderen/Santa Clara/ISSIHQ) <sirbruce@ix.n Subject: Re: EMC IP4700 vs NetApp F740 etcom.com> 05/09/01 03:45 PMMost of what you seem to be weighing are nebulous issues of who says what. Why don't you just find out for yourself?
Ask Netapp for an F760 to try out for 2 weeks.
Ask EMC for an IP4700 *at the equivalent price and disk capacity, with RAID* to try out for 2 weeks.
See which has better performance for your users and which you can administer easier. Build large RAID groups, test simultaneous file sharing from NFS and CIFS, fail drives, do rebuilds, etc.
Bruce
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Barry Lustig -
Brian Pawlowski -
Chris Thompson -
Chris_Van_Genderen＠NexFlash.com -
Eli Lopez -
Ferd Berfl -
Jay Soffian -
Mr. G. D. Geen -
Paul Brosseau