The 270 series is getting close to end of life. Also, it is very limited in expansion. Yes, you can add more drive shelves to it, but there are no expansion slots. The 2000 series has a PCI (not sure if X or e) expansion slot in each of the controller modules. NetApp supports all their hardware for up to 5 years after they declare it at end of life, so a 270 could be a good starter. With the rollout of the 2000 series, I am sure there are some good deals to be had on the 270s.

Another option to consider is the 3000 series. The 3040 has 4ea 4GB fiber and 4ea GbE ports onboard and 3 available expansion slots. It is only 3U in size. It can grow to 76TB if you use all fiber channel drives or 126TB if you use only SATA drives. If you are looking for mostly user storage, SATA performs quite well for that and is cheaper than fiber channel drives.

I'm surprised a sales rep hasn't followed up, but I can speak from experience on support - they are top-notch. We have 4hr hardware support on our systems - that means from the time I open a ticket on their website, it will be 4hrs or less when I have the replacement part in my hand. Anyone else I've dealt with 4hr support means someone will call you within 4hr to start thinking about how they might help you.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Ray Van Dolson" rvandolson@esri.com To: toasters@mathworks.com Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 4:37 PM Subject: NetApp Newbie questions

Hello all, my company is looking at replacing our NFS home directory storage solution (currently Sun boxes strewn all over the place) with a centralized storage solution. We're looking at a number of options (Sun StorageTek, etc) and NetApp is one of them. We've traditionally been a Sun shop, so there is some comfort there with our relationship with them and how they do support for us, but NetApp's storage solutions would appear to be far more mature at this point.

We'll probably be needing only around 2TB of storage to begin with, but clearly would like the ability to expand beyond this. I've picked out the FAS270C as a potential solution for us.

Questions are as follows:

With the 270C, do we purchase a "head unit" and then buy a disk shelf and populate with disks? Or is the head unit and disk shelf one integrated unit?

In order to do the clustered failover does this just involve purchasing a second head unit? Or a complete second set of disks as well? Would we need to purchase additional software licensing to enable this functionality?

Any particularly compelling reason to go to a 2000-series vs the 270C given our relatively small disk needs at this point?

How have you all found Network Appliance's support to be? Do you need to purchase an additional 24x7 support contract or is this included with your appliance? Do they do on-site service?

I am a little concerned as I have placed two requests (both via a call and via web form) on Thursday of last week and as of today (Tuesday) I have yet to receive a call from a sales rep. If sales is this non-eager to get back to you -- how will support be? Perhaps if we were looking to spend a little more $$ the first time around they'd be more interested in returning my calls? :)

Thanks in advance for any advice/tips.

Ray

o you -- how will support be? Perhaps if we

were looking to spend a little more $$ the first time around they'd be more interested in returning my calls? :)

Thanks in advance for any advice/tips.

Ray

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Depending on just how far you will be scaling, you might also want to consider looking at a NetApp's StoreVault (http://storevault.com). They scale to 6TB of raw capacity, perform well and are very reasonably priced.

As with most companies, it depends who you talk to in the support organization. We've had rather poor results from NetApp's first line of support, but better results after escalation. I do believe they're making improvements in that area however.

Aaron

Ray Van Dolson-3 wrote:

Hello all, my company is looking at replacing our NFS home directory storage solution (currently Sun boxes strewn all over the place) with a centralized storage solution. We're looking at a number of options (Sun StorageTek, etc) and NetApp is one of them. We've traditionally been a Sun shop, so there is some comfort there with our relationship with them and how they do support for us, but NetApp's storage solutions would appear to be far more mature at this point.

We'll probably be needing only around 2TB of storage to begin with, but clearly would like the ability to expand beyond this. I've picked out the FAS270C as a potential solution for us.

Questions are as follows:

With the 270C, do we purchase a "head unit" and then buy a disk shelf and populate with disks? Or is the head unit and disk shelf one integrated unit?

In order to do the clustered failover does this just involve purchasing a second head unit? Or a complete second set of disks as well? Would we need to purchase additional software licensing to enable this functionality?

Any particularly compelling reason to go to a 2000-series vs the 270C given our relatively small disk needs at this point?

How have you all found Network Appliance's support to be? Do you need to purchase an additional 24x7 support contract or is this included with your appliance? Do they do on-site service?

I am a little concerned as I have placed two requests (both via a call and via web form) on Thursday of last week and as of today (Tuesday) I have yet to receive a call from a sales rep. If sales is this non-eager to get back to you -- how will support be? Perhaps if we were looking to spend a little more $$ the first time around they'd be more interested in returning my calls? :)

Thanks in advance for any advice/tips.

Ray