Chris, Since I work for a competitor I may be able to shed some light on the differences in the boxes. With the EMC box it may help to understand where it came from. The IP4700 is a marriage of the Clariion FC4700 with NAS software from a company called CrosStor. NAS software is extremely difficult to write so EMC took the shortcut of buying their way into the market. CrosStor was an OEM of NAS software to MTI, Connex, and many others. My understanding of the software is that it is VX based and can run on virtually any processor. This is great from an OEM standpoint because you can be flexible on who you sell it to. The disadvantage is that the "micro kernel" is not so micro. This slows the performance way down. The software is also somewhat unsorted. Beside being slow I have also heard from users that it is very difficult to manage.

As for NetApp they have a very strong feature set. Their performance to cost ratio is extremely poor when compared to other competitors in the market. You are getting software RAID, Seagate drives with an extra chip installed, and a PC (with the 800 series) for hundreds of thousands of $$$. When looking at the hardware you get it becomes clear that this one of the most expensive software products on the market.

The salesperson story does not surprise me except for I would expect similar stories about both companies. They are both extremely aggressive and very successful for exactly this reason. It is disappointing to hear the half truths and outright lies, but it is a fact of life in this market. You may want to request a different rep from NetApp. Maybe this will help you make a decision based on products rather than personality. It could also send a message to the rep to get a little more product knowledge and do a little less bashing. I have also inserted answers below your questions in your previous email. Good luck with your decision. Let us know how it turns out. Regards, Mike

Chris_Van_Genderen@NexFlash.com wrote:

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.

Add: Very slow performance Very costly for an unproven product No Reference base Mediocre hardware behind mediocre Software.

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.

Add: Good feature set

Network Appliance Cons Sales/Pre-Sales engineers have consistently relied on FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) to sell their product.

Add: Limited performance from the 740 Limited scalability Proprietary hardware

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.

How does performance drop by 400%? Would the -300% performance mean that it is doing the opposite of what it is supposed to be doing very quickly. The EMC performance numbers are very slow, but the NetApp rep should have told you to ask for references. I have not had a customer yet who has been able to get this from EMC. When looking at SpecSFS97 it is important to read the notes. You will notice that the performance numbers on the IP4700 are with 100 disks, four processors, tens of file systems, and no RAID. You will also see much lower performance from the NetApp box than what is posted on SpecSFS. These are not realistic numbers. Their only useful value is as a sales tool. Real world you should expect 2500 to 3000 from EMC and 3500 to 4000 from NetApp.

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.

EMC did not take the time to check the software in-depth before they moved forward with the product. CrosStor presented a very nice picture on the front of the book. Once opened up there was nothing in it. When MTI licensed the software they sent it to 30 of their best customers. Not a single system was purchased or kept by the end users. This is also the same software that Connex was using in its box. This was a low end work group solution. Having spoken with several SE's from Connex the reality was that they could not get the systems stable. The software is much better suited for smaller systems. I'm sure that EMC will get it straightened out over time, but do you want to wait?

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.

I would put this one in the same category as performance dropping by 400%.

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.

I am not sure about the FSCK. I have heard this rumor also, but EMC claims that it is a Journaled FS.

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.

Would this make a difference? How often do you need a new disk immediately? Realistically it could take a little while for the disk to format, but so what. This is the penalty for hardware RAID vs software RAID.

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 have heard that the administration in the IP4700 is very difficult. There are two accounts that I know of that threw it out for exactly this reason.

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