I would probably agree that the F85 is not as scalable as the other, but
that's the whole point of the F85. It's a lower-end entry-point model.
It's not meant to grow into a multi-terabyte enterprise environment.
Now, some people might say "Well, if you have the option of growth, why not
take it? Why get a system that you'll only have to replace in 3-5 years
when you could have a system that will last you much longer?"
My response to that is usually "Because in 3-5 years, technology will have
changed so drastically that I'll probably want new hardware anyway." When
I'm scoping hardware, I almost never spec out hardware to accommodate more
than 3-5 years of growth. Trying to buy a system meant to last longer than
that is usually overkill in my experience. Plus, after 3 years it's fully
depreciated.
I certainly disagree with the statements about Netapp support. I'm sure
you'll hear horror stories now and then from any support organization, but
I've always had great support from Netapp. I've several times had a
replacement component arrive on my desk before I knew it was needed.
Finally, does the F85 really use RAID 0? If so, it's true that it's not as
failure proof, but then if the model was designed for RAID 0, then it's
simply not targeted at the same market as a redundant RAID unit. If
capacity and performance are far more important to you then redundancy, then
RAID 0 is the way to go. (Though as I said, I'd be surprised if it really
was RAID 0. If it's not, then a blatant lie like that would immediately
turn me off to any vendor.)
None of this is to say that the IP4700 is a bad machine. I don't know it
well enough to say. But it sounds to me that it isn't designed for the same
target market as the F85. It's comparing apples to oranges.
--
Mike Sphar - Sr Systems Administrator - Engineering Support Services -
Remedy Corporation
BOFH, GWP, MCP, MCP+I, MCSE, BFD
-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Lustig [mailto:barry@lustig.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 1:41 PM
To: toasters@mathworks.com
Subject: How would you respond to this
This is an excerpt of an email that was sent to the management of a
company that I'm working with. They had spec'ed F85's for a fairly low
performance 10-20Mbits/sec. environment. The main requirement is
reliability and ease of use. How does one respond to blatant
misrepresentation of a competitors product?
barry
A few highlights of the comparison:
- The F85 is a stripped down, single CPU, low end device with multiple
points of
failure and a very poor data protection. NetApps service is rated very
low
by
industry experts and they offer next day shipment of parts that the user
must
install themselves.
- The IP4700 is fully redundant, multi-CPU, mid-range device with no
single
point of failure and hardware based RAID 5 data protection. EMC's world
class
customer service center has ranked #1 for 6 consecutive years by Gartner
Group.
Standard 2 year warranty guarantees 4 hours ON SITE w/Parts service by
EMC
technicians. Plus, our 'call home' proactive maintenance system
monitors
trends
within the system and reports them automatically to our customer service
center.
Often, EMC technicians will repair a system BEFORE the component
actually
fails.
The 4700 will be configured with 8 drives usable, plus 1 drive for RAID
5
parity
and 1 drive for hot swap redundancy. It is scalable all the way to
7000GB
(7TB)
vs. only 648GB for the F85. The 4700 as configured above is 8RU.
In general, the F85 does not scale sufficiently for growth, has poor
customer
service behind it, has no redundancy, has multiple points of failure,
and
utilizes a sub-par RAID 0 data protection scheme.
Mike Sphar