While I don't disagree with Tom, he doesn't mention that F85 can do many of the tricks that currently reside in the wish lists of others. For example:

SnapRestore: near-instant full volume restore (the trad option is lengthy tape restore) without affecting other volumes on the same filer. No point having snaps if you can't get the data back.

SnapMirror: asynch mirroring over any distance. This is done volume-volume so you can mirror a bunch of geo-dispersed F85s to something larger at HQ.

Etc, etc, etc.

The key to F85 is that, with the main exception of Cluster Failover, it can perform just about all the tricks of it's larger data centre siblings. I believe that NetApp are unique in offering this downward scalability (i.e. that a smaller solution shouldn't be penalised in the functionality department).

Naturally, if your environment grows, you don't have to re-engineer your processes, just plug in a bigger filer. If you want head-redundancy, think F740C which, like the IP4700, won't fit under your desk. :-)

Cheers, CAW

Charlie Whitfield NetApp UK FBI

voice: +44 20 8756 6762 mobile: +44 7718 160954 email: caw@netapp.com

Repel the bozo invasion!

-----Original Message----- From: Tom "Mad Dog" Yergeau [mailto:MadDog@fool.com] Sent: 30 April 2001 19:45 To: 'Barry Lustig'; Toasters Subject: RE: F85

The F85 and the IP4700 are NOT in the same class of equipment. F85 is for a small office, IP4700 is for a decent sized department (couple hundred users).

If the F85 is what you need, the IP4700 is a total overkill. If the IP4700 is in the class you need, you should be looking at an F740 or F760 cluster, not an F85.

MD

-----Original Message----- From: Barry Lustig [mailto:barry@lustig.com] Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 1:44 PM To: Toasters Subject: F85

Has anybody had any experience with the F85? I'm most interested in the hardware. As a continuation of my last message, EMC is pushing hard with an IP4700 against an F85. They've been touting the reliability of their box and that it has no single point of failure (2 processors, etc). I'd like to know if anyone on the list has deployed the F85 and can give a reference on them. Also, does anyone know what type of failover the IP4700 is actually providing between their 2 storage processors. It doesn't look at first glance that the surviving processor takes over the MAC address of the dead processor. It just starts arping for the IP address of its partner.

barry