EMC AX4 vs open-E iSCSI Benchmark

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08-23-2009, 09:55 PM
Laxity

EMC AX4 vs open-E iSCSI Benchmark

Hi,

we are currently switching from open-E DSS (v5) to an EMC Clariion AX4.
Currently both systems are running at the same time, so I was able to do some benchmarking.

To cut it short: open-E wins performance wise :p

open-E environment:

XenServer 5.5 connected (Intel NIC) using one GBit Ethernet (via one Cisco Gbit switch) link to open-E DSS (v5)

The DSS server is a:
1x Intel Xeon Quad Core E5420 2,50GHz
2048 MB DDR2 667-RAM
Areca Raid Controller ARC-1261 ML 16xSATA II
Supermicro Mainboard X7DBE
some 1000 GB SATA II WD Raid Edition II Green Power Drives configured as a RAID-6 array
Intel PRO/1000 PT NIC

Benchmark result:
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/3785/dssm.jpg

EMC environment:

XenServer 5.5 connected (Intel NICs) using four Ethernet (via two Cisco Gbit switches) link to EMC.

The EMC is a Clariion AX4 iSCSI with two SPs and using 750GB SATAII drives in a RAID-5 array.
It is connected using multipathing (4x Intel NICs), it has 4 paths (each 1GBit) using two Cisco GBit switches (2 links for each switch).
The multipathing is for fail-over only, only 1 path is in use (==1Gbit).

Benchmark result:
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/7246/emcb.jpg

So open-E wins the speed comparsion! :)
08-24-2009, 01:27 AM
symm

so why switch to the clariion ?
08-24-2009, 02:56 AM
To-M

Thanks for this information! Did you say your switching back to EMC?
08-24-2009, 01:06 PM
Laxity

Quote:

Originally Posted by symm

so why switch to the clariion ?

Several reasons:

Security (see: http://forum.open-e.com/showthread.php?t=1426 ) for example.

Secondly the fail-over limit of 4TB per target was very impractical in our environment.

Also we can scale the EMC up to a max. of aprox. 60TB without having any downtime whatsoever.

And I think it is far more reliable when it comes to fault tolerance.
Having done some testing with rebooting one of the two SPs or un-plugging up to three ethernet cables - it simply works like a charme.

We will use the open-E servers as file servers in the office from now on.
08-24-2009, 02:13 PM
symm

Good Luck with the clariion $$

I am sticking with Open-e, been happy with the performance so far :)
08-24-2009, 02:48 PM
To-M

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laxity

Several reasons:

Security (see: http://forum.open-e.com/showthread.php?t=1426 ) for example.

Secondly the fail-over limit of 4TB per target was very impractical in our environment.

Also we can scale the EMC up to a max. of aprox. 60TB without having any downtime whatsoever.

And I think it is far more reliable when it comes to fault tolerance.
Having done some testing with rebooting one of the two SPs or un-plugging up to three ethernet cables - it simply works like a charme.

We will use the open-E servers as file servers in the office from now on.

For the security we supplied a small update to turn off SMB for your system if there are more that need to be turned please send that in and we will address it as before.

In the next release of DSS V6 we will have support for multiple 16TB support volumes for replication and the auto failover :) And in the later future releases we will even grow to larger volumes.
08-24-2009, 10:15 PM
Laxity

Quote:

Originally Posted by symm

Good Luck with the clariion $$

I am sticking with Open-e, been happy with the performance so far :)

I also really like the open-E solution. Thats why I posted this speed compasion in the first place :o
08-25-2009, 08:29 PM
masim

Hello,

Can you send me a full test results with specs please. I want to try replicating it...

I send you a PM with my e-mail address.
Thanks!
08-25-2009, 10:19 PM
Robotbeat

Yeah, in a year or so, Open-E should be up there, able to expand storage (cheaply!) and upgrade the software without any downtime for autofailover. There's a lot of things coming, actually. And some of those things are being pushed by one of our customers who have EMC already and are migrating to Open-E.
08-25-2009, 10:25 PM
To-M

Yes and that feature I heard from our developers will be ready by Friday or Monday of next week :) - thanks for waiting Robotbeat!
08-25-2009, 11:25 PM
Laxity

Quote:

Originally Posted by masim

Can you send me a full test results with specs please. I want to try replicating it...

Hello masim,

I already posted everything here, if you need further information please specify what information you are looking for..

Also I did not intend to start a "open-E vs. EMC" war here :p
Thats pointless. The next post could state: Netapp is better than EMC!
I just wanted to state that the open-E server(s) we are/were runnung performed better in this test :cool:

Peace
Philipp
08-26-2009, 12:23 AM
masim

:)

Its no problem and hopefully there is no war.. It seems that people just get excited to know that their Open-E that costs $ perform better than EMC that cost $$$$.

I have a SanMelody system that I was going to test against with your settings as Robotbeat did a good job on his FC and iSCSI test and supplied this info to all