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

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:



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:


So open-E wins the speed comparsion!