topic Re: Choice between 2 x FAS3240 or 1 x FAS3270 in VMware Solutions Discussions

Choice between 2 x FAS3240 or 1 x FAS3270

nigelg1965 — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 06:38:00 GMT

Wonder if anyone can offer an opinion.

We're due to replace our 2 x 3140 clusters in the next few months. My US collegues have suggested a single 3270 cluster, my thoughts were for 2 x 3240 clusters instead. The cost is pretty much the same all in.

Based on the published SPECsfs one 3270 is barely more than two 3140, and we're likely to be keeping this config for 4-5 years.

These filers will be serving out about 30TB of SAS/FC to VMWare and Exchange and about 70TB of CIFS for 700 users.

Thanks

Re: Choice between 2 x FAS3240 or 1 x FAS3270

sharmadevender — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:58:34 GMT

If Cost is approximately same and you will get a little more in Capacity and performance, you can think of 3270 instead of 3240 as per my opinion..

Re: Choice between 2 x FAS3240 or 1 x FAS3270

radek_kubka — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:24:06 GMT

It's an interesting one.

Having less boxes to manage makes life a bit easier.

However, there are still certain operations in ONTAP which are bound to the so called Kahuna domain & can't be properly multithreaded - so two boxes (four controllers) can deliver more oomph in certain circumstances.

Also, if for whatever reason a filer goes pop, two are better than one, as each runs only half of the services.

Regards,

Radek

Re: Choice between 2 x FAS3240 or 1 x FAS3270

columbus_admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:10:33 GMT

Check licensing very carefully...last I remember, licensing was different between tiers. Though a single high tier against two lower may equal out.

Most importantly as Radek stated, a single head has no fail-over, can you be without a system for the down time required to get parts/service? Whose job is on the line if that downtime becomes "problematic"?

- Scott

Re: Choice between 2 x FAS3240 or 1 x FAS3270

nigelg1965 — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:28:06 GMT

Hi Everyone

Thanks for help, following a few more conversations with my US collegues and our NetApp sales / tech reps both side of the pond, I think we are going my way: two clusters of 3240s.

All in, hardware / license / support costs: the difference is <1%.