FAS2240 or FAS3210?

[GIACOMO_NICHELE]

Hello everybody, i'm new in the community and in January 2012 i need to change my old EMC clarrion with a brand new Netapp.My enviroment is 3 hosts with Vmware.

I ask to my dealer and i've received 2 configurations, one with the new 2240 with 28 disks 2,5" 10krpm, 4FC port and another with 3210 and 28 disks 3,5" 15krpm and 4FC port, the price

is 4.000€ in favour of 2240, but isn't a problem.

My dealer told me that the 3210 is old than 2240, but is an high level SAN than a 2240, but i've several doubt, because i've read the new 2240 have a new processors, is a 8gbs FC vs 4gbs in 3210, also the cache is bigger in 2240. Only disks seems to be better in 3210 ( 15k rpm) than 2240 (10k rpm).

In the papaer seems to be better the 2240 than 3210, but is it true?

Thanks in advance

[Jeff_Yao]

2000 series are the entry level filer...3200 series are the mid-range level....and 3210 is the lowest one in 32xx....

22xx are just announced. that's why u see cpu and mem are better than 3210...

2240 has 6g mem. 3210 is 4gb....

2240 has only one card slot....3210 has two....expansion should be consider also if u wanna install cards like pam....

3210 support all types of disks; while 2240 only support 10k 450g, 10k 600g and 1,2,3TB Sata disks in the internal storage shelf...so all other type disks support in external disk shelf...

any other queries please let me know

thanks

jeff

[pascalduk]

yaoguang wrote:
3210 support all types of disks; while 2240 only support 10k 450g, 10k 600g and 1,2,3TB Sata disks in the internal storage shelf...so all other type disks support in external disk shelf...

Just for the record since you mention all types of disks: both systems do not support SSD's.

[aborzenkov]

My information is that SSD are supported on 2240 in external shelves starting January 2012.

[pascalduk]

Then NetApp needs to update its information asap, because right now it still does not show SSD's as supported.

[GIACOMO_NICHELE]

Tomorrow i ask to my dealer for the ssd.

Another interesting thing is the 10GBe integrated port on 2240, is it possibile to use to connect my 3 vmware hosts with 10GBe switchs, instead the FC structure? If yes, is it better or not?

Thanks again 🙂

[bjacobsen]

The 2240 supports 10GbE or 8Gb FC, not both due to the single mezz card slot. Which one is best depends a bit on whether you already have existing 10GbE network infrastructure or 8Gb fabric in place. The 10GbE card provides flexibility in that you can run iSCSI, CIFS and NFS over that interface and bandwidth, whereas you are of course protocol limited to FC with the other option and must use NFS/iSCSI/CIFS across the integrated 1GbE ports.

[GIACOMO_NICHELE]

Thank u guys for the answers, but are there really difference from 2,5" 10k disks to 3,5" 15k?

SSD support is interesting, if buy the 2240 and save 4.000€ i can put some ssd disks in the second shelve..

[pascalduk]

Giacomo Nichele wrote:
Thank u guys for the answers, but are there really difference from 2,5" 10k disks to 3,5" 15k?
SSD support is interesting, if buy the 2240 and save 4.000€ i can put some ssd disks in the second shelve..

A 15k rpm disk delivers a lot more performance than a 10k rpm disk. For performance sensitive I would not recommend the use of 10k rpm disks. And that is really strange that NetApp does not sell the FAS2240 with 15k rpm drives as internal drives, but that is a different discussion.

Regarding SSD's. You can only buy them as an external storage option and then it is not possible to buy just a few. The DS4243 shelf can only be bought with 24 SSD's. And you can't mix different disk types in 1 disk enclosure.

[GIACOMO_NICHELE]

Thank you Pascal, probably the choise to cut the 15k disks in 2240 series is to keep the product in a lower range than 32xx mid-range..

[radek_kubka]

 The DS4243 shelf can only be bought with 24 SSD's. And you can't mix different disk types in 1 disk enclosure.

You can buy DS4243 with as few as four SSD drives - you just order it as parts, rather than entire shelf.

2240 systems are supported, indeed:

https://fieldportal.netapp.com/ci_getfile.asp?method=1&uid=7178&docid=28043

The potential pitfall I see, is the fact you need a dedicated stack for SSD drives.

Regards,

Radek

[pascalduk]

Radek Kubka wrote:

You can buy DS4243 with as few as four SSD drives - you just order it as parts, rather than entire shelf.

You are correct, it is in the fine print of the system configuration guide on the now site. But I find it confusing

[Darkstar]

Heh, if you're really short on that 4000€ then I guess you'll be in for a little shock when you see what SSD shelves cost. With support and all, one SSD shelf costs >100.000€ (list price is even higher)

We have hundreds of NetApp customers and not a single one has SSD shelves (last I've heard is that there is < 5 customers in the whole of Germany who need and have SSD shelves)

-Michael

[THEHAWK73]

Hi Michael,

I read that in 4243 shelf you can mix ssd and sas storage (at least 4 ssd) .

Is it true ?

100.000 will be spent for 24 ssd (or not ?) but we don't want buy all those ssd.

-

---

Messaggio originale----

Da: xdl-communities@communities.netapp.com

Data&colon; 13/02/2012 11.38

A: "Alessandro Lucarelli"<ale_lucarelli@fastwebnet.it>

Ogg: - Re: FAS2240 or FAS3210?

Re: FAS2240 or FAS3210?

created by AdvUni-MD in Products &amp; Solutions - View the full discussion

Heh, if you're really short on that 4000€ then I guess you'll be in for a little shock when you see what SSD shelves cost. With support and all, one SSD shelf costs >100.000€ (list price is even higher)

We have hundreds of NetApp customers and not a single one has SSD shelves (last I've heard is that there is < 5 customers in the whole of Germany who need and have SSD shelves)

-Michael

Reply to this message by replying to this email -or- go to the message on NetApp Community

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[brendanheading]

Giacomo,

Has your reseller included the pricing for software licenses ?

The offer price for the hardware is only the start - to use any of the software features you need the correct licenses, and the licenses are priced differently for each platform. Your comment that the pricing on the 2240 and 3210 is very similar makes me suspicious that licensing costs have not been considered - you need to clarify this urgently as the license and support prices on NetApp kit are usually well in excess of the underlying hardware costs.

The 3210 is a little bit more modular; the 2240 does not have expansion slots (except for a mezzanine slot supporting an add in 10GBe FC card), whereas you can install FC cards, Flash Cache, more network ports etc etc in the 3210. Also, the 2240 is restricted to 291TB (raw) space with 3TB drives; the 3210 can go to 582TB. It is quite likely that the amount of supported space on each platform will be revised upwards in a future ONTAP release - this has happened in the past. Of course, it is wise to specify based on what is currently supported.

Contrary to some of the comments here, the System Configuration Guide shows that the 2240 can indeed take 15krpm drives when they are installed in external shelves. The internal shelf on the 2240-2 can only take 10krpm SAS drives, and on the 2240-4, only 7.2krpm SATA drives. This feels a bit like an artificial crippling of the architecture to me

If you're working with VMWare, there are a lot of benefits to using NFS over ethernet rather than FC - this is fully supported by both VMware and NetApp.

Note that NetApp are marketing both the 2240 and the 3210 as "mid range".

[GIACOMO_NICHELE]

Thank u Brendan for your reply.

I've two quotes, one with 2240 and 28 450gb SAS disks with basic software and FC ports is also include 36 months maintenance and professional services.

The 3210 with same configuration but with 15k 450GB SAS disks is 4.000€ expensive than the 2240..

Anyway, i've understand the 10GBe and NFS is better than FC, but finally is better the 2240 or 3210? Nothing matter the 4k€ of difference..

[brendanheading]

Giacomo,

It is very hard to give a straight answer to that question.

The 3210 has more expansion options and it can manage more storage space. However the 2240 has a little bit more RAM. I don't know exactly what CPU is in the 2240 but it is hard to imagine that it would be significantly faster than the 3210, if it is faster at all. NetApp deliberately avoid getting into CPU comparisons as they are really only a crude comparison between different filers.

Whether or not the RAM size is an issue depends precisely on the nature of your workload; and if your workloads are heavily cache intensive then you can install a Flash Cache card on the 3210, you cannot do that on the 2240.

Finally, it is important that you discuss licenses with your reseller. "basic software" on the 3210, from memory, gives you one protocol out of the possible four (ie, you'll get one of either NFS, CIFS, FC or iSCSI), I am not sure of the deal on the 2240. But all the features that make NetApp stuff really worthwhile, such as backup management (with snapshots), VMWare integration, application hot backup, replication and so  on, will all require a substantial additional outlay. I would expect that you will find the license costs for a 2240 to be rather cheaper than the 3210. Either way, it usually works out better value to purchase the support and licenses up front rather than try to add them on later.

[GIACOMO_NICHELE]

Brendanheading,

Thanks for your help and for the preciuos informations. The 2240 have 50% more RAM than 3210 and the same cpu of the FAS6200 series, read here: http://www.netapp.com/us/communities/tech-ontap/tot-fas2240-inside-look-1111.html  but in the other hand the 3210 have a 15k rpm disks.

My enviroment now is 3 hosts vmware with 35 VM's, 2TB of data and 100 users in 6 Citrix xenapp6, 1 Oracle, 1 Business Objects, 1 Lotus Domino and many others low load vm's, i don't know if my workload is heavily cache intensive, but i try to understand in these days.

For the licenses i've the "standard software" for now i don't need the additional packages. The 3210 is quoted with FC protocol only and 2240 is licensed with all protocol by default..

[vmsjaak13 · Accepted solution]

Don't be alarmed by 10k SAS disks. They offer about 15-20% less iops per drive compares to their 3.5" 15k SAS counterparts.

In most VMware environments this isn't an issue, but YMMV.

It is also good to note that the 2240 can hold 24 disks internally (not 28).

SAS Expansion shelfs can also hold 24 disks (DS4243 (SAS/SATA/SSD) or DS2246 (only 10k RPM SAS).

If your dealer really quoted you 28 disks, then perhaps they offered an empty 2240 with 2 DS14Mk4 FC shelfs (they hold 14 disks each) ?

On a 2240 I would never use FC shelves, because then you need the FC mezzazine for shelf connectivity.

Go with SAS shelves ! Also on the 3210.

Regarding networking: dual 10Gbit in a 2240 controller is nice. But you'd need two 10Gbit switches, and two 10Gbit nics per server.

Regards,

Niek Baakman

[GIACOMO_NICHELE]

Thank you Niek for your reply,

Yes, it's my fault the 2240 quote is 24x450 disks, the 3210 quotes is 28x450 with second shelve!

15-20% of iops isn't too much..i agree.

Regarding networking i've request a quote for two 8 port 10gbe switches and six 10gbe nics (two per server) but i think is too much expensive than a two brocade 8gb's FC and also because i've already the FC hba 8gb installed.

Another thing in this argoment, with FC 8gb infrastructere i can in the next months change the library with a new one with FC and attach in the FC switch and with another HBA in the hosts  (vmware pass-through)  i can show the lun at my virtualized backup server and make a true fast backup lan-free, i've a friend with this configuration and the backup is very fast!

Anyway thank to you and all the other guys in the community, my choise is to buy the 2240!

[brendanheading]

Giacomo,

I think it will all work out fine. Just make sure you understand from your reseller the costs of any future license upgrades, and also get NetApp to sign off on the future tape drive changes you want to make.

Depending on your backup requirements, you might want to ditch the tape drive (and the costs) and purchase a second, lower-specification NetApp filer, eg a 2040. If you do this, you can do all the backups to the secondary filer, and if your primary filer fails you can fail over to the secondary filer, so you have disaster recovery capability - your tape drive cannot do this. You'll also get benefits like deduplicated backups, fast backups and restores, random access restore, incrementals forever, RAID-DP protection of the backup (no more tape failures) and/or syncmirror if you are really paranoid .. it's worth thinking about carefully. Tapes are on the way out.

We were able to get a FAS2020 with all the licenses, storage and support cover for less than the cost of the support for the tape backup software. We were also having problems with unreliable tape restores - these problems all went away.