HP 2324FC Storage - please help

[MiloM]

I am building a system for school. I have bought most of the hardware. Only need extra host and extra MSA70 Array. Please see setup picture.

I will be hosting there around max 20-30 vm's (light servers like print servers, applications, file servers, epo, wsus,) and Exchange 2010 for max 300 users

we have physical servers for AD, vcenter and etc

We do not have money for ent. storage so this was the result from advise of one consultancy.

Well another company said that this storage is bad design. that we would experience very bad performance and etc. He suggested that we should have look at dell solution with iscsi.

is this true? we have already spent money on this setup. Well not all still I need to order extra host and msa70 array with 25 disks.

Please can anyone share real experience and performance with this HP 2324FC storage with MSA70 array.

Thank you !

[DSTAVERT]

I would suggest that you do some searching through the HP forums for performance issues with your storage device. Making sure that all the firmware on all the storage controllers, HBAs etc are at recommended levels will be important.

[MiloM]

Thanks I understand that.

Do you know anyone who uses this kind of storage?

[DSTAVERT]

At the moment searches of the Communities has been disabled so looking for other posts isn't possible. If no one replies I would check back next week when hopefully the search engine has been re established.  The HP forums do have postings related to poor performance but updates have fixed them. I would also get your consultant to help you establish some testing that you can do to verify performance. Hopefully there were some specs that you agreed to when you purchased them.

[JRink]

I don't see anything wrong with your proposed HP solution using a 2324fc with attached MSA70.   I have several HP 2324fc and 2324i in place and they perform well in smaller environments.  20-30 VMs on that storage for light use VMs should MORE than fine (IMHO).

The design seems sound.   I would ask the company who is tryin to get you to replace it with Dell WHAT specifically is wrong with the HP solution.  I like Dell products too.  I have a Dell md3200i SAN at a client and its great.  But, I wouldn't just replace your HP SAN at this point, because I think it should suite you just fine for your needs.

J

[Josh26]

Hi,

A company that looked at a fibre solution, decided it was "bad" and recommended an iSCSI solution to deal with performance issues is a company I would have serious reservations about.

Edit: We are running an older generation of this SAN with a vastly larger VM environment.

[idle-jam]

i would stick with the existing of what you have. The reason of getting iSCSI like Dell Equallogic or HP P4000 would be using features like snapshot, thin provisioning, array replication and more built in free of charge. there are times adding disk vs buying a new iSCSI SAN Storage might be cheaper.

the only concern would be adding 25 disks to the existing storage box, you will need to check with the HP Forum or Local HP rep to sort out the maximum the controller could handle, and then the possibilities to upgrade the cache of the controller, additional controller (if it's only single now) and the best practice the maximum disk the san could handle.