Dell Brings SAN to the People

Posted by Randy George on September 21, 2007

Tags: Randy George,  SAN,  iSCSI,  storage,  Content Management,  Data Management and Storage,  Data Networking & Management,  Data Warehousing and Storage Providers,  Dell MD3000i iSCSI SAN,  Fault-Tolerant Solutions,  Hardware and Infrastructure,  Other,  Servers & Storage,  Storage,  Storage Networking & Management

Channel: Content Management, Networking & Mgmt, Other, Servers & Storage, Storage & Mgmt

The Upshot Dell's MD3000i aims to attract SMEs with a viable alternative to expensive and complex Fibre Channel SANs. Positioned as a turnkey solution for first-time SAN customers, the MD3000i competes well on price, ease of use and scalability while sporting added features typically found only in more expensive products. The MD3000i competes with HP's MSA 1510i, Lefthand Networks' NSM160, EqualLogic's PS70E/PS100E and Network Appliances' FAS270. While EMC does position the Clarion AX150i as a small- to mid-market iSCSI offering, a joint EMC/Dell partnership actually places the AX150i within Dell's own product portfolio. The MD3000i delivers on its promise of a low cost, fully functional IP SAN for SMEs. While it doesn't outdo the competition in terms of features, it's got everything you need to roll out a SAN at a great price. Though it currently lacks support for SATA, RAID 6, VMware and Windows 2008 Server, Dell expects those pieces to be in place in the near future. Dell MD3000i

Ben Franklin said death and taxes are the only two certainties in life. We'd respectfully add a third: Your business will need more storage 12 months from now than it does today. For small and medium enterprises, it's all too clear that simply buying more servers or shifting data around to less than desirable locations to relieve the space crunch is a stopgap, not a strategy. If you're stressed about the scalability of your server-based storage options, maybe it's time to consider a SAN.

Five years ago, the thought of an SME deploying a SAN was laughable because of the expense of a Fibre Channel infrastructure. That's not the case today thanks to the iSCSI protocol, which lets block-level data travel over TCP/IP networks. Dell's newest product, the PowerVault MD3000i, aims directly at cost-conscious businesses that are ready to graduate from direct-attached storage to a centralized strategy using iSCSI.

Dell isn't the only company chasing this lucrative market, of course. Other iSCSI SAN options include Hewlett-Packard's MSA1510i, LeftHand Networks' NSM160, EqualLogic's PS70E/PS100E and the Network Appliance FAS270. Dell's MD3000i compares favorably on price and features, (see chart, at right), but it does have drawbacks: the device has a limited capacity for snapshots and doesn't yet support SATA drives.

Features Chart Click to enlarge in another window

Note that Dell's foray into the SAN space actually started six years ago when it partnered with EMC to develop the Clarion AX150 iSCSI/Fibre Channel SAN. While the Clarion is still sold today as part of Dell's product portfolio, the MD3000i is being brought to market to round out the PowerVault line and to fill a gap where the features of the EMC AX150 end and the CX Enterprise-class series begin. Thus, the MD3000i is not positioned by Dell as a direct competitor to EMC's Clarion line.