QLogic SANBox 3602's

F

Far Side

Gawd
Joined
Mar 9, 2000
Messages
641
Hey folks,
One of my clients who was acquired by a larger firm offered to let me pick and chose anything they wanted to get rid of in their old IT storage room/graveyard. Besides a few decent servers, I was able to snag two 20 port QLogic SANBox 3602 FC switches.

My Google-fu is weak because I cannot find any technical details on these suckers. I'm doing a side project for a CGI/SFX company out here in LA that is interested in a SAN solution and thought maybe they could use these.

I just wanted to get an idea of what they are capable of and maybe, ballpark, what they are worth.

Any input is appreciated.
 
I want them! I'll see what I can dig up for you, and report back. You lucky bastard!
 
From the little that I have been able to find, these look like 4Gb.sec 16port FC switches. The 16ports can be populated with 4Gb/sec SFPs, either LWL of SWL for normal data transmissions. There should also be 4x 10Gb/sec ISL ports for inter-switch communications. The SERDES controllers on the switches are dual, meaning that there's an active/passive setup there, in case one fails (so you don't lose your domain IDs, Zoning configs, etc). Both are capable of providing the maximum amount of bandwidth that the switch has ports for. In this case, that's 104Gb/sec total aggregate bandwidth (16x4Gb + 4x10Gb). There's plenty of features to license on these things. Qlogic licenses their ports in groups. Here's the breakdown:

If it's a 16port switch (not counting ISLs) then the switch comes from the factory with 1/2 that number activated, so 8 from the factory. Then you license the next "port group" which should be 4 ports, in this case. You'd need two additional "port group" licenses to get all of the 4Gb ports online (8 from the factory + 1 port group of 4 + 1port group of 4 = 16 total). You will also need to get ISL licenses, and the QLogic 10Gb/sec ISL cables to do inter-switch links. Optionally, you can use the 4Gb/sec ports to make them ISLs, without purchasing the 10Gb ISL cables (spendy). However, you will still need the trunking license for the 4Gb/sec ports to properly trunk to another switch.

While these switches are EOL, even if they didn't have the SFPs, or any additional port or ISL or trunking licenses on them, I'd say open market for used 4Gb 16 port switches like these could easily bring $500/ea. With all ports and trunking licensed, probably $700 each. If they have all of the SFPs at 4Gb, $1k. I'd add an additional $100 for each 10Gb ISL cable populated.
 
Fleabay the switches and then introduce your friends to a company that specializes in solutions for the entertainment industry. I'm sure you're a smart guy but you don't want to get involved in a san solution for video; it ain't typical IT.
 
on that note: these switches are complete shit, and are only worth $1 w/shipping. I would like to buy both of them, and have PP ready :p. He's right though, high end video post production work will take some decent research on your part to implement. The largest issue is that you'll need a clustered file system so that multiple people can be working on the arrays at the same time, doing their own PP work to the files. The more spindles, the better, and make sure they have a beefy RAID controller in front of the disk. Also, be prepared to tune the block sies for the application, to get as close to 1:1 on IO as possible. Video editing hits disk arrays hard, especially 1080P HD above 4:2:0:0.
 
Thanks for the info gents! Yea I'm going to stray away from this project. This client is high-maintenance as it is.

I'm going to try and toss these up for sale here first. I recently had a nightmare scenario with Paypal and $2500 worth of Cisco equipment.
 
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