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Thecus N16000

W

WarlordBB

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 10, 2004
Messages
390
I'm considering buying a Thecus N16000 to see how well it will handle some VMware over NFS needs:

http://www.thecus.com/product.php?PROD_ID=45

I know that it would be HARDer if I rolled my own but this is for business needs so I want something stable that is easier to manage.

I'd rather have something that incorporated some SSD cache, I'm just having a hard time finding solutions in this arena that do NOT require some annual raping.

The reason we are even looking is because we bought an EMC NS20 3 years ago for $100,000 and we've just found out that support is going to be $20,000/year from now on.

I've got a quote on my desk right now for an adequately configured EMC VNXe for $22,000 but we're still looking at $4,000/year support.

Now, I know I've thrown a lot of things into the mix here, but don't be sidetracked. I'm asking about your thoughts on using a N16000 for VMware over NFS duties and what you might suggest as an alternative if you don't think the Thecus is a good idea. I'm not asking if you'll lecture me on enterprise needs and risk aversion, etc. Trust me, I understand all that.

Also, if you go look at the Thecus forum, you'll find out that this device that was released last month is really beta firmware at best so I realize there are some concerns there. Not to mention that Thecus screwed me on my N5200 PRO by stopping dev on the firmware...

So, with the caveat that I'm looking for devices in the arena of the Thecus N16000 which do NOT require annual support costs, is the Thecus a good enough option to buy and play around with or do you think I'm wasting my time and should be looking at X?
 
It seems that the majority of this forum moves towards DIY solutions often based on BSD/Solaris with ZFS.
 
I guess the question comes down to support - do you think you will get meaningful support from Thecus? I would expect to pay some sort of yearly support fee for any sort of real support (enterprise level). And in that bracket (i.e. not top name/$$$ storage vendors, but still "enterprise") I would be more likely to go with something like http://www.nexenta.com/corp/sbb than thecus.

If continuing support isn't a huge issue than buy a server on the solaris HCL and toss open indiana on it - no maintenence fees.
 
ChrisBenn: thanks for the recommendation. We've contacted NorStor people and for about the same price as the Thecus, we can have a warm spare controller single SAS based system that can cluster if necessary.

Justin2net: I'm going to give you the benefit of doubt and guess you didn't read my entire post. I certainly understand EMC >>>Thecus or we wouldn't have spent $100,000 on it and got me and my Net Admin EMC certified ($10,000 right there). However, we have come to realize that since we only use VMWare over NFS and CIFS, we most likely overbought for the need last time. We have chosen to let our "official" support for our NS20 lapse and purchase something we'd feel comfortable running in place of the NS20 either full time or in the event of a failure.

Since our main reason for doing this is to avoid the insane almost 25% yearly support fee, we thought we should look at solutions other than those that have these insane support fees. Even considering that, as I mentioned, we ARE also looking at devices such as the EMC VNXe...

The solution Chris pointed out was exactly the kind of alternatives I was looking for. I'm also trying to figure out if we can purchase that super micro hardware without going through an integrator.
 
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