Re: [SAGE] Another request for references -- Hitachi vendors Northeast

[Doug Hughes <doug@eng.auburn.edu>]

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003, John Stoffel wrote:

>
> Adam> I just found out that we may actually get funding for *real*
> Adam> disks.  I asked last week or so about NetApp with Oracle.  We
> Adam> may be able to get a Hitachi 9500-series disk cabinet for SAN to
> Adam> Oracle, plus expansion to store other stuff on it (about 6TB
> Adam> total).
>
> Adam> What I need to know is if anyone has experiences with any of the
> Adam> vendors we've been given.  We spoke to Hitachi directly, and
> Adam> they sell through one of these guys in my area (Northern NJ):
>
> Adam> Continental Resources - MA based reseller, recently started
> Adam> storage division
>
> I've dealt with these people for years (well, not recently since we
> haven't bought anything from them) and they did a nice job.  But in
> terms of technical support and configuration help, they weren't
> helpful.
>
> In this case, since you're looking to get a SAN, and if you don't have
> any SAN experience at all, I'd make sure you get at least some
> training before you start buying.  Also, make sure you talk with
> people who have your same host hardware and find out what they
> recommend, it's a life saver.
>
> As for me, I think I'd probably still go with a NetApp, snapshots are
> really nice.  I don't know enough about the Hitachi and whether or not
> is supports BCVs (volume snapshots) or not.  In any case, I'd also
> recommend you get VxFS/VxVM for all your clients so you can
> grow/shrink volumes on there as needed.
>

as manager and contributor of the Veritas mail lists, I make the
observation that I've never see anybody unhappy with a Hitachi.
(also, you can make snapshots at the volume level or filesystem
level with veritas, which is very handy in many respects and
offers a huge level of flexibility across any storage platform
that you might have)