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Storage upgrades - Netapp

We're doing some storage upgrades, basically I need to build out a load testing environment, and since our application is pretty much database trapped I need to invest a bunch of cash in more big iron and more spindles. I need quad – 6 core db servers, which is what we have in production right now. I also want to get 24 spindles of disk, which is what we have in production as well for the database. The disks will mostly be used for the loadtesting environment, but they will also be used for some of the other projects.

It's too bad our netapp FAS 3040s have all the slots full (10g, PAM, then the rest FC cards). I need to buy FC disks and DS14 shelves versus buying the newer SAS disks which I would rather have, pretty annoying. Anyways I am buying 28 disks, and its costing me around $54k for the disks. So if you add up the disks that's 8.4TB raw (but the spindle count is what really matters), which means I am at about $6.30/G of data, which is pretty poor. That doesn't even include the support costs for the new hardware. Retail price of these disks is $280, lets tack on another 25% so they are $350 per disk, or around $1.10/G. The cost of the shelfs is costing me roughly 5x the price for the same disks. Can you see why I am pissed? I can understand 100% markup, but 500%... really? Who says these storage companies aren't like the lawyers J

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