New Dell Equallogic Models

Dell have recently announced the latest versions of their SANs the PS4100 and PS6100 Series.

These are the first Equallogic’s that Dell have completely manufactured in house. The previous models although running Dell controllers and firmware were manufactured by Xyratex. The new models utilise both 2.5” and 3.5” disks with the emphasis being on the 2.5” disks.

The new controllers also have some new technology such as vertical port failover previously their was only controller failover rather than per port failover. Gone is the battery write back cache and in with the new backup to flash, meaning you no longer have a limited time to repower your device before the contents of the cache is lost.

There are now 4 models in the PS4100 range

Model	Disks Type	Disk Quantity	Size U’s
PS4100E 3.5”	7.5K Near Line SAS	12	2
PS4100X 2.5”	10K SAS	24	2
PS4100XV 2.5”	15K SAS	24	2
PS4100XV 3.5”	15K SAS	12	2

There are 6 models in the PS6100 range

Model	Disks Type	Disk Quantity	Size U’s
PS6100E 3.5”	7.5K Near Line SAS	24	4
PS6100X 2.5”	10K SAS	24	2
PS6100XV 2.5”	15K SAS	24	2
PS6100S 2.5”	SSD	24	2
PS6100XS 2.5”	SSD + 10K SAS	17 SSD, 7 SAS	2
PS6100XV 3.5”	15K SAS	24	4

Conclusions

From what I have seen I see this as a good evolutionary step for Dell’s acquisition of Equallogic, the use of 2.5” disks across the new range has meant increased spindle count with less space requirements in your racks. Also as a nice to have all new SANs will now use Dell’s Rapid Rails, some of the previous Equallogic rails have been questionable but have got a lot better recently. I am particularly pleased to see the enhancements to the hybrid unit, the previous XVS had only 8 SSD’s and 8 15K SAS drives, meaning you were severely limited with capacity, with the new 24 disk model we are seeing a lot better use of a smaller amount of SSD’s with a larger amount of 10K SAS to give the increased capacity. Also the evolutionary steps for the controllers introduce some nice new availability features with the vertical port failover and the flash backed cache.

For more information head over to http://www.equallogic.com for more information about the latest range of SANS.