IBM FAStT Storage Server Disk Arrays...Storage Server (ESS), designed for the enterprise disk storage market where both mainframe and open systems connectivity are required; the 7133

Gartner© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to bereliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretationsthereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

DPRO-105177April Adams

Product Report6 October 2003

IBM FAStT Storage Server Disk Arrays

Summary

In August 2003, IBM announced enhancements to the FAStT Series including a new FAStT600 Turbomodel, FlashCopy support for the FAStT600 and VolumeCopy support on the FAStT600 Turbo,FAStT700 and FAStT900.

Table of Contents

Overview

Analysis

Pricing

Competitors

Strengths

Limitations

Recommended Gartner Research

Insight

List Of Tables

Table 1: Maximum Capacities of FAStT200 and FAStT 200 HA Configurations

Table 2: Features and Functions: IBM FAStT Series

Table 3: IOPS Performance—IBM FAStT Series (1) (2)

Table 4: Throughput Performance—IBM FAStT Series (1) (2)

Table 5: Price List: IBM FAStT Series

Table 6: Competitive Analysis: IBM FAStT Series

Table 7: Competitive Analysis: IBM FAStT Series (continued)


© 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved.DPRO-1051776 October 2003 2

Corporate Headquarters

IBM Corporation

Old Orchard Road

Armonk, NY 10504, U.S.A.

Tel: +1 914 765 1900

Fax: +1 914 765 4190

Internet: www.ibm.com

Overview

IBM’s FAStT Storage Servers are open systems storage products offering full Fibre Channel connectivityfor the storage-area network (SAN) environment. Targeted at the entry-level and midrange enterprisemarkets, the Fibre Array Storage Technology (FAStT) Storage Server family includes the followingproducts, all of which are sourced from LSI Logic Storage Systems:

• FAStT200—-The FAStT200 comes in both regular and high-availability (HA) models and ispositioned at the low end of the line. IBM targets this model as a space-efficient storage solution forthe Internet market or for use as a direct-attached storage solution with workgroup or departmentalservers. This product is being superceded by the FAStT600, but is expected to remain available atleast through the end of 2003.

• FAStT600—-The FAStT600 is positioned just above the FAStT200 models in the overall FAStT line,but with the introduction of the FAStT600 Turbo, the FAStT600 is now targeted more at the entry-level storage market than at the midrange. It offers 2Gb Fibre Channel connectivity in a similararchitectural design to the FAStT200 (embedded drives and controllers, same footprint).

• FAStT600 Turbo—-Borrowing a naming convention from its high-end Enterprise Storage Server line,IBM calls its new enhanced version of the FAStT600, the FAStT600 Turbo. Introduced in August2003 and made generally available on 12 September 2003, the FAStT600 Turbo offers more cache,greater scalability and additional software support relative to the FAStT600. It is targeted at small andmidsize business (SMB) customers for workgroup storage consolidation or departmental computing.The FAStT600 Turbo is positioned firmly in the midrange of the line, just below the FAStT700, thoughIBM admits that there may be situations where the FAStT600 Turbo cannibalizes FAStT700 sales.

• FAStT500—-IBM ceased marketing this 1Gb Fibre Channel disk array as of 13 June 2003.Customers are instead directed toward the FAStT700.

• FAStT700—-IBM targets the FAStT700 at the high end of the midrange for environments such asdepartmental storage consolidation. The FAStT700 is a 2Gb Fibre Channel disk array with fault-tolerant/high-availability features equal to that of the FAStT900.

• FAStT900—-The FAStT900 is a 2Gb Fibre Channel disk array with improved performancecapabilities (compared to the FAStT700). It is designed for small to medium enterprise environmentsand is targeted for e-business and data-intensive applications, such as online transaction processing(OLTP), data mining and digital media, and storage consolidation.



IBM’s storage disk array product lineup also includes three other products: the high-end EnterpriseStorage Server (ESS), designed for the enterprise disk storage market where both mainframe and opensystems connectivity are required; the 7133 Serial Disk System, a host-attached midrange storagesolution targeted primarily at the rich media market and for use as expansion cabinets with the ESS; andthe 2104 Expandable Storage Plus, a low-cost storage option for IBM RS/6000 and pSeries servers. TheEnterprise Storage Server and 7133 are covered in separate reports.

FAStT Series Architecture

The FAStT Series is based on a modular architecture with the higher-end models using a slightly differentdesign than the low-end FAStT200/200HA, the FAStT600 or the FAStT600 Turbo. The FAStT900 andFAStT700 each begin with a 4U base unit (one U equals 1.75 inches) that includes their respectiveredundant array of independent disks (RAID) controllers and all components necessary to support driveattachment. The disk drives, however, are installed in separate expansion enclosures. IBM offers twoexpansion unit choices for the FAStT Series—-the 1 Gb/sec 10-drive-bay EXP500 and the 2 Gb/sec 14-drive-bay EXP700 (both of which are 3U). Total capacity of the FAStT900 and FAStT700 models dependson which expansion units are utilized and how many are attached. Specific details are provided in theindividual product sections below.

The FAStT200/200HA, FAStT600 and FAStT600 Turbo models support disk drives in their base units (10in the FAStT200/200HA and 14 in the FAStT600), as well as in the expansion units. Again, more detailsare provided in the dedicated product sections below.

Expansion Units

IBM EXP500 Expansion Unit

The EXP500 is one way that FAStT customers can add storage capacity in the FAStT Series. It is a 3Urack-mount expansion unit with 1Gb Fibre Channel interface. The EXP500 holds up to 10 drive bays andsupports 18GB, 36GB, 73GB and 147GB (technically, 146.8GB but rounded here) disk drives for a totalraw capacity of 1.5TB. Though 2Gb Fibre Channel drives can be installed, they will drop to 1Gb mode(manually) when attaching an EXP500. Each unit features redundant, hot-swappable fans and powersupplies and has two Enclosure Service Monitor (ESM) boards that monitor and report the status ofcomponents within the enclosure to the FAStT Storage Manager via the FAStT controller. It comesstandard with a three-year on-site warranty with next-business-day response.

The EXP500 has essentially been superceded by the EXP700 Expansion Unit with all FAStT modelsexcept the FAStT200 because of its 1Gb Fibre Channel connectivity.

IBM EXP700 Expansion Unit

Introduced in July 2002, the EXP700 Expansion Unit is a 2 Gb/sec end-to-end Fibre Channel storageexpansion enclosure. Like the EXP500, it can be used to scale the FAStT200, FAStT600, FAStT6000Turbo, FAStT700 or FAStT900 Storage Servers, though if used with the FAStT200 it will operate at 1Gb/sec. The EXP700 supports 14 drives in the 3U rack-mountable enclosure (18GB, 36GB, 73GB or147GB), yielding a maximum raw capacity of 2.1TB per expansion enclosure using 147GB drives.

Like the EXP500, the EXP700 comes with redundant, hot-swappable fans and power supplies, and hastwo ESM boards to monitor and report the status of components within the enclosure to the FAStTStorage Manager. The EXP700 can be intermixed with EXP500 Expansion Units, but will run at 1 Gb/secin the mixed environment. The EXP700 has a three-year on-site warranty with next-business-dayresponse.



IBM FAStT Series

IBM FAStT900 Storage Server

The FAStT900 was announced in mid-February 2003 and became generally available in mid-March 2003.IBM markets the FAStT900 as the performance model in the FAStT series because it uses a faster RAIDcontroller than the other models. Differences between the controller boards include:

• Processor—-850MHz Intel Pentium III on the FAStT900 vs. 566MHz Intel Celeron on the FAStT700

• Nonvolatile SRAM—-128KB on the FAStT900 vs. 32KB on the FAStT700

• Primary PCI bus—-64 bit (66MHz) on the FAStT900 vs. 32 bit (33MHz) on the FAStT700

• Buffer bus—-1.6 GB/sec on the FAStT900 vs. 0.5 GB/sec on the FAStT700

According to IBM’s published data, this results in the FAStT900 having significantly improvedperformance compared to the FAStT700. In fact, IBM acknowledges that in some bid situations whereperformance is particularly important, the FAStT900 may compete with (and actually win against) the IBMESS 800 product because of its performance capabilities in certain environments. However, in thosecases where customers require connectivity to IBM’s iSeries or zSeries platforms, or where advancedavailability functionality (such as extended distance Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy [PPRC]) is required, theESS is the better fit.

The FAStT900 supports up to 224 disk drives or 32.7TB of raw storage capacity by attaching 16 EXP700expansion units with 147GB drives. While it is possible to use IBM’s EXP500 expansion units with theFAStT900, the company doesn’t recommend it because it negatively impacts performance.

Each FAStT900 comes standard with four mini-hubs—-two on the front end and two on the back end. Inloop environments, it can therefore support four host connections standard (two host connections inswitch environments) and a redundant Fibre Channel loop pair standard on the drive side. Four additionalmini-hubs can be added as options (two on the host side and two on the disk side) for expandedconnectivity. On the host side, the two additional mini-hubs (four total) give the FAStT900 up to eight hostports, so that up to four hosts with redundant connections can be attached. Additional hosts or host busadapters (HBAs) can be attached using a Fibre Channel switch. On the drive side, this can add a secondpair of redundant Fibre Channel loops. These additional two drive-side mini-hubs are required whenattaching more than eight EXP700s to the FAStT900, but the company recommends always using alldrive-side loops for maximum performance.

The FAStT900 ships with version 8.3 of IBM’s FAStT Storage Manager, which provides storageadministrators with additional functionality over previous versions of the management software. Thisincludes the ability to utilize IBM’s FlashCopy (point-in-time copy) and IBM’s Remote Mirror copyingfacilities. These two features are discussed in greater detail in the Analysis section of this report. TheFAStT Storage Manager 8.3 comes with licensing for up to 16 storage partitions. This capability can beupgraded to support up to 64 storage partitions with the purchase of the feature code option 7664. Inaddition, the FAStT900 can be upgraded to the newest version of Storage Manager (version 8.4) usingfeature code 7109. This provides a number of enhancements including support for VolumeCopy, supportfor up to 256 logical unit numbers (LUNs) per storage partition, the ability to define array groups greaterthan 2TB and Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI)-3 Persistent Reservations, all of which are fullydetailed in the Analysis section of this report.

Some of the other options available with FAStT900 are:

• FAStT Service Alert—-Essentially a phone-home capability



• Host Kits—Additional platform support for customers who require attachment to non-Windowsplatforms. This is a onetime purchase (rather than per server) for AIX, Sun Solaris and HP-UX.


The FAStT700 is very similar to the FAStT900. Like the FAStT900, it supports 2Gb Fibre Channel fromhost to disk, uses a mini-hub design and scales up to a maximum of 32.7TB using EXP700 expansionmodules. EXP500 expansion units can also be used with the FAStT700 (though the Fibre Channel willoperate at 1Gb on the disk side in this configuration, and therefore it is not recommended), providing up to32.3TB of raw capacity. The FAStT700 also supports the FAStT Service Alert Function and requires hostkits for use in non-Windows environments. The primary difference between the FAStT700 and theFAStT900 is the controller board, as discussed above. Like the FAStT900, the FAStT700 currently shipswith version 8.3 of FAStT Storage Manager and can be upgraded to Storage Manager version 8.4 (usingfeature code 7107 for the FAStT700). This enables the same enhancements as on the FAStT900, all ofwhich are fully described in the Analysis section of this report.


The FAStT600 was first introduced in April 2003. In September 2003, IBM added some enhancements tothe original version (now called the base model FAStT600) and introduced a new FAStT600 Turbo modelas well. Both are 3U rack-mount storage systems with 2Gb Fibre Channel connectivity from host to disk.

The FAStT600 base model supports dual controllers (active/active) with 128MB of cache each for a totalof 256MB cache per system. It features two host ports per controller for a total of four host ports persystem. Unlike the FAStT900 and FAStT700, the FAStT600 supports disk capacity within its basecontroller unit as well as in attached expansion cabinets. The base unit supports up to 14 disk drives (2TBof raw capacity) which can be scaled up to 56 disk drives (8.2TB) using three EXP700 expansioncabinets. This is one of the enhancements made by IBM in September 2003. Previous versions of theFAStT600 only supported two EXP700 expansion cabinets or 42 disk drives (6.1TB). Attaching thoseexpansion enclosures requires the purchase of EXP700 Attachment Features as well as the EXP700sthemselves, however. The Attachment Feature provides licensing and support for the EXP700 expansionunit(s). Customers can purchase attachment for the EXP700s one at a time as needed, or they canpurchase the attachment features for two or all three EXP700 units at the same time at a reduced cost.The FAStT600 does not support the EXP500 expansion enclosure. Note also that the FAStT600 does notuse the mini-hub design as the FAStT900 and FAStT700 do.

Other enhancements made to the base model FAStT600 include:

• Increased Capacity—As previously discussed, the maximum number of drives supported on theFAStT 600 base model was increased from 42 to 56, raising the maximum capacity supported from6.1TB to 8.2TB.

• More Partitions—The ability to support up to 16 storage partitions. One partition is standard. Supportfor four, eight or 16 are chargeable options. (The previous maximum was eight partitions.)

• FlashCopy—The ability to support FlashCopy (not previously supported).

Like the FAStT900 and FAStT700, the FAStT600 comes with support for Windows operating systems andrequires host kits to run other platforms. Support for Linux/Intel, Novell NetWare, VMware, IBM AIX, SunSolaris and HP-UX is available. The FAStT600 ships standard with FAStT Storage Manager version 8.3and is upgradable to Storage Manager version 8.4 with the purchase of the Turbo option.

IBM FAStT600 Turbo Storage Server



The FAStT600 Turbo model is an enhanced version of the FAStT600. Therefore, its architectural designis the same as the FAStT600 (disk capacity is supported in both the base controller unit and theexpansion cabinets), and its technical specifications are also the same with the following exceptions:

• Increased Capacity—Support for up to seven EXP700 expansion units for a total of 112 disk drives or16.5TB of raw capacity (the FAStT600 scales up to 56 drives or 8.2TB)

• More Partitions—The FAStT600 Turbo supports up to 64 storage partitions. Eight partitions arestandard. Support for up to 16 or up to 64 is a chargeable option.

• Increased Cache—Each RAID controller comes with 1GB of cache for a total of 2GB of cache perFAStT600 Turbo.

• Point-in-Time Copy—The ability to support FlashCopy

• VolumeCopy—Support for IBM’s new VolumeCopy software that provides the ability to make a fullvolume copy of a point-in-time logical drive copy that was created by FlashCopy (further detailsprovided in the Analysis section of this report).

• New Version of Storage Management Software—The FAStT600 Turbo ships with FAStT StorageManager version 8.4. Information about the enhancements this provides is included in the Analysissection of this report.

Customers can either purchase a FAStT600 Turbo or can upgrade an existing FAStT600 to the Turbomodel.

IBM FAStT200/200HA Storage Server

The IBM FAStT200 comes in two models, the FAStT200 and the FAStT200 HA. Both offer 1Gb-FibreChannel connectivity to host and disk, and both support redundant disks, fans and power supplies. TheFAStT200 model supports a single RAID disk controller, 1Gb-Fibre Channel host connectivity, a singledrive loop and one expansion port Gigabit Interface Converter (GBIC) connector. (Note that the FAStT200models don’t use the mini-hub design. Instead, the FAStT200s offer one host-connection GBIC and onedrive-connection GBIC per controller.) The FAStT200 HA model comes with dual active/active hot-swappable RAID controllers and supports two 1Gb-Fibre Channel host connections, two drive loops andtwo expansion port GBIC connectors. By virtue of its two controllers, the FAStT200 HA model is also ableto support mirrored cache. The FAStT200 is field upgradable to a FAStT200 HA.

The FAStT200 and FAStT200 HA, like the FAStT600, support disk capacity within the base controller unitas well as through expansion units. Each FAStT200/200HA supports up to 10 drives (1.5TB) in its 3Ubase unit. Additional scalability is achieved by adding EXP500 or EXP700 expansion units, though itshould be noted that the EXP700 expansion units will run at 1Gbps when used with the FAStT200models. Maximum capacities for the various configurations are:



Table 1: Maximum Capacities of FAStT200 and FAStT 200 HA Configurations

Model Number of

Controllers

Number of

Expansion

Units

Number of

Drives

Supported in

Base Unit

Number of

Drives

Supported in

Expansion

Units

Total Number

of Drives

supported

Maximum

Capacity

Supported

FAStT200

with

EXP500s

1 2 10 20 30 4.4TB

FAStT200

with

EXP700s

1 2 10 28 38 5.6TB

FAStT200

HA with

EXP500s

2 5 10 50 60 8.8TB

FAStT200

HA with

EXP700s

2 4 10 56 66 9.7TB

In actuality, the FAStT200s can physically be connected to up to seven expansion units for a total of 80disk drives using the EXP500s or 112 drives using EXP700s. However, for performance reasons, IBMrecommends that no more than two expansion units be attached to the FAStT200 model and no morethan five expansion units be configured with a FAStT200 HA model.

The FAStT200 models currently ship with version 8.3 of IBM’s FAStT Storage Manager software, thoughremote mirroring isn’t now and never will be supported on the FAStT200s. Furthermore, Storage Managerversion 8.4 is not supported on the FAStT200 models, which means that VolumeCopy and the otherenhancements that were introduced along with the new version aren’t supported on the FAStT200s.

All of the FAStT arrays support battery backed-up cache. Battery protection lasts for up to 72 hours (168hours on the FAStT600), and the battery life is approximately three years. However, the battery backup isimplemented differently on the FAStT200/200HA and FAStT600 than on the other FAStT disk arrays. TheFAStT700 and FAStT900 utilize a cache battery module design that allows the battery to be proactivelyreplaced before its end-of-life without any disruption to the system. The cache battery on theFAStT200/200HA and FAStT600 is installed inside the RAID controller. That means that on the FAStT200(single-controller) model, the host system must be shut down if it becomes necessary to replace thecache battery. On the FAStT200 HA and FAStT600 (dual active/active controllers), the cache batteriescan be replaced one at a time without disrupting system operation.


Model IBM FAStT900 IBM FAStT700 IBM FAStT600

Turbo

IBM FAStT600 IBM

FAStT200/FAStT

200 HA

Date Available March 2003 December 2001 September

2003

April 2003 November 2000

Configuration Rack-mount

(4U)

Rack-mount

(4U)

Rack-mount

(3U)

Rack-mount

(3U)

Rack-mount

(3U)





Turbo

IBM FAStT600 IBM

FAStT200/FAStT

200 HA

Maximum

Storage

Capacity in

Base Unit

0GB 0GB 2TB 2TB 1.5TB

Maximum

Storage

Capacity With

All Expansions

32.7TB with

EXP700

Expansion Units

32.7TB with

EXP700

Expansion Units

16.5TB with

EXP700

Expansion Units

8.2TB with

EXP700

Expansion Units

4.4T

(FAStT200);

8.8T (FAStT200

HA) with

EXP500

Expansion

Units; 5.6T

(FAStT200);

9.7T (FAStT200

HA) with

EXP700

Expansion Units

Maximum

Drives in Base

Unit

0 0 14 14 10

Maximum

Drives With All

Expansions

224 with

EXP700

Expansion Units

224 with

EXP700

Expansion Units

112 with

EXP700

Expansion Units

56 with EXP700

Expansion Units

30 (FAStT200);

60 (FAStT200

HA) with

EXP500

Expansion

Units;

38 (FAStT200);

66 (FAStT200

HA) with

EXP700

Expansion Units

Disk Controller 2 2 2 2 1 (2 in HA

model)

Controller

Cache Size,

(min./max.)

1GB/1GB per

controller;

2GB/2GB per

controller pair

1GB/1GB per

controller;

2GB/2GB per

controller pair

1GB/1GB per

controller;

2GB/2GB per

controller pair

256MB/256MB

per controller,

512MB/512MB

per controller

pair

128MB/128MB

per controller;

256MB/256MB

per controller

pair (HA model)

Type of

Processors

Used on

Controller

Board

850MHz Intel

Pentium III

processors

566MHz Intel

Celeron

processors

600MHz xScale

Intel processors

600MHz xScale

Intel processors

i960RN Intel

processors





Turbo

IBM FAStT600 IBM

FAStT200/FAStT

200 HA

Host System

Interface

Fibre Channel-

Arbitrated Loop

(FC-AL), Fibre

Channel-Switch

(FC-SW) (2Gb)

FC-AL, FC-SW

(2Gb)

FC-SW (2Gb) FC-SW (2Gb) FC-AL, FC-SW

(1Gb)

RAID Levels

Supported

0, 1, 3, 5, 10 0, 1, 3, 5, 10 0, 1, 3, 5, 10 0, 1, 3, 5, 10 0, 1, 3, 5, 10

Drive Interface FC-AL (2Gb) FC-AL (2Gb) FC-AL (2Gb) FC-AL (2Gb) FC-AL (1Gb)

Drive

Capacities

Supported

18GB, 36GB,

73GB, 147GB

18GB, 36GB,

73GB, 147GB

36GB, 73GB,

147GB

36GB, 73GB,

147GB

18GB, 36GB,

73GB, 147GB

Storage

Software

FAStT Storage

Manager 8.3

FAStT Storage

Manager 8.3

FAStT Storage

Manager 8.4

FAStT Storage

Manager 8.3

FAStT Storage

Manager 8.3

Warranty 3 years on-site,

9x5, next-

business-day

response

3 years on-site,

9x5, next-

business-day

response

3 years on-site,

9x5, next-

business-day

response

3 years on-site,

9x5, next-

business-day

response

3 years on-site,

9x5, next-

business-day

response

Fault-Tolerance Features Supported

Redundant,

Hot-Swappable

Controllers

Yes

(active/active)

Yes

(active/active)

Yes

(active/active)

Yes

(active/active)

Yes

(active/active—-

FAStT200 HA

model only)

Redundant Hot-

Swappable

Disks

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Redundant,

Hot-Swappable

Fans

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Redundant Hot-

Swappable

Power Supplies

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Dual Power

Cords

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Mirrored Cache Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (FAStT200

HA model only)

Battery Backed-

Up Cache

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Full-System

Battery Backup

No No No No No

Hot-Standby

Spare

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes





Turbo

IBM FAStT600 IBM

FAStT200/FAStT

200 HA

High-Availability

Features

Supported

Automatic

Failover

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (FAStT200

HA model only)

Alternate

Pathing

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Point-in-Time

Copy

Optional Optional Optional Optional Optional with

FAStT Storage

Manager 8.21

or 8.33

Remote Copy Optional Optional No No No

Environmental

Monitoring

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Phone-Home

Capability

Optional (FAStT

Service Alert)

Optional (FAStT

Service Alert)

Optional (FAStT

Service Alert)

Optional (FAStT

Service Alert)

Optional (FAStT

Service Alert)

Remote

Diagnostics

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Nondisruptive

Microcode

Updates

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Nondisruptive

Volume

Expansion

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Cluster Support Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (FAStT200

HA model only)

Analysis

Storage Management Software

FAStT Storage Manager

The FAStT Series products come with IBM’s FAStT Storage Manager software for configuration,monitoring, event notification, diagnostics and remote management. This Java-based graphical userinterface (GUI) can be either host-based or installed on a separate management console and provides theability to manage multiple FAStT storage servers from a single console.

The FAStT Storage Manager is made up of the following components:

• FAStT Storage Manager Client—-Host or workstation-based GUI for configuration, management andtroubleshooting tools

• FAStT Storage Manager Agent—-Agent required to perform in-band or out-of-band management ofthe FAStT Storage Servers. Can be installed on either the host or the client, but host installation isrequired to use the in-band management function.



• Redundant Disk Array Controller (RDAC)—-Host-based application required to enable theinput/output (I/O) rerouting function that takes over in the event of a component failure in dual-controller configurations.

• FAStT Storage Manager Utility—-A package made up of two utilities:

• FAStT Hot-Add Utility—-Command-line tool that provides logical drive discovery capability to theoperating system without rebooting, provided that function is supported by the operating system

• FAStT Sm7devices Utility—-Command-line tool that provides a list of logical drives, their WorldWide Names (WWNs) and the storage systems they can access, for troubleshooting purposes

All of the FAStT models ship with FAStT Storage Manager version 8.3 except the FAStT600 Turbo, whichships with IBM’s newest release, Storage Manager version 8.4. Both the FAStT700 and the FAStT900can be upgraded to the version 8.4, but the FAStT200 and FAStT200 HA cannot. The FAStT600 isupgradable to version 8.4 by upgrading to the Turbo model. Both versions of FAStT Storage Manageroffer the following functionality:

• Configuration, monitoring, event notification, diagnostics and remote management capabilities

• Support for FlashCopy, IBM’s point-in-time copy facility

• Support for FAStT Remote Mirror (synchronous remote copy)

• Support for Dynamic Volume Expansion (DVE), which allows customers to resize logical volumes.This feature isn’t supported on the FAStT200 or FAStT200 HA, however.

• Support for Quick Start IP Configuration, which allows the controllers to automatically take on anInternet Protocol (IP) address if none has been previously defined, so that management can be donethrough an Ethernet port

Customers who upgrade to FAStT Storage Manager version 8.4 and all FAStT600 Turbo customers alsoget the following functionality:

• An increase in the number of logical drives (LUNs) per storage partition from 32 to 256

• Removal of the previous restriction that limited array groups to a maximum of 2TB

• Support for SCSI-3 Persistent Reservations (for use in multinode or clustered environments).

• The ability to activate the VolumeCopy feature

Copy Facilities

FlashCopy

FlashCopy is a chargeable option that allows users to create a point-in-time copy image of a logical driveand save it to a separate volume that can then be used for backup, providing rapid duplication of largequantities of data without stopping the applications for an extended period of time. FAStT FlashCopyessentially performs the same function as IBM’s ESS FlashCopy with no copy option. AddingVolumeCopy (described below) to FAStT FlashCopy then provides the equivalent of the ESS FlashCopy’sfull copy option, by producing a complete clone of the point-in-time copy. That copy can then be backedup to tape or used for a variety of other purposes, such as data mining or testing new applications on acopy of production data. FlashCopy is supported on all of the FAStT models.

Remote Mirroring



FAStT Remote Mirror allows individual volumes from one FAStT array to be mirrored to a remote FAStTarray located up to 10 kilometers away, across a Fibre Channel fabric. This is a synchronous remotecopy. The array models can be intermixed as long as the same version of FAStT Storage Manager isinstalled on each. The FAStT600 and FAStT600 Turbo currently don’t support remote copy, though IBMexpects to add this feature in the second quarter of 2004. The FAStT200 and FAStT200 HA don’t nowand never will support remote mirroring.

VolumeCopy

VolumeCopy, also a chargeable option, was introduced to the FAStT line with the September 2003enhancements and provides the ability to make a full-volume copy from a point-in-time logical drive copy(FlashCopy). This enables improved backup performance and speeds recovery without impactingperformance from database corruption. Drive space large enough to hold the entire source volume mustbe defined in advance. VolumeCopy is a controller-based application available on the FAStT900,FAStT700 and FAStT600 Turbo. (FAStT600 users must upgrade to the Turbo model if they want topurchase and install VolumeCopy.) It requires Storage Manager version 8.4 (or later), so the FAStT900and FAStT700 would also require an upgrade to the Storage Manager software to utilize VolumeCopy.

Storage Partitioning

The FAStT200 and FAStT200 HA each support up to 16 storage partitions in the base configuration.These models cannot be expanded beyond that.

The FAStT600 comes with support for a single storage partition that can be divided up into 32 logicaldrives. That can be expanded to either four or eight storage partitions with the purchase of a StoragePartition Activation Feature. With eight storage partitions, the FAStT600 supports up to 256 logicalvolumes. FAStT600 customers who wish to expand beyond eight storage partitions will need to upgradeto the FAStT600 Turbo model.

The FAStT600 Turbo model also comes with support for one storage partition, but can be increased toeither eight or 16 storage partitions with the purchase of the appropriate options. With 16 storagepartitions and 256 LUNs per partition, the FAStT600 Turbo scales up to 4,096 logical volumes.

The FAStT700 comes with full support for 64 storage partitions in its base configuration with no ability toexpand beyond that.

The FAStT900 doesn’t support the full 64 storage partitions in its base configuration. FAStT900customers must purchase the licensing upgrade (feature code 7664) to achieve the maximum of 64storage partitions.

Upgradability

Each of the FAStT models is a separate and distinct product. While the FAStT200 can be upgraded to aFAStT200 HA with the addition of a second controller, the FAStT200 base units cannot be upgraded to aFAStT600 base unit. Likewise, a FAStT600 base unit can be upgraded to a FAStT600 Turbo in the field,but neither the FAStT600 nor the FAStT600 Turbo can be upgraded to a FAStT700 controller module.(Potential customers should also note that the field upgrade from FAStT600 to FAStT600 Turbo is adisruptive upgrade that includes two replacement controllers with 1GB cache each, new Storage Managerfirmware [version 8.4] and authorization for eight storage partitions and up to seven EXP700 expansionunit attachments.) The FAStT700 controller module cannot be upgraded to a FAStT900. While the formfactors of the FAStT700 and FAStT900 units are the same, the rails don’t permit insertion of an incorrectcontroller module.



The investment protection in this series lies in the use of common expansion drawers (the EXP500 andEXP700) between all models and the ability for multiple systems to be managed from a single softwareconsole. This means that a customer who introduces a FAStT900 into an installation can still utilizeanother model of FAStT in the SAN. In addition, the 2Gb Fibre Channel disk drives that are used in theEXP700 expansion unit can also be used in EXP500 expansion units and FAStT200 Storage Servers,though they will only operate at 1 Gb/sec.

Performance and Throughput

According to IBM, the FAStT900 offers the best I/O Operations per Second (IOPS) performance in theFAStT family. This is followed, as expected, by the FAStT700, FAStT600 Turbo, FAStT600 and FAStT200in that order. In terms of throughput, however, the FAStT600 and FAStT600 Turbo surpass theFAStT700—one reason why IBM anticipates some cannibalization of FAStT700 sales by the FAStT600Turbo. The following two charts represent IBM’s reported performance data. Gartner has notindependently verified this data.

Table 3: IOPS Performance—IBM FAStT Series (1) (2)

FAStT900 FAStT700 FAStT600 Turbo FAStT600 FAStT200

Burst Reads

from Cache

148,000 110,000 77,500 45,500 11,800

Sustained

Reads from

Disk

53,200 40,000 25,000 12,475 4,610

Sustained

Writes to Disk

10,900 9,100 5,200 3,300 1,290

Number of

Drives in

Testing to

Reach Stated

IOPS

140 140 64 42 30

(1) Dual Controller Performance

(2) Benchmark Configuration: I/O—4K random reads/writes, RAID 5, 15,000 RPM disk drives.

Source: IBM



Burst Reads

from Cache

800 MB/s 424 MB/s 800 MB/s 800 MB/s 193 MB/s

Sustained

Reads from

Disk


Sustained

Writes to Disk


Number of

Drives in

Testing to

Reach

Maximum MB/s

~28 ~14 ~14 ~14 ~10





(1) Dual Controller Performance

(2) Benchmark Configuration: I/O—512K sequential reads/writes, RAID 5, 10,000 RPM disk drives.

Source: IBM

Pricing


Model Number or Feature Code Description List Price (US$)

3542-1RU FAStT200 Storage Server

with one controller, 10 drive

bays (drives not included),

one FC-AL host connection

and one drive loop

9,999

3542-2RU FAStT200 HA Storage

Server with dual

controllers, 10 drive bays

(drives not included), two

FC-AL host connections

and two drive loops

12,094

1722-60U FAStT600 Storage Server

with dual controllers, 14

drives bays (drives not

included) 256MB cache,

FAStT Storage Manager

8.33 and SANavigator

14,999

1722-60U-2000 FAStT600 Turbo Feature

(factory installation)

21,570

1722-60U-2010 FAStT600 Turbo Feature

(field installation)

26,570

1742-1RU FAStT700 Storage Server

with dual controllers, 2GB

cache, FAStT Storage

Manager 8.21 and

SANavigator

46,499

1742-90U FAStT900 Storage Server

with dual controllers, 2GB

cache, FAStT Storage

Manager 8.33 and

SANavigator

66,500

3560-1RU FAStT EXP500 Expansion

Unit (drives not included)

3,815

1740-1RU FAStT EXP700 Expansion

Unit (drives not included)

6,000

1722-7361 FAStT EXP700—-First

attachment for FAStT600

1,495





1722-7362 FAStT EXP700—-Second


3,995

1722-7363 FAStT EXP700—-Third


3,990

1722-7360 FAStT EXP700—-Two

attachments for FAStT600

4,495

1722-7368 FAStT EXP700—-Three

attachments for FAStT600

8,485

Storage Controllers

2101 FAStT200 RAID Controller

(for FAStT200 only)

6,350

2102 FAStT Host Adapter (for

FAStT200 only)

1,485

2104 FAStT FC2-133 Host

Adapter-Intel/PCI-X (for

FAStT600, FAStT700 and

FAStT900 only)

1,485

GBICs

2307 Fibre Channel Long-Wave

GBIC (for FAStT200 only)

849

2308 Fibre Channel Short-Wave

GBIC (for FAStT200 only)

371

1722/1742-2210 Short-Wave Small Form

Factor Pluggable (SPF)

GBIC (for FAStT600,

FAStT700 or FAStT900

only)

499

1722/1742-2220 Long-Wave SPF GBIC (for

FAStT600, FAStT700 or

FAStT900 only)

1,099

Mini-Hubs

1742-3507 FAStT Mini-Hub (for

FAStT700 and FAStT900

only)

899

Host Kits

1722-7600 Intel Pack (for FAStT600

and FAStT600 Turbo)

3,999

1722-7701 Linux/Intel host kit (for

FAStT600 only)

999

1722-7702 Novell NetWare host kit (for

FAStT600 only)

999

1722-7703 VMware host kit (for

FAStT600 only)

999





1722/1742-7711 AIX host kit (for FAStT600,

FAStT700 and FAStT900)

4,000

1722/1742-7712 Sun host kit (for FAStT600,

FAStT700 and FAStT900)

4,000

1722/1742-7713 HP-UX host kit (for

FAStT600, FAStT700 and

FAStT900)

4,000

Software

1742-1RU-7107 Upgrade to Storage

Manager version 8.4 (for

FAStT700)

2,999

1742-90U-7109 Upgrade to Storage

Manager version 8.4 (for

FAStT900)

2,999

7201 FAStT FlashCopy

Activation (for FAStT200

and FAStT700)

10,499

1722-7351 FAStT FlashCopy


Turbo)

10,499

1722-7353 FAStT VolumeCopy


Turbo)

7,499

1722-7354 FAStT

FlashCopy/VolumeCopy


Turbo)

14,999

1722-7359 FlashCopy Activation with

Storage Manager version

8.4 (for FAStT600)

19,999

7202 FAStT Remote Mirror


only)

33,299

7301 FlashCopy Activation (for

FAStT900 only)

10,499

7302 Remote Mirror Activation

(for FAStT900 only)

33,299


Activation (for FAStT700)

13,499

1742-7204 FAStT



23,998



13,499





1742-7304 FAStT



23,998

1742-7664 Upgrade from 16 to 64

partitions (for FAStT900

only)

18,000

1722-8804 FAStT600 4-Storage

Partition Activation

3,000

1722-8808 FAStT600 8-Storage

Partition Activation

4,999

1722-8808 FAStT600 4-8 Storage

Partition Upgrade

3,999

1722-8816 FAStT600 16 Storage

Partition Upgrade

14,999

1722-8864 FAStT600 Turbo 8 to 64

Storage Partition Upgrade

26,000

1722-8849 FAStT600 Turbo 8 to 16


10,000

1722-8850 FAStT600 Turbo 16 to 64


18,000

Available via Special Bid FAStT Service Alert 2,500

Disk Drives

5011 18GB, 15,000-rpm disk

drive (1Gb)

575

5211 18GB 15,000-rpm disk

drive (2Gb)

681

5005 36GB, 10,000-rpm disk

drive (1Gb)

570

5205 36GB, 10,000-rpm disk

drive (2Gb)

765

5212 36GB 15,000-rpm disk

drive (2Gb)

1,115

5006 73GB, 10,000-rpm disk

drive (1Gb)

915

5206 73GB, 10,000-rpm disk

drive (2Gb)

1,500

5213 73GB 15,000-rpm disk

drive (1Gb)

2,225

5207 146.8GB, 10,000-rpm disk

drive (1Gb)

2,955

GSA Pricing

Yes.



Competitors

The IBM FAStT Series competes against products in the EMC CLARiiON Series, Hewlett-PackardEnterprise Virtual Array (EVA) Series, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) Thunder Series, StorageTek D Seriesand Sun StorEdge 3900/6900 Series. Each company offers multiple models to meet various capacity,performance and reliability needs. The key specifications of the competing systems are listed in the chartsbelow; and each vendor’s offerings are summarized in the following paragraphs.

EMC

EMC’s midrange product line is the CLARiiON Series, which is made up of the CLARiiON CX200,CLARiiON CX400 and CLARiiON CX600. These products are also co-branded and resold by Dell. Theunique thing about the CLARiiON line, is that it supports ATA drives as well as Fibre Channel drives, foradditional, lower cost capacity. Therefore, while the CX200 scales to 4.4TB with Fibre Channel drives, itscales to 6TB when ATA drives are also incorporated (configuration requires a mixture of 15 FibreChannel and 15 ATA drives). This model competitively aligns most closely with IBM’s FAStT200 andFAStT200 HA product. The CX400 scales up to 8.8TB using Fibre Channel drives and 13.5TB with FibreChannel and ATA drives, allowing it to compete with both the FAStT600 and the FAStT600 Turbo. TheCLARiiON CX600 is the high-end of the line. It scales up to 35TB with Fibre Channel drives, making it acapacity match with IBM’s FAStT700 and FAStT900 products, and up to 58TB using a Fibre Channel/ATAdrive mixture, providing added flexibility for customers who wish to increase potential raw capacity and donot require the performance of Fibre Channel. All the CLARiiON CX models support end-to-end 2Gb FibreChannel connectivity.

The high end CLARiiON CX600 also offers double the cache of its nearest competitor. As thespecification chart will show, however, the CLARiiON models are the only storage systems in thecompetitive lineup that do not support battery backed-up cache. Instead, they use supplemental powersupplies to back up the full system and destage data in write cache to disk in the event of a power failure.These supplemental power supplies are both redundant and hot swappable and will automaticallyrecharge themselves when the power is restored. Another area where the CLARiiON CX storage systemsdiffer from the competition is nondisruptive volume expansion. The CLARiiON CX systems supportdynamic LUN expansion, however only if the customer builds a RAID group with only one LUN. If theRAID group has more than one LUN, the LUN expansion capability is not supported. Therefore, if RAIDsets are broken into volumes, the CLARiiON CX models do not support the ability to go back later andexpand those volumes dynamically.

The CLARiiON CX products come standard with only a two-year on-site warranty (as compared to theFAStT products, which come with three years on-site). This warranty is 24×365, however, with a four-hourresponse time. IBM’s standard warranty on the FAStT is 9x5 and next business day response.

Hewlett-Packard

The HP products that compete with IBM’s FAStT line are the EVA products. The EVA 3000 was new as ofApril 2003 and supports up to 8.2TB with 2Gb Fibre Channel connectivity from host to disk. The EVA5000 (formerly referred to simply as the “EVA”) scales up to 35TB and also supports 2Gb Fibre Channelend to end. The two models use different controllers, resulting in different numbers of front-end ports anddifferent aggregate data transfer rates.

The primary distinguishing feature of the EVA models is their ability to do storage system-levelvirtualization via mapping of data blocks within the individual application LUNs across a pool of physicaldisks. This allows them to allocate or reallocate dynamically between hosts and application LUNs of anyvirtualized RAID set type, assuming the operating system and application do not require operator



intervention. IBM’s FAStT models handle the “hotspot” problem by allowing users to reconfigure thebackend of a FAStT between RAID levels without disruption.

The EVA models support up to 16 virtual storage pools behind a controller pair. The EVA models supportwhat HP calls Virtualized RAID Sets (Vraid) rather than traditional RAID levels, meaning that the EVAsemulate RAID levels 0, 1/0 and 5, but do so in the context of the virtualization pool. Storage pools aredivided into disk groups (pools), which can range anywhere from eight to 240 physical disks, and thenselect the amount of capacity to dedicate to each level of redundancy. “No redundancy,” also called Vraid0, corresponds to the traditional RAID level 0. “High redundancy,” also called Vraid 1 or Vraid 1/0,corresponds to the traditional RAID level 1/0. “Medium redundancy,” also called Vraid 5, corresponds tothe traditional RAID level 5. The management software determines the best way to set up the Vraid virtualdisks, then data is striped evenly across all available capacity in the virtual disk group. Also, because ofthe virtualized architecture, hot sparing functionality can be implemented as distributed or “virtual” sparingwhere capacity equal to the size of a physical drive is drawn from the overall storage pool to create avirtual hot spare, rather than setting aside a specific physical disk drive to act as a spare in case of a drivefailure.

HP provides a three year on-site warranty on both of its EVA models. However, while the EVA5000promises a four-hour response time 24×7, the EVA3000 only comes standard with 9×5 service and a nextbusiness day response. The EVA3000’s warranty is therefore equivalent to that offered on the FAStTproducts, while the EVA5000’s standard warranty surpasses it.

HDS

HDS competes in the midrange with its Freedom Storage Thunder family of modular storage products.Though there are four models currently available, only the Thunder 9570V is competitively aligned againstthe FAStT Series. The other three Thunder models (the 9531V, 9532V and 9533V) all max out at lessthan 1TB of raw capacity. The Thunder 9570V, however, scales up to 32.7TB using 224 disk drives andfeatures 2Gb Fibre Channel connectivity from host to disk allowing it to align competitively with theFAStT600 Turbo, FAStT700 and FAStT900.

The Thunder 9500 V products use what HDS calls Hi-PER Architecture—not to be confused with the “Hi-Star Architecture” used on the HDS Lightning Series. Hi-PER Architecture is a play on the words “highperformance” and affects the way user data and control data are moved. Each model uses threeprocessing chips on each controller. The Hi-PER processor controls all user data movement and handlesthe RAID processing. The Logic Assist Processor (LAP) controls the movement of the control data and isused for such functions as point-in-time copy, remote copy and managing the system. The Hi-PERprocessor and the LAP use different paths, so that user data and control data travel down separate paths.The third processor is an interrupt handler

The Thunder Series also incorporates what HDS calls “virtualization assist features” that are implementedwithin the arrays using Host Storage Domain port-level virtualization. By virtualizing at the port level, thesedisk arrays can support multiple heterogeneous platforms attached to a single port.

HDS sells the Thunder 9570V standard with a three-year warranty. For the first year, that service is on-site. During the second and third years, it is return to factory. The IBM FAStT products’ standard threeyear on-site warranty surpasses the Thunder 9570Vs.

StorageTek

Like IBM’s FAStT Series, the StorageTek D Series is sourced from LSI Logic. The D280 Disk Subsystemis therefore equivalent to the FAStT900, the D178 Disk Subsystem is equivalent to the FAStT700, the



D240 Disk Subsystem is equivalent to the FAStT600 Turbo, and the D220 Disk Subsystem is equivalentto the FAStT600. As the specification chart below shows, the D220 still supports 6.1TB and 42 diskdrives—equal to the FAStT600 before the September 2003 enhancements. StorageTek does not plan toincrease that model’s drive count, preferring instead to direct customers who require over 42 drives to theD240 Disk Subsystem. Otherwise, there is no functional difference between the StorageTek D Seriesmodels and the IBM FAStT Series.

StorageTek offers a three-year, on-site warranty with next business day response—equivalent to theFAStT Series’ warranty—on all of its D Series products.

Sun Microsystems

Sun offers a number of products in its StorEdge product family that compete against the FAStT line. TheStorEdge 6320, introduced in April 2003, aligns competitively with the FAStT900 and to some degree, theFAStT700. It exceeds both FAStT products in scalability of raw capacity (45TB maximum vs. 32.7TBmaximum for the FAStT900 and FAStT700). This is achieved via support for 308 drives. However theStorEdge 6320 lacks 2Gb Fibre Channel connectivity to disk, relying instead on 1Gb Fibre Channelconnections. Sun’s StorEdge 3510 (introduced in February 2003) with its 5.3TB maximum raw capacity, ismost closely aligned with the FAStT600 base model even though the FAStT600 now scales up to 8.2TB(up from 6.1TB with the September 2003 enhancements). Like the FAStT600, the StorEdge 3510 uses2Gb Fibre Channel end-to-end. The StorEdge 3510 is also missing support for certain high-availabilityfeatures that are commonly supported in the midrange market. It lacks support for point-in-time copy,remote copy and phone-home capability. However, it should be noted that the FAStT600 model also lackssupport for remote copy. IBM expects to add it in the second-quarter 2004 time frame, but only viaupgrade to the FAStT600 Turbo model. The Sun StorEdge 6120 is most closely competitively aligned withthe FAStT600 Turbo model, though it offers less overall capacity (12.3TB vs. 16.5TB on the FAStT600Turbo) and only 1Gb Fibre Channel to disk. The StorEdge 6120, which was released in April 2003, doessupport remote copy, however, while that feature is still pending on the FAStT600 Turbo.

Sun’s warranty on the StorEdge products varies by series. All of the competing products in our lineupcome with two-year warranties standard, but the StorEdge 3510 only has one year on-site with a secondbusiness day response. The second year is a 15-day parts exchange. The other two products all comestandard with two years on-site service and a four-hour response time. In all cases, the FAStT Series’three-year on-site warranty surpasses the StorEdge offerings.




Model IBM

FAStT90

0

IBM

FAStT70

0

IBM

FAStT60

0 Turbo

IBM

FAStT60

0

IBM

FAStT20

0/200HA

EMC

CLARiiO

N CX600

EMC

CLARiiO

N CX400

EMC

CLARiiO

N CX200

(dual

controlle

r model)

HP

Storage

Works

Enterpris

e Virtual

Array

5000

Maximu

m Raw

Storage

Capacit

y With

All

Expansi

on Units

32.7TB 32.7TB 16.5TB 8.2TB 5.6TB/9

.7TB

35TB

(with

Fibre

Channe

l

drives);

58TB

TB (with

ATA

drives)

8.8TB

(with

Fibre

Channe

l

drives);

13.5TB

(with

ATA

drives)

4.4TB

(with

Fibre

Channe

l

drives);

6TB

(with

Fibre

Channe

l and

ATA

drives)

35TB

(1)

Maximu

m

Drives

With All

Expansi

on

224 224 112 56 38/66 240 60 30 240 (1)

Disk

Controll

er

2

standar

d

2

standar

d

2

standar

d

2

standar

d

1

standar

d/2

standar

d

2

standar

d

2

standar

d

2

standar

d

2

standar

d

Maximu

m

Cache

1GB

per

controll

er; 2GB

per

system

1GB

per

controll

er; 2GB

per

system

1GB

per

controll

er; 2GB

per

system

128MB

per

controll

er;

256MB

per

system

128MB

per

controll

er;

256MB

per

system

4GB

per

storage

process

or, 8GB

per

system

1GB

per

storage

process

or, 2GB

per

system

512MB

per

storage

process

or, 1GB

per

system

1GB

per

controll

er; 2GB

per

system

Host

System

Interfac

e

FC-AL,

FC-SW

(2Gb)

FC-AL,

FC-SW

(2Gb)

FC-AL,

FC-SW

(2Gb)

FC-SW

(2Gb)

FC-AL,

FC-SW

(1Gb)

FC-AL,

FC-SW

(2Gb)

FC-AL,

FC-SW

(2Gb)

FC-AL,

FC-SW

(2Gb)

FC-SW

(1Gb or

2Gb)

Drive

Interfac

e

FC-AL

(2Gb)

FC-AL

(2Gb)

FC-AL

(2Gb)

FC-AL

(2Gb)

FC-AL

(1Gb)

FC-AL

(2Gb),

ATA

FC-AL

(2Gb),

ATA

FC-AL

(2Gb),

ATA

FC-AL

(2Gb)




Model IBM

FAStT90

0

IBM

FAStT70

0

IBM

FAStT60

0 Turbo

IBM

FAStT60

0

IBM

FAStT20

0/200HA

EMC

CLARiiO

N CX600

EMC

CLARiiO

N CX400

EMC

CLARiiO

N CX200

(dual

controlle

r model)

HP

Storage

Works

Enterpris

e Virtual

Array

5000

Fault-

Toleran

ce

Feature

s

(Standa

rd or

Option

al)

Redund

ant,

Hot-

Swappa

ble

Compo

nents

(2)

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Dual

Power

Cords


Mirrore

d

Cache

Yes Yes Yes Yes No/Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Battery

Backed-

Up

Cache

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

(destag

es to

disk)

No

(destag

es to

disk)

No

(destag

es to

disk)

Yes

Hot-

Standby

Spare


High-Availability Features (Standard or Optional)

Automa

tic

Failover


Alternat

e

Pathing

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes




Model IBM

FAStT90

0

IBM

FAStT70

0

IBM

FAStT60

0 Turbo

IBM

FAStT60

0

IBM

FAStT20

0/200HA

EMC

CLARiiO

N CX600

EMC

CLARiiO

N CX400

EMC

CLARiiO

N CX200

(dual

controlle

r model)

HP

Storage

Works

Enterpris

e Virtual

Array

5000

Point-

in-Time

Copy


Remote

Copy

Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes No Yes

Environ

mental

Monitori

ng


Phone-

Home

Capabili

ty


Remote

Diagnos

tics


Nondisr

uptive

Microco

de

Update

s


Nondisr

uptive

Volume

Expansi

on

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes

Cluster

Support


(1) With special two base-unit/one expansion-unit configuration, the HP EVA scales to 480 drives or 70TB.

Includes controllers, disk drives, fans and power supplies.




Model HP

Storage

Works

Enterpris

e Virtual

Array

3000

HDS

Freedom

Storage

Thunder

9570V

StorageT

ek D280

Disk

Subsyste

m

StorageT

ek D178

Disk

Subsyste

m

StorageT

ek D240

Disk

Subsyste

m

StorageT

ek D220

Disk

Subsyste

m

Sun

StorEdge

6320

Sun

StorEdge

3510

Sun

StorEdge

6120

(dual

controlle

r model)

Maximu

m Raw

Storage

Capacit

y With

All

Expansi

on Units

8.2TB 32.7TB 32.7TB 32.7TB 16.5TB 6.1TB 45TB 5.3TB 12.2TB

Maximu

m

Drives

With All

Expansi

on

56 224 224 224 112 42 308 36 84

Disk

Controll

er

2

standar

d

1

standar

d, 2nd

optional

2

standar

d

2

standar

d

2

standar

d

2

standar

d

2 for

every

14

drives

1 or 2

(model

depend

ent)

1

standar

d, 2nd

optional

Maximu

m

Cache

1GB

per

controll

er, 2GB

per

system

2GB

per

controll

er, 4GB

per

system

1GB

per

controll

er, 2GB

per

system

1GB

per

controll

er, 2GB

per

system

1GB

per

controll

er, 2GB

per

system

128MB

per

controll

er;

256MB

per

system

2GB

per

mirrore

d

partner

pair;

22GB

maximu

m per

rack

1GB

per

controll

er, 2GB

per

system

1GB

per

controll

er, 2GB

per

system

Host

System

Interfac

e

FC-SW

(1Gb or

2Gb)

Fibre

Channe

l (1Gb

or 2Gb)

FC-AL,

FC-SW

(2Gb)

FC-SW

(2Gb)

FC-AL,

FC-SW

(2Gb)

FC-AL

(1Gb or

2Gb)

Fabric

Port (F

Port)

(2Gb)

FC-AL,

FC-SW

(2Gb)

Fibre

Channe

l (2Gb)

Drive

Interfac

e

FC-AL

(2Gb)

FC-AL

(2Gb)

FC-AL

(2Gb)

FC-AL

(2Gb)

FC-AL

(2Gb)

FC-AL

(1Gb or

2Gb)

Fibre

Channe

l (1Gb)

Fibre

Channe

l (2Gb)

Fibre

Channe

l (1Gb)




Model HP

Storage

Works

Enterpris

e Virtual

Array

3000

HDS

Freedom

Storage

Thunder

9570V

StorageT

ek D280

Disk

Subsyste

m

StorageT

ek D178

Disk

Subsyste

m

StorageT

ek D240

Disk

Subsyste

m

StorageT

ek D220

Disk

Subsyste

m

Sun

StorEdge

6320

Sun

StorEdge

3510

Sun

StorEdge

6120

(dual

controlle

r model)

Fault-Tolerance Features (Standard or Optional)

Redund

ant,

Hot-

Swappa

ble

Compo

nents

(1)


Dual

Power

Cords


Mirrore

d

Cache


Battery

Backed-

Up

Cache


Hot-

Standby

Spare


High-Availability Features (Standard or Optional)

Automa

tic

Failover


Alternat

e

Pathing


Point-

in-Time

Copy


Remote

Copy

No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes

Environ

mental

Monitori

ng





Model HP

Storage

Works

Enterpris

e Virtual

Array

3000

HDS

Freedom

Storage

Thunder

9570V

StorageT

ek D280

Disk

Subsyste

m

StorageT

ek D178

Disk

Subsyste

m

StorageT

ek D240

Disk

Subsyste

m

StorageT

ek D220

Disk

Subsyste

m

Sun

StorEdge

6320

Sun

StorEdge

3510

Sun

StorEdge

6120

(dual

controlle

r model)

Phone-

Home

Capabili

ty

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No (2) Yes

Remote

Diagnos

tics

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes

Nondisr

uptive

Microco

de

Update

s


Nondisr

uptive

Volume

Expansi

on

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes INA Yes INA

Cluster

Support


INA – Information Not Available

(1) Includes controllers, disk drives, fans and power supplies.

(2) The StorEdge 3510 can provide alerts and pages to the user via Diagnostic Reporter; however, Sun Services

cannot act on those alerts. The customers must upgrade their services to StorEdge 3900 or StorEdge 6900 level to

obtain full phone-home support.

Strengths

• FAStT600 Turbo Fleshes Out Line—IBM’s FAStT600 scales up to 8.2TB (with the September 2003enhancements), while the FAStT700 and FAStT900 scale to over 30TB. The new FAStT600 Turbomodel, with scalability up to 16.5TB, therefore nicely fills the capacity gap that IBM had in the middleof its midrange line. In addition, the FAStT600 Turbo offers additional functionality including supportfor more partitions than the original FAStT600, more cache, support for FlashCopy and support forVolumeCopy. There is also an easy upgrade path for existing FAStT600 customers.

• VolumeCopy—IBM increased the replication options on its FAStT line with the introduction ofVolumeCopy, available on the FAStT900, FAStT700 and FAStT600.

• Strong Warranty—-In most cases, IBM offers a strong warranty for its midrange product line relativeto the competition. It surpasses the standard offerings on EMC’s CLARiiON products, HDS’ Thunder



Series and Sun’s StorEdge products, is equal to HP’s EVA3000 and StorageTek’s D Series products,and is surpassed only by HP’s EVA5000 product.

Limitations

• Product Overlap—-The FAStT900 is marketed as a high-performance model to the midrangeenterprise or “edge” market. In terms of performance, it overlaps with the low end of IBM’s enterprise-class product, the Enterprise Storage Server (“Shark”), and may actually be a reasonable alternativeto the Shark in certain open systems environments where advanced copying facilities are notrequired. In addition, the new FAStT600 Turbo has the potential to encroach what would traditionallybe FAStT700 target markets.

• Upgrade Limitations—-IBM doesn’t offer a nondisruptive upgrade path between its FAStT modelsexcept for the ability to add a second controller to the FAStT200 to make it a FAStT200 HA. While theexpansion cabinets are consistent throughout the line, providing some investment protection for thedrives, and while there is some software upgradability, customers who want better performance ormore functionality than their FAStT200, FAStT600 or FAStT700 can provide must replace thecontroller module completely. It cannot be upgraded to the next level via a component-level upgrade.

Recommended Gartner Research

Disk Array Storage: Comparison Columns, DPRO-90825.

EMC CLARiiON Disk Arrays, DPRO-90079

Hewlett-Packard StorageWorks Enterprise Virtual Array Series, DPRO-106857

Hitachi Data Systems Freedom Storage Thunder Disk Arrays, DPRO-101248

Insight

When IBM introduced the FAStT900 in March 2003, it gave IBM a strong “high-end of the midrange”product to target toward the midrange enterprise market. The September 2003 addition of the FAStT600Turbo performs a similar function for the “middle of the midrange.” Its 16.5TB capacity and enhancedreplication options freshen up the middle of the line and complement the other FAStT offerings.

Documents

IBM FAStT Storage Server Disk Arrays...Storage Server (ESS), designed for the enterprise disk storage market where both mainframe and open systems connectivity are required; the 7133