Item: Dell EqualLogic PS Series
Rating: 5
Author: Rob Bates

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have multiple PS SANS across our organization in production and test environments. They serve as storage for a variety of physical and virtual nodes across our landscape. For an organization of our size, we needed heavyweight enterprise level storage, which could handle large Oracle databases, web servers, and general internal servers.

Pros and Cons

Provides a hybrid mixture of SAS and SSD disks
Different raid levels allowed across shelves
Daisy chain SAN controllers

One SAN controller failure can lead to big issues we unfortunately learned
Disks tend to fail quite frequently
The firmware upgrading process could do with an overhaul

Return on Investment

Easy deployment with assistance from Dell meant a quick turn around time
Dell after support very good. Disk failures are dealt with quickly
Management of the units and ease

Alternatives Considered

Compellent and Dell PowerVault

MD shelves which we also use, are a great, smaller alternative to SAN for backup solutions and small projects. The PS series and the Compellent shelves are powerful SAN units, with nothing between them really, apart from the pricing.

Other Software Used

Compellent, Dell PowerVault

Likelihood to Recommend

If you need SAN storage at an enterprise level that can serve iSCSI and/or FC then EqualLogic shelves are a safe bet, especially as you can tier your storage for different speeds. We have a total of four PS Series units across the estate, all various sizes. However, we would recommend looking a Dell Compellents as well, as these are also excellent SANS for the enterprise.

Dell EqualLogic: Enterprise level SAN with a wide range of flexibility and scalability

Overall Satisfaction with Dell EqualLogic PS Series