EqualLogic PS300E

For testing, we connected a single member to our copper Gigabit Ethernet network and created an eight-disk RAID10 array for performance. We then created a 50GB volume and used a single Gigabit connection from the appliance. Starting with a single dual-Xeon Windows Server 2003 system, we logged on to the target using Microsoft's freely available iSCSI Initiator 2. With the open-source Iometer configured with two disk workers, 64KB sequential read transfer requests and ten outstanding I/Os, we saw it report a truly impressive raw read throughput of 112MB/sec. Adding a second Gigabit connection and logging onto the same volume from a second server, Iometer returned a cumulative throughput of 214MB/sec. Finally, with the third Gigabit port connected and a third server in the picture, we saw the three instances of Iometer report a cumulative throughput of 300.5MB/sec, confirming EqualLogic's performance claims.

It's true that for some time iSCSI hasn't been viewed as a replacement for FC. But we've seen 4Gb/sec FC suffering from high prices and an indifferent marketing campaign, and it's likely 10Gb/sec FC will go the same way. In contrast, EqualLogic delivers a superb range of features backed up by top performance. With 10Gb Ethernet products becoming ever more affordable, the PS300E provides some compelling arguments as an alternative to FC and also as a replacement.

Author: Dave Mitchell