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Purchasing Used High-End Storage Arrays?

Posted by Cliff on from the purchasing-big-iron-from-for-sale-listings dept.

sphealey asks: "I have an opportunity to purchase a used disk storage array in the terabyte class (which we need) originally manufactured by a leading vendor. The price is reasonable, and the seller is offering to provide installation and a 90-day warranty with the system. The unit appears to be complete and functioning. My question is, what are the pitfalls? And which are likely to occur?

"What I have considered so far:

  • Original vendor charges outrageous fee to license necessary client-side software.
  • Original vendor charges 're-entry fee' of some sort to place unit back on maintenance and support.
  • Shipping and installation nightmares are worse than the usual for this class of equipment, and there is no original vendor to turn to for assistance.
Do any Slashdotters have any experience in this area? Any success or failure stories in purchasing used big iron?"

7 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. Be careful on compatibility by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    For example, HP sells rebranded Metastor arrays (from LSI I think) but they cleverly replace the firmware with their own wonky HP load.

    This doesn't do anything good for the customer, in that it actually decreases the amount of control you have over the array.

    But it does something cool for the vendor (HP that is) because without the HP firmware the Metastor won't work perfectly with the (proprietary, closed-source) HP-UX disk management and monitoring utilities.

    Unscrupulous installers of non-HP Metastor arrays will turn off disk and fiber channel monitoring in HP-UX so as to prevent generating false errors... this also prevents detection of real errors, how 'bout that.

    Be wary, and get a written guarantee of compatibility up front if you can.

  2. If its... by Erk · · Score: 3, Informative

    EMC, then you're in trouble. EMC charges for the software like you mentioned, for both the Clariion and Symmetrix. That is how they make their money. And technically, if you have the opportunity to buy a used Sym, then it is a semi-illegal sale, since EMC is the only authorized person to resell a Sym. Once you buy it, you're stuck with it.

    Sun stuff is pretty good - all of the necessary software to use the array on a direct connect basis is available in the box. It's not pretty, but it works. You can config it using RaidUtil.

    HP would probably lean towards the EMC model more than the Sun model. Software is their big push. You might be able to get it config'd on a direct attached basis, but dunno about in a SAN w/o appropriate software.

    Compaq is the same as HP, but their stuff isn't as good.

    Netapp? They seem to be the most user-friendly when it comes to used equip.

    Just my $0.02.

    1. Re:If its... by sphealey · · Score: 2
      And technically, if you have the opportunity to buy a used Sym, then it is a semi-illegal sale, since EMC is the only authorized person to resell a Sym. Once you buy it, you're stuck with it.
      Actually, in the US I believe that there is a federal law which prohibits prohibitions of that nature. Written to prevent automobile manufacturers from locking up the spare parts market, but applies to other resales as well.

      However, that's not to say that the vendor couldn't make things unbearable for the buyer using perfectly legal means if they were of a mind to, which is what I am trying to scope out here.

      sPh

  3. Re:terabyte by KyleCordes · · Score: 2

    I haven't the fainted idea why my post was moderated 'troll'... I certainly did not intend it as such.

  4. Re:terabyte by sphealey · · Score: 2

    I wouldn't have moderated it "troll" myself, but it was perhaps not the most informed comment ever posted.

    If you are talking about stringing together some ATA drives to make a big storage pool for personal use, then 1 TB is do-able these days.

    However, that's a long way from the configurability, scalability, reliability (99.99999% uptime) and managability of an EMC Symmetrix, HP XP256, IBM Shark, or similar systems in a datacenter environment.

    For example, EMC claims that in 20 years not a single bit of data has been lost on any of their storage arrays where the installation has been approved by EMC field service. That's not an claim to claim to make lightly, nor something easy to accomplish with a string of drives from Fry's.

    sPh

  5. Re:terabyte by KyleCordes · · Score: 2

    Indeed, you are right about both the post and the drives.

    However, there are lots of situations for which people have a need for very large storage, but don't have a need for 99.99999% uptime, amazing reliability, etc., and you can now buy the former for much less cost than the latter. Three years ago, if you needed terabyte, you had to spend a huge amount on an EMC or whatever; now, you only have to spend that if you need a huge amount *and* you need great reliability.

    The world keeps changing, too. In a few more years, if you need a terabyte, that will be one hard drive. If you need higher availability, you'll need just a normal RAID subsystem, which is included in many servers and is far cheaper than an EMC storage system.

    I remember looking at a 10 gig storage subsystem for a document imaging application some years ago. It was an optical disk system with a robotic arm for swapping a library of disks, $20K+ Today my notebook has that much space.

  6. Re:terabyte by sphealey · · Score: 2

    No disagreement here. I remember standing in front of a Division Capital Expenditure Board to get approval for an enormous 1 GIGABYTE disk drive for my file server. It would fit in a wristwatch today...

    sPh