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EMC VNXe3200 midrange NAS system technical overview

The VNXe3200 from EMC is a NAS system for environments that require midrange network storage solutions.

The EMC VNXe3200 is a midrange unified storage array that supports NAS for files and SAN for block storage. The platform supports a hybrid flash setup, which combines the speed of flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) with the space and cost efficiency of mechanical hard disk drives (HDDs). It also supports features such as EMC's Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST) software suite and EMC Storage Analytics.

The VNXe3200 supports up to 150 drives with a maximum capacity of 500 TB and a maximum FAST cache of up to 400 GB. The unit's two-rack-unit-sized enclosures fit up to 25 2.5-inch Serial-Attached SCSI (SAS) drives or 12 3.5-inch SAS/near-line SAS (NL-SAS) drives. The unit supports 100 GB, 200 GB and 800 GB SSDs; 300 GB and 600 GB HDDs with rotational speeds of 15,000 rpm; and 600 GB HDDs with rotational speeds of 10,000 rpm. Support for 800 GB SSDs is only included in the FAST VP software. In addition to its main storage enclosure, the VNXe3200 supports 12-disk and 25-disk enclosures. The 12-disk enclosure supports 3.5-inch SAS and NL-SAS HDDs, and flash SSDs. The 25-disk enclosure supports 2.5-inch SAS HDDs and Flash SSDs.

A maximum of 16 ports per array are supported by the VNXe3200. Of these, eight can be 2/4/6 Gbps Fibre Channel, eight can be Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) for iSCSI, and 16 can be 10 GbE. The unit runs on two Intel Xeon, four-core 2.2 GHz processors, and supports RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6 and RAID 10 configurations.

The VNXe3200 comes with a series of software packs. The base software includes the VNXe Operating Environment, which provides support for most NAS protocols (such as CIFS and NFS), as well as file deduplication and compression, thin provisioning and more. The array comes with the FAST Suite, which provides greater support for flash storage. The FAST VP software provides auto-tiering functionality for SSDs, and FAST Cache extends the system cache to flash drives. EMC Storage Analytics provides storage reporting and analytics functionality for VMware-based environments. It is a storage-only version of VMware vCenter Operations Manager with an EMC Adapter for VNXe systems.

The VNXe3200 comes with the Virtual RecoverPoint Appliance, which works with EMC's RecoverPoint Advanced Protection software.

The VNXe3200 comes with the Virtual RecoverPoint Appliance, which works with EMC's RecoverPoint Advanced Protection software. RecoverPoint provides point-in-time recovery, continuous replication and other data security features. The physical RecoverPoint Appliance is not included, but can be added on. EMC has additional software options available such as EMC Storage Integrator for Microsoft, Virtual Storage Integrator for VMware solutions, the PowerPath multipathing tool and VPLEX/VE for virtual machine clusters. EMC Storage Integrator for Microsoft and Virtual Storage Integrator are both available via free download; PowerPath and VPLEX/VE are licensed separately.

Pricing for the EMC VNXe3200 varies depending on the configuration chosen, but an average, fully configured array costs between $15,000 and $40,000. An array configured with top-end hardware may cost $70,000 or more. EMC offers an industry-standard, three-year warranty with next-business day parts replacement and 9/5 remote support. An optional Enhanced warranty package provides next-business day, on-site support and 24/7 remote support; a Premium package provides four-hour on-site response, as well as post-warranty maintenance and support.

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