Evaluating hardware: Price, capacity, port count and more

Half the usage will support various applications on HP-UX and AIX servers accessing Oracle databases; the other half probably toward a DB2 warehouse application.

Option 1 looks good based on cost ... what a deal. The thought is, nobody is complaining today, so why spend on better stuff! Option 2 looks good based on cost in relation to "newer" stuff. Option 3 looks good based on the cost being close to HDS ... which we thought was rare for EMC. Option 4 looks good primarily because we have been an IBM shop for years, thus the close relationship and all that stuff.

1. IBM 2105 Turbo (new):

32 GB cache
8 2-GB FC
10 TB capacity
72 GB 15k rpm drive
$5,400 monthly 3 year lease

2. HDS Lightning 9980V:

12 GB cache
8 2-GB FC
10 TB capacity
72 GB 15k rpm drive
$12,366 monthly 3 year lease

3. EMC DMX2000:

16 GB cache
16 2-GB FC
10 TB capacity
72 GB 15k rpm drive
$13,722 monthly 3 year lease

4. IBM DS8300:

32 GB cache
8 2-GB FC
10 TB capacity
72 GB 15k rpm drive
$16,350 monthly 3 year lease