EMC announced another upgrade to its homongeneous proprietary single frame architecture this week. Its been a couple of years, seems about right. Claiming its the next great thing in storage and……gasp…..virtualization. Did they say virtualization, really? I didn’t realize that their new definition of storage virtualization only applies to disk sitting inside the box! Customers’ willingness to buy into this will certainly test the limits of EMC’s sales machine.
Tony Asaro points out many of the questions that clearly remain and we will be interested to see if any answers emerge any time soon. I also noticed the V-Max’s claim to consume 20% less power per TB. I sure hope so, especially when you’re stacking that much storage inside a single “virtual” frame. We’ll see about all this, but I for one am Max’ed out from all the hype and patiently await the proof so we can really see whether this new box is revolutionary or simply another attempted extension of the good old days.
Comments (5 )
Ramesh Rajan on 23 Apr 2009 at 8:25 am
Hi Asim,
I also don’t agree with EMC’s claims of using 20% less power per TB. But there has to be someway to prove our disagreement. What better tool to use than to do some math to verify and deny such claims. I am assuming that they are comparing the Power consumption of DMX-4 and V-Max.
EMC’s terminology for Controller Frame is System Bay and Disk Frame is Storage Bay. Here are the specs i pulled out from EMC website.
DMX-4 Power Specs (fully populated)
System Bay – 6.4 kVA
Storage Bay – 6.1 kVA
V-MAX Power Specs (fully populated)
System Bay – 7.8 kVA
Storage Bay – 6.1 kVA
So my calculation says the new V-MAX uses 1.4 kVA more than the older DMX-4 and that is 21.4% higher and not lower. So EMC is greenwashing the customers with false claims of green and reduced power consumption.
Asim Zaheer on 23 Apr 2009 at 5:42 pm
Ramesh – real good stuff. But I’m wondering how they could have got their claims so completely wrong. Anyone out there with any data that can prove EMC’s V-Max green claims?
Ramesh Rajan on 24 Apr 2009 at 8:30 pm
Asim,
V-MAX uses 24.2% more power per TB compared to DMX-4. EMC’s claims on using 20% less power per TB is false. These claims are absolutely outrageous about being green. May be DMX-4 is greener than V-MAX.
DMX-4 supports 1 System Bay and 8 Storage Bay. Maximum Scalability 2400 Drives(can be flash, FC or SATA)
As per my earlier calculation of power consumption
1 x System Bay * 6.4kVA = 6.4kVA
8 x Storage Bay * 6.1kVA = 48.8kVA
Total DMX-4 Power Consumption for 2400 drives = 55.2kVA
V-Max supports 1 System Bay and 11 Storage Bay. Maximum Scalability 2400 Drives(can be flash, FC or SATA)
1 x System Bay * 6.4kVA = 7.8kVA
10 x Storage Bay * 6.1kVA = 61.1kVA
Total V-MAX Power Consumption for 2400 drives = 68.9kVA
Armand "Mandy" Perera on 27 Apr 2009 at 3:35 pm
Ramesh,
Great Comparison and Great Points!
I think you have quite effectively shown the newly announced EMC Symmetrix V-Max is just not as “Green” as the Hitachi Universal Storage Platform V, and maybe not as “Green” as the Symmetrix DMX-4. However, my curiosity had the best of me and I wondered if a configuration exists that would allow EMC to make the claim the Symmetrix V-Max requires “20% Less Power per TB” then a Symmetrix DMX-4. I have been watching EMC for quite awhile, and they don’t openly misrepresent things, but they are pretty good at coming up with a configuration that fits their story. To determine what the baseline configuration could be, I added the environmental data for the Symmetrix DMX-4 950 and the new Symmetrix V-Max SE to what you had already provided. I included them below to simplify the comparison.
Symmetrix DMX-4 950
1 x System Bay – 4.7kVA,
1 x Storage Bay – 5.9kVA
Symmetrix V-Max SE
1 x System Bay – 4.3kVA
1 x Storage Bay – 6.1kVA
Symmetrix DMX-4
1 x System Bay – 6.4kVA
1 x Storage Bay – 6.1kVA
Symmetrix V-Max
1 x System Bay – 4.1kVA (4 V-Max Engines)
1 x System Bay – 7.8kVA (8 V-Max Engines)
1 x Storage Bay – 6.1kVA
So based on my suspicions that EMC may have “baked” a configuration to support the V-Max “Green” marketing claims I took a little closer look. At first glance you can see EMC did not use the V-Max SE and DMX-4 950 as the basis for the comparison as I initially thought. This is due to the limited difference in kVA (.4 kVA) between the two system bays. However, If you compare the maximum kVA for a Symmetrix DMX-4 configuration with one system and one storage bay (6.4 + 6.1 = 12.5 kVA), against a Symmetrix V-Max configuration with one system ( 4 V-Max Engine Model) and one storage bay ( 4.1 + 6.1 = 10.2 kVA). The Symmetrix V-Max requires at least “20% Less Power per TB” (12.5 / 10.2 = 1.225) then an equivalently configured Symmetrix DMX-4. I believe this single system bay configuration is non-standard based on how EMC would cable V-Max engines to each storage bay. However, if EMC configured a greater number of storage bays and only partially populated each bay with just the right number of drives to stay within the 6.1 kVA maximum limit I think EMC would have the Symmetrix V-Max “Green” marketing story they were looking for.
So once again Ramesh, I think your example comparing the full blown Symmetrix configurations clearly shows the Symmetrix V-Max story isn’t as “Green” as EMC says it is. Additionally, I hope my attempt to back into the configuration EMC may have used to make the claim the Symmetrix V-Max requires “20% Less Power per TB” makes the overall argument even stronger I think it is fair to say EMC is not guilty of embellishing or comparing “Apples-to-Oranges”, but EMC may be guilty of comparing different kinds of apples, say “Granny Smith-to-Macintosh”.
the storage anarchist on 28 Apr 2009 at 10:02 am
With all due respect, gentlemen, you cannot compare power utilization by looking at spec sheets and counting cabinets. The rated requirements take into consideration the load requirements should one of the two power zones fail, plus the overhead of recharging the integrated UPS’
The appropriate comparisons would be to compare ACTUAL power required (not rated) vs. Usable Capacity (not spindle counts).
But even so, using your faulty logic, consider this: in 11 bays, a V-Max can support over 2PB usable from 2400 RAID-6 protected SATA drives. A DMX-4 maximum usable capacity is closer to 600TB, and so you’d need THREE DMX-4 system bays and TEN storage bays to deliver the same usable capacity.
You should calculate about a 17% power savings using real power utilization data, but I think you’ll get close with the rated numbers as well. The 20% actually comes from smaller configurations, where V-Max can support more usable capacity with fewer DAs and less global memory…