With the release of EMC Symmetrix V-Max systems, EMC introduced higher density EFD’s (Enterprise Flash Disks) than being supported on its predecessor, the EMC Symmetrix DMX-4.
Below are some stats related to the supported drive types on a Symmetrix V-Max system with 5874.123.104 microcode.
Possibly with introduction of FAST (Fully Automated Storage Tiering) later in the year we will see an upgrade to the microcode family for the V-Max systems to 5976, also with that expect a much denser EFD support.
In the mean time we should atleast see some additional support for VSphere 4.0 (Vmware) in 2009 with 5875 family of microcode. With that we should see sort of a new concept of Federation with Symmetrix V-Max Systems where EMC might give some clues on how the 8 engine systems might be expanded into either 16 or 32 engine systems. A nice blog post by @edsai on the breathing data site. http://breathingdata.com/?p=20
The following size drives types are supported with Symmetrix V-Max Systems at the current microcode 5874: 146 GB, 200 GB, 300 GB, 400 GB, 450 GB, 1000 GB.
Drive Types, Rotational Speed and Formatted Capacity
146 GB FC Drive
Drive Speed: 15K
Open Systems Format Cap: 143.53 GB
Mainframe Format Cap: 139.34 GB
300 GB FC Drive
Drive Speed: 15K
Open Systems Format Cap: 288.19 GB
Mainframe Format Cap: 279.77 GB
400 GB FC Drive
Drive Speed: 10K
Open Systems Format Cap: 393.84 GB
Mainframe Format Cap: 382.32 GB
450 GB FC Drive
Drive Speed: 15K
Open Systems Format Cap: 432.29 GB
Mainframe Format Cap: 419.64 GB
1000 GB SATA II Drive
Drive Speed: 7.2K
Open Systems Format Cap: 984.81 GB
Mainframe Format Cap: 956.02 GB
200 GB EFD
Drive Speed: Not Applicable
Open Systems Format Cap: 196.97 GB
Mainframe Format Cap: 191.21 GB
400 GB EFD
Drive Speed: Not Applicable
Open Systems Format Cap: 393.84 GB
Mainframe Format Cap: 382.33 GB
Support for 73GB and 146GB EFD’s have been dropped with the Symmetrix V-Max Systems, they will still be supported with the Symmetrix DMX-4 Systems which in addition to 73 GB and 146GB also supports 200GB and 400GB EFD’s.
