Dell EqualLogic PS-series SANs have long led the iSCSI pack with excellent performance, good management tools, 10G Ethernet support, and the ability to scale capacity and I/O simultaneously by stacking together appliances. The latest addition to the line offers more reasons to take a close look, with a high-performance solid-state drive (SSD) array, dynamic storage tiering, and tighter integration with VMware.
The new Dell PS6010XVS model differs from its 16-drive, 4U PS-series brethren only on the inside, where it houses eight 100GB Samsung SSDs and eight 450GB 15K RPM SAS drives, each run in their own RAID6 array. By itself, the SSD-SAS combination isn’t terribly interesting — but what the new version of the EqualLogic firmware can do with it is.
View the InfoWorld Test Center scorecard and read the full review: InfoWorld review: Dell iSCSI SAN sizzles with SSD, dynamic storage tiering