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In this post we will cover some important aspects / properties / characteristics / differences between the EMC
Symmetrix DMX-4 and EMC Symmetrix V-Max. It seems like a lot of users are searching on blog posts about this
information.
From a high level, I have tried to cover the differences in terms of performance and architecture related to the
directors, engines, cache, drives, etc
It might be a good idea to also run both the DMX-4 and V-max systems through IOmeter to collect some basic
comparisons between the front end and coordinated backend / cache performance data.
Anyways enjoy this post, and possibly look for some more related data in the future post.
64 Fiber Channel total ports on all 128 Fiber Channel total ports on
directors for host connectivity directors/engines for host connectivity
32 FICON ports for host connectivity 64 FICON ports for host connectivity
Total Cache: 512GB with 256 GB Total Cache: 1024 GB with 512 GB usable
usable (mirrored) (mirrored)
Green color drive LED means 2GB Only 4GB drive speed supported.
loop speed, Blue color drive LED
means 4GB loop speed
512 byte style drive (format) 520-byte style drive (8 bytes used for
storing data check info). Remember the
clarion drive styles, well the data stored in
both the cases is different. The 8 bytes
used with the Symmetrix V-Max are the
data integrity field based on the algorithm
D10-TIF standard proposal
FAST: Fully Automated Storage FAST: Fully Automated Storage Tiering will
Tiering may not be supported on be supported later this year on the V-Max
DMX-4’s (most likely since the support systems
might come based on a microcode
level rather than a hardware level)
Microcode 5772 and 5773 has be build Microcode 5874 has been build on base
on previous generation of microcode 5773 from previous generation DMX-4
5771 and 5772 respectively
Largest supported volume is 64GB per Large Volume Support: 240GB per LUN
LUN (Open Systems) and 223GB per LUN
(Mainframe Systems)
128 hypers per Drive (luns per drive) 512 hypers per Drive (luns per drive)
DMX-4 does present some challenges Reduced mirror positions giving customers
with mirror positions good flexibility for migration and other
opportunities
No Virtual Provisioning with RAID 5 Virtual Provisioning allowed now with RAID
and RAID 6 devices 5 and RAID 6 devices
Minimum size DMX-4: A single storage Minimum size V-Max SE (single engine)
cabinet system, supporting 240 drives system can be purchased with 1 engine
can be purchased with a system and 360 drive max.
cabinet
Power PC chips used on directors Intel Quad Core chips used on Engines
Concept of Backplane exists with this V-Max fits in the category of Modular
generation of storage Storage and eliminates the bottle neck of
a backplane
DMX-4 was truly sold as a generation V-Max systems have been sold with a big
upgrade to DMX-3 marketing buzz around hundreds of
engines, millions of IOPs, TB’s of cache,
Virtual Storage
Directors are connected to the system Engines are connected through copper
through a legacy backplane (DMX – RAPID IO interconnect at 2.5GB speed
Direct Matrix Architecture).
No support for FCOE or 10GB Ethernet No support for FCOE or 10GB Ethernet
No support for 8GB loop interface No support for 8GB loop interface speeds
speeds
Strong Marketing with DMX-4 and Virtual Marketing for Virtual Matrix (V-
good success Max) since the product was introduced
with FAST as a sales strategy with FAST
not available for at least until the later
part of the year.
Global Cache on Global Memory Global Cache on local engines chips: again
Directors as cache is shared between multiple
engines, cache latency is expected as
multiple engines request this IO
DMX-4 is a monster storage system The V-Max building blocks (engines) can
create a much larger storage monster
256GB total vault on DMX-4 systems 200GB of vault space per Engine, with 8
engines, we are looking at 1.6TB of vault
storage
385 Read
385 Write
IOPS for 2 PORT of V-Max Systems
128MB/s Hits
635 Read
640 Write
Symmetrix Management Console 6.0 Templates and Wizards within the new
supported, no templates and wizards SMC 7.0 console
Total SRDF Groups supported 128 Total SRDF Groups supported 250
16 Groups on Single Port for SRDF 64 Groups on Single Port for SRDF
V-Max comparison on Connectivity 2X Connectivity compared to the DMX-4
V-Max comparison on Usability 3X usability compared to the DMX-4
(Storage)
DMX-4 was the first version of RAID 6 is 3.6 times better than the DMX-4
Symmetrix where RAID6 support was
rolled out
RAID6 support on DMX-4 is and was a RAID 6 on V-Max (performance) is
little premature equivalent to RAID 1 on DMX-4
SATA II performance on DMX-4 is SATA II drives do not support the 520-
better than V-Max byte style. EMC takes those 8 bytes (520 –
512) of calculation for data integrity T10-
DIF standard proposal and writes it in
blocks or chunks of 64K through out the
entire drive causing performance
degradation.
SATA II performance on DMX-4 is The performance of SATA II drives on V-
better than V-Max Max is bad the DMX-4 systems
Fiber Channel performance better Fiber Channel performance compared to
compared to DMX and DMX-2’s. DMX-4 improved by about 36%
DMX-4 start supporting 4GB interface Fiber Channel performance 5000 IOPS per
host connectivity channel
RVA not available on DMX-4 platforms RVA: Raid Virtual Architecture allows to
have one mirror position for RAID volumes
allowing customers to used the rest of the
3 positions for either BCV’s, SRDF,
Migration, etc, etc.
No MIBE and SIB with DMX-4. Rather MIBE: Matrix Interface Board Enclosure
the DMX-4 directors are connected connects the Odd and the Evens or (Fabric
through a common backplane. A and Fabric B) Directors together. The
SIB (System Interface Board) connects
these engines together using Rapid IO
Director count goes from Director 1 on Director count goes from 1 on the bottom
the left to Director 18 (Hex) on the to 16 (F) on the top, based on each engine
right having 2 directors. 8 Engines, 16
Directors.
2 Directors failures if not in the same Single engine failure (2 Directors) will not
fabric or bus, rather are not DI’s (Dual cause Data Loss / Data Unavailable and
Initiators) of each other will not cause the system will not cause an outage.
a system outage or data loss / data Failed components can be Directors,
unavailable Engines, MIBE, PS’s, Fan, Cache in a
single Engine or 2 directors.
Single loop outages will not cause DU Single loop outages will not cause DU
More architectural details related to drives, cache, directors, cabinets, Mibe, SIB, Service Processor to come in
the V-Max architecture expansion and modularity post over the next week.
Enjoy!!!!
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derekpm 8 months ago
• Rather interesting. Has few times re-read for this purpose to remember. Thanks for interesting article.
Waiting for trackback
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Enki 7 months ago
A couple of clarifications
- V-Max supports 10K drives (400GB available)
- Virtual Provisioning supports Mirrored, RAID 5, & RAID 6 on both DMX and V-Max
- The small system for DMX (the 950) and the V-Max SE both support 120 drives in one rack with the
option of one additional rack to take them to 360 drives.
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StorageNerve 7 months ago in reply to Enki
• Hi Enki,
I do remember the limitation with RAID 5 and RAID 6 devices related to Virtual provisioning on 5773? Has
that been changed?
Cheers, @storagenerve
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Reactions
• This has been the post with the most number of hits in 2010, what does it say about #EMC #V-Max
http://bit.ly/fNAyE customers migrating to
•
• Believe it or not, this has been the post with the most number of hits in 2010, what does it say about
#EMC #V-Max http://bit.ly/fNAyE
•
lamw 8 months ago
• RT @hany_michael: very interesting comparison between EMC DMX4 and V-MAX : http://bit.ly/fNAyE
•
hany_michael 8 months ago
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Twitter – StorageNerve
storagenerve: my eyes are burning out going through this xml code.....but it has some
great info.....looking forward to deciphering it all soon...
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 9:05:04 AM
mvaughn25: RT @StorageNerve: @Kiwi_Si: @mvaughn25 I'm going cold w/the iPad. >-
likewise -> still tempted 2 leverage 14 day return policy, $50 fee tho
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