EqualLogic PS3800XV Storage Array

The ease of setup and management of the PS3800VX is outstanding and sets a benchmark for many of EqualLogic's competitors. Components are solid, move in and out easily and the cooling works very well indeed, something that is critical where 15,000 rpm drives are concerned.

The only downsides are the lack of a spare drive which every other storage vendor seems to supply, the lack of network cables and the problem with secure login for email. None of these are insurmountable and given the overall ease of use, it might seem churlish to highlight them. However, they are something that EqualLogic's competitors all do and it's hard to see how it would cause EqualLogic a problem.

There is no RAID 6 support but unlike arrays that use drives ranging from 500MB to 1TB, it is not required here.

At £28,300 this is not the cheapest 2.3TB you will every buy but don't forget that this is high speed, enterprise ready, SCSI replacement storage aimed at tier one applications. Other storage vendors are heavily focussed on the tier 2, high volume SATA market and this gives EqualLogic a clear advantage.

If you need mission critical storage to support transactional applications such as email and databases this is the solution for you.