Why Compellent is the right SAN for your business needs.
December 08, 2015

Why Compellent is the right SAN for your business needs.

Justin Stumpf | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Compellent

We use Compellent as our tier one storage for all of our systems. What really sold us on Compellent vs. the other vendors was their approach to block level storage that at the time was unique. Their ability to set RAID levels based on how often that particular block of data is accessed tremendously increases IOPS for data that is most in need. We store all of our SQL databases on our main array, as well as any other business systems that require the fastest storage. I would highly recommend anyone looking for an enterprise class SAN to consider Compellent. Their feature set, support, and pricing model is top notch in my book.

Pros

  • Block level RAID with data tiered based on how often those blocks are read or written.
  • You can mix and match different ways of accessing the SAN, FC or ISCSI.
  • They offer the ability to mix and match drive speeds and sizes within racks. This provides for larger, slower drives to store old data, while providing fast SSD storage for data that is constantly in use.

Cons

  • I would like to see better options for data replication between sites.
  • Switching to Compellent more than doubled the database performance of our main business application.
We initially used EqualLogic, however we found the Compellent to scale better, do more, and cost nearly the same. Their approach to storage technology was very innovative and seemed to be the most comprehensive. We needed a SAN that was enterprise class in technology, but at the price of something smaller.
Compellent fits very well in the mid-sized business market. I wouldn't call it a system that would do well with a company the size of Google or Apple. The cost, features, and speed is what makes Compellent a perfect fit for any business that needs a quality SAN that can scale as needed.

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