The NetApp E2800 Storage System comes from the Engenio group at NetApp as part of the E-Series and is a successor to the E2700. It consists of a dual controller system up to 180 HDDs or SSDs (with a limit of 120 SSDs) with performance and features to meet the block storage requirements for open systems. The E2800 is also offered as an OEM product for NetApp and as part of integrated solutions. The E-Series provides advanced features that have evolved over time to provide high-value capabilities to customers. The E2800, like the E2700, is capable of scaling to mid-range capacity and performance but is targeted at entry-level pricing.
Models of the E2800 include:
The E2800 system is offered for many usage areas including as SAN attached and direct attached storage in high performance computing and big data analytics environments as well as in traditional SAN environments offered through a number of OEMs. The performance of the E2800 exceeds the demands in most environments, which enables an economical solution for a broad set of workloads.
Evaluator Group product review methodology “EvaluScale” assesses each product within a specific technology area. The definitions of the criteria and explanations of how products are reviewed can be found in the Evaluator Series Evaluation Guide. Download the product brief now to view the EvaluScale for this product.
The NetApp E2800, like the midrange E5700, comes from the long line of dual controllers developed by Engenio / LSI and now NetApp with an evolution of design. The E2800 is a block storage system that has been provided to a number of other vendors for inclusion into their environments as well as an independent product.
Basic block storage with necessary advanced features for data protection such as snapshot, async and sync remote replication is offered with the E2800, which is applicable to a very large part of the market. The E2800 does not support scale-out so the performance is fixed based on the configuration and adding capacity (scale up) will affect the access density. Other features such as tiering, data reduction, stretched clusters are not offered, which defines where the E2800 will likely be applied. File access would not be expected with this system as customers are expecting block access with high performance at a particular price point.
Evaluator Group believes that the E-series systems from NetApp have specific targeted usages and will be very effective in those environments. Other products have additional capabilities that may not be needed in the places where the E2800 is successful.