VNX5600: Dell EMC VNX5600 unified storage system (VNX2)

The Dell EMC VNX5600 is a midrange VNX2 unified storage system: a 3U disk processor enclosure with dual storage processors, block (FC, iSCSI, FCoE) and file (NFS, SMB) access, and support for up to 500 drives.

Where it fits: midrange SAN and NAS consolidation, virtualization and file sharing in existing EMC VNX2 environments. Tell us your drive count, DAE types and host connectivity (FC, iSCSI or file) and we confirm the configuration with your quote.

Dell EMC VNX Part Number: VNX5600

Product Description: Dell EMC VNX5600 Unified Storage System

All EMC VNX2 models support 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch SAS drives using either the 15-drive DAE, 25-drive DAE, 60-drive DAE, or 120-drive DAE and they also utilize the 6 Gb/s SAS back-end.
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives, Near Line Serial Attached SCSI (NL-SAS) disk drives, and Flash drives are supported.

The EMC VNX2 series offers:
- PCI-E Gen 3 I/O modules
- 6 Gb/s x 4 lanes SAS back-end infrastructure
- Up to x 8 wide (6 Gb/s x 8 lanes) high-bandwidth connection to 60 drive DAE with new 6 Gb SAS I/O module
- Intel Xeon E5 multicore processors
- Expanded UltraFlex I/O, with denser packaging
- NEBS (Network Equipment-Building System) certified DC-powered arrays on the VNX5200, VNX5400, and VNX5600
- Block functionality that supports the FC, iSCSI, and FCoE protocols
- File functionality that supports the NFS, CIFS, and pNFS protocols
- Maximum of up to 1,500 drives
- 120-drive DAE
- Automated tiering with Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) for block and file data
- Controller based, drive level, Data-At-Rest Encryption
- Updated unified management with Unisphere delivers a cohesive, unified user experience

Install tips:
- Spread flash drives across all available buses, and place them in the lowest numbered enclosures
- Use your flash storage for the active dataset for the best performance
- Plan to reserve at least one of every 30 installed drives of a given type for Hot Sparing. Hot sparing rebuilds the data from a failed drive onto a selected compatible drive. The count can be checked in the GUI at "System->Hot Spare Policy" and at the command line with "naviseccli hotsparepolicy -list"

What drives do you need?
SAS Flash
For extreme performance; these provide the best performance for transactional random workloads, and the lowest write service times. Required for Multicore FAST Cache.

SAS Flash VP
For extreme performance FAST VP tier; these are a higher capacity flash option. Not for use with Multicore FAST Cache.

SAS
For general performance tier.

NL-SAS (generally mechanically the same as 7,200 RPM SATA disks, but feature a SAS interface)
For less active data, well-behaved streaming data, archive purposes, and backups.

EMC VNX Acronyms:
BBU = Battery Backup Units
DAE = Disk Array Enclosures
DME = Data Mover Enclosure
DPE = Disk Processor Enclosure
NEBS = Network Equipment-Building System
SP = Storage Processors
SPE = Storage Processor Enclosure
SPS = Li-Ion Standby Power Supplies