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DDN A³I vs. Supermicro SuperBlade

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    DDN A³I

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ADataDirect Networks (DDN) offers their SFA line of high density block storage solutions, including the SFA14KX and the SFA18K.N/A

    Supermicro SuperBlade

    Score7 out of 10
    N/ASuperBlade is a high density x86 Multi-Node Server for Enterprise Cloud, HPC Applications, from Supermicro. They are available in 8U, 6U and 4U enclosures with hot-swap NVMe support, with air or direct liquid cooling.N/A
    Pricing
    DDN A³ISupermicro SuperBlade
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    DDN A³ISupermicro SuperBlade
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    User Ratings
    DDN A³ISupermicro SuperBlade
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    DDN A³ISupermicro SuperBlade
    Likelihood to Recommend
    DataDirect Networks (DDN)
    Well suited for large data repositories, like video storage, data lake, etc. Wide and deep and does not take up multiple racks. Easily grows with your needs as one can drop in more disks when needed, as you grow.
    Incentivized
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    Supermicro
    Supermicro may be well suited if what you will be deploying on the servers is supported, because if you don't, you may have no support at all. In our case, we have had some hardware problems where the support is not efficient compared to other experiences we had (HP, DELL). On the other hand, their servers price is quite good, so it's a win win if you are looking for better prices than other vendors.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    DataDirect Networks (DDN)
    • Large storage array
    • Fibre channel storage using RAID arrays
    • Each SFA can grow with one master and up to 4 slaves
    • Up to PB or more of storage
    Incentivized
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    Supermicro
    • Good IPMI management, detailed information
    • Their Redfish API is also a good tool to configure/retrieve information from the servers, good for scalability
    • Documentation Online for new updates is up to date (BIOS/FW)
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    DataDirect Networks (DDN)
    • The Disk array appliances load disks from the top
    • Cabler management is more than 4 feet long. Hard to find a rack it really fits in.
    • Interconnects between units need to be more seamless and easier to understand.
    Incentivized
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    Supermicro
    • Their support could be better, it is not the fastest we've got in touch with
    • We have seen strange behaviour on some of their servers, it's better to check if the OS you will be running is supported on their support matrix first
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    DataDirect Networks (DDN)
    No answers on this topic
    Supermicro
    My experience with the support was not that good, it always takes a lot of time to get somewhere when raising a support case. I gave it a 6 because I think they have room for improvement here, It could be good if they would act quicker and send in replacements for faulty hardware.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    DataDirect Networks (DDN)
    IBM is close to the Platinum level but DDN comes in large and cheaper but with a bit less features.
    Incentivized
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    Supermicro
    The supermicro superblade servers are performing really well on our infrastructure, we are running a broad set of applications: voip, JAVA, linux, windows, hypervisors, etc. They are easy to install and configure and the price is a winning situation. On the other hand, The support is not so good, HP and DELL are stronger in this point. If you get any failures on your systems, they will replace them immediately, but supermicro will ask for a lot of information on the case before handing out replacement hardware, which makes it slow.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    DataDirect Networks (DDN)
    • ROI is that it seems very economical for massive video camera storage.
    • Dedicate a rack to it.
    • Best if all units are next to each other but do not have to be.
    Incentivized
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    Supermicro
    • Their price has allowed us to save money when buying servers on bulk
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots