The Imelda Factor in Storage – Spending money like Imelda Marcos in a shoe store.

Let me paint a picture for you – Imagine spending several hundred thousand dollars for a NetApp 3050 Cluster with ATA drives that is only doing 3 OPS. Sitting next to it is an 12 TB R100 with 2 TB of data on it doing 100 OPS. Nearby is a F840 Cluster with 3 TB doing 300 OPS, and next to is a NetApp F820 Cluster with 3 TB doing 200 OPS.

Considering the number of OPS and the amount of storage on these units why would this customer purchase the 3050 cluster? I call this the Imelda Factor in storage purchases , when a sales person convinces a customer that they absolutely need the newest piece of equipment, even if it does not meet the needs or requirements of the application. A persuasive sales person can paint a very nice picture, but that picture is not going to solve a real problem, no matter how good it looks, or how much you spend.

Sometimes it pays to get an outside opinion from a company not affiliated with a storage vendor. It might save your company several hundred thousands of dollars.