January 11th, 2009 
Kiwi Si 
Here’s an interesting article, albeit a couple of years old now, that gives information on an approach that the writer offers for implementing a low cost iSCSI SAN storage solution using HP hardware. There isn’t too much detail around the array controller used (though something like an HP e200 RAID controller would suffice for starters). Though it does give a high-level overview for putting together a low cost HP Proliant ML350 iSCSI SAN based solution and gives reasons why this may be preferable over using more costly HP MSA 1500 hardware. For an entry level production SAN I personally think the HP EVA 4400 offers good bang for buck and is a better option over an HP MSA based solution, though as we all know the budget for purchasing either of these (or similar) is not always possible and a low cost iSCSI SAN solution using hardware such as that outlined in the article would work a treat in many instances.
I have never used the SANMelody software mentioned though for even more cost savings an ‘Open Source’ iSCSI SAN alternative such as OpenFiler or FreeNAS could be used. For more techie based detail, check out my article on configuring OpenFiler v2.3 for VMware ESX (blatant traffic plugging). 
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My name is Simon Seagrave and I am a London (UK) based Technical Architect. 
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I did an MSA1500 implementation a couple of months back, and I don’t recommend them for a resilient back end storage anyway, vmware only supports single controller arrays see the esx3.5 I/O guide.
A controller swap and rescan is required if the active controller fails (the one on the right hand side) and a reboot of all the VM’s.
Not used datacore before so might take a look at this, cheers.
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Hi Alan
Thanks for this useful information. It’s great to get real-world feedback on any such gotcha’s or short-comings – this will certainly help others.
Appreciated.
Cheers,
Si
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We’ve been using Sanmelody here for a year now on HP kit (DL380/MSA70 + 5 ESX hosts). Very robust and great support.
We looked at the 1500 but seemed to be lots of people saying more than 2 hosts would probably overwork the controller. So low cost yes
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