Dell PowerEdge 2800 comparative performance data and test results for Emulex and QLogic HBAs

In January of 2005, Emulex expanded upon previous comparative performance testing efforts that it conducted earlier, in June 2004, which had revealed significant performance advantages over QLogic’s current HBA product offering.

To recap, in those tests Emulex midrange HBA products consistently outperformed QLogic’s enterprise HBA product offering by 25-50 percent in a variety of easily verifiable and reproducible tests that were designed to accurately emulate end user environments. In addition, ‘mixed workload’ testing (I/O profiles of differing block sizes and destinations processed on the same HBA port) was conducted that revealed even more pronounced Emulex performance advantages — as is the case when a single HBA port is used concurrently for disk operations while also performing streaming backup.

These tests utilised one leading storage provider’s server product and accompanying recommended server and HBA settings (test report available at www.emulex.com).