By Reid Smith-Vaniz

There are many reasons you may find yourself wondering what to do with your used EMC storage arrays. Maybe you just bought a new EMC array. Maybe you’re considering migrating to another storage platform, but your team isn’t comfortable with the new technology yet. That means you see the migration happening in the next year or two, but you need some additional capacity now, so you’re holding onto or buying a used EMC array, or maybe you’re cash-strapped and half your environment is NetApp and half is EMC and you need to buy more test/dev capacity.

You can always sell your used EMC array, but there are many other options to consider, some of which may be a far better business decision for your organization. Here are 50 options for you to consider.

  1. Archive
  2. DR Target
  3. More spindles for better performance
  4. Upgrade an older array
  5. Buy a used VNX for test
  6. Oracle dev, test, QA expansion platform
  7. CommVault—Disk-based backup and restore target
  8. Veeam—Disk-based backup and restore target
  9. PureDisk—Disk-based backup and restore target
  10. Buy some now and use as leverage when you have to buy new
  11. 1.5X – 3X extra capacity when your budget is flat
  12. Spares for <1 hour response time
  13. Tier 2 storage
  14. Tier 3 storage
  15. Test storage
  16. Remote sites (same platform as main data center)
  17. Data center move
  18. Data migration
  19. Performance booster (lots of spindles)
  20. Hot application that needs its own array
  21. Backup to disk target for backup software
  22. Backup to disk upgrade for array based snaps, clones
  23. Extra disk trays to consolidate your second, third vendor capacity
  24. When you’re in a pinch and EMC can’t deliver
  25. When you want to gain leverage with EMC
  26. When you’re tired of the price you pay for EMC storage
  27. When you need an upgrade the next day
  28. When you want SSD drives and can’t afford them (you can get them used!)
  29. When you want to trade in storage
  30. Rental options for various short-term projects
  31. Extra VMWare storage—you’ll need it!
  32. Disk swap to modify your old storage array into an archive solution
  33. IBM TSM staging disk pool
  34. Restoration point for Data Domain backups
  35. Restoration point for Avamar backups
  36. Target for EMC vPlex
  37. Target for EMC SanCopy
  38. Target for EMC MirrorView
  39. Target for EMC SnapView
  40. Upgrades for your old Clariion
  41. Upgrades for your old Celerra
  42. Upgrades for your new VNX (available used at 30-60% less!)
  43. Extra reserve capacity to make you look like a hero
  44. Used box instead of another vendor that the team has to learn
  45. Image repository
  46. File repository
  47. Testing platform
  48. VMware disk-based backup target (Vizioncore, Veeam, etc.)
  49. When your budget is under-funded
  50. When you need small spindles for your existing databases

Well, we tried to make it an even 50, but had to add just one more:

  1. When you want options EMC can’t or won’t deliver

After reading this list, your problem may be figuring out which of these many alternatives is the right choice for your organization. If you’d like some help with that, just give the storage experts at Reliant a call. We’d be happy to help you sort through the alternatives to find the best way for you to leverage your used EMC storage. Have you considered all the options for your used EMC hardware?