Couple Thoughts...
1. I"m curious who are they getting SLC flash? High endurance flash today (Like an Intel S3700 that has an impressive 10DWPD) is eMLC. I know Micron and some will custom make whatever you want, I'm just curious for endurance reasons why you would go SLC when eMLC can do quite a lot.
2. Essentials Plus is ~6K for the capex and ~1K a year for support. Saying the "vTax" is significant is a bit of a stretch for
3. Having seen a VSA use 8 Core's (and half of a HCI host) I agree that the VSA architecture has problems scaling (Either out or down). Kernel implemented storage makes the most sense for HCI for CPU and memory reasons.
4. I have a lot of respect for the Scale guys. They are not following Go 4 billion or bust plans of other startups in this space, but a methodical customer focused route. I wish them well, as I think this would be a better model for taking care of customers than many of the existing startup models.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
