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Tag: midrange

  • 3PAR Launches Fastest Midrange Single-System Storage Array


    The global utility storage provider 3PAR has announced the launch of its InServ F400 Storage Server, writes Samanatha Sai for storage.biz-news.

    The company says it is the fastest single-system midrange storage array based on the results of the audit and peer review SPC-1 submitted to the Storage Performance Council (SPC) – a vendor neutral standards company.

    The storage array also is reported to provide one of the best price-to-performance ratios that have been submitted to the SPC so far.

    Brian Garrett, technical director of Enterprise Strategy Group Lab, said the latest round of SPC-1 Results proves that the Mesh-Active 3PAR architecture delivers industry-leading levels of performance across both high-end and midrange Fibre Channel arrays.

    "The advanced features of the 3PAR InServ F400 eliminate the performance and scalability compromises that typically accompany midrange storage," he said.

    "This is particularly crucial in this economy, where organizations are pressed to do more with less and are looking for low-cost, high-performance alternatives."

    The array uses a quad controller and is the only midrange array with this architecture in the market today.

    The quad controller is Mesh Active and was designed to overcome the technical limitations that were bothersome facts of traditional midrange arrays.

    The features and benefits associated with mid range arrays are all available at a price that is targeted to the midrange storage market.

    The results show that it has achieved a total of 93,050.06 SPC-1 IOPS, an 8.85-millisecond average response time, a total ASU capacity of 27,046.695 gigabytes, at a cost of USD $5.89/SPC-1 IOPS.

    Significantly there is 96 per cent capacity utilization right out of the box. Complex configuration or performance tuning such as "short stroking" is also not required to achieve these results.

    The F400 scales up to four clustered, Mesh-Active controller nodes powered by the 3PAR Gen3 ASIC with Thin BuiltIn.

    Moreover, each volume can be active on any mesh unlike the traditional midrange controller architectures where only one volume can be active on one Mesh.
    This results in the delivery of a robust, load balanced performance with mixed workloads.

    The Gen3 ASIC is also designed to process data and metadata independently in different processors or memory subsystems within the controller.

    This delivers high performance for mixed workloads. It also avoids the limitation that encourages legacy array sprawl and maintains performance integrity without having to deploy separate midrange array for each workload.

    David Scott, 3PAR CEO

    David Scott, 3PAR president and CEO, said the new F-Class delivers an efficient and simple midrange storage system that scales not only in capacity but also in performance and connectivity.

    "InServ F-Class arrays were designed to eliminate the scalability, efficiency, and management sacrifices typical with traditional midrange systems, and this SPC-1 Result proves that we have been able to do this while delivering performance and price-performance leadership," he said.

  • Hitachi Unveils Midrange Storage Platform


    Hitachi Data Systems has unveiled its next-generation line-up of midrange storage systems, the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS) 2000 Series.

    The company says the ground-breaking new systems introduce a wide range of pioneering technologies previously unavailable on a midrange storage platform.

    It says they deliver improved performance, connectivity, scalability, reliability and ease-of-use to midrange customers.

    Customers benefit by implementing a sophisticated, cost-effective midrange storage platform that can scale to better address their growing storage environments and diverse application requirements.

    Mark Peters, an analyst with the Enterprise Strategy Group, said that mid-sized businesses and operations have precisely the same challenges as larger ones.

    But he said the storage industry often met their needs for reduced scale and increased affordability with a significantly compromised feature set.

    "The new AMS products from Hitachi turn such old-fashioned notions on their head, providing mid-sized storage systems that blend advanced functionality and affordability with flexibility and ease of use,” he said.

    “Hitachi’s innovative combination of a SAS backend with an advanced active-active controller is what underpins the systems’ extensive capabilities, which users can access via a straightforward GUI.”

    The Hitachi AMS Series 2000 delivers up to 4x the performance compared to prior generations, and also offers storage consolidation for iSCSI, NAS, and Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) connections.

    The AMS Series 2000 is comprised of three models: the Hitachi AMS 2100, the Hitachi AMS 2300, and the Hitachi AMS 2500.

    The entire portfolio of midrange storage systems meets the benchmarking standard "Five 9’s" of availability, 99.999 per cent uptime.

    The new Hitachi AMS Series 2000 delivers the following:

    • The industry’s Hitachi Dynamic Load Balancing Controller turbocharges the storage system to peak levels of performance with virtually no-touch.
    • Unlike asymmetrical controller designs of traditional midrange storage systems, the breakthrough Hitachi Dynamic Load Balancing Controller eliminates typical bottlenecks and “hot spots” that can decrease I/O response times by monitoring utilization rates of each controller and dynamically enables workload balancing.
    • The industry’s first 3Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Backplane in a midrange storage platform, providing the fastest, most cost-effective way to process and transfer data through a storage controller engine.
    • This breakthrough technology curbs the architectural limitations of arbitrated loop designs with support for up to 32 3Gb/s high-performance point-to-point links that deliver a blistering 9600 MB/sec of bandwidth and dramatically speed data transfer.