Business News Holding

Tag: storage-solution

  • LSI Launches RAID Controller Cards Based On 6Gb/s SAS Technology


    LSI has launched a new generation of MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID controller cards based on 6Gb/s SAS technology.

    The storage and networking solution provider has also announced its new channel strategy for worldwide customers.

    Compared with 3Gb/s predecessors, the company said the 6Gb/s SAS RAID-on-chip (ROC) system provides more video streams, more database transactions and faster backups.

    This enables the MegaRAID 9200 series controllers to double the data transfer rate and deliver up to 2.88 GB/s in sequential reads and 1.87 GB/s in sequential writes, according to the company.

    The 9200 series controllers also provide channel customers with a low-cost upgrade that is designed to easily integrate with existing 3Gb/s SATA and SAS infrastructure, the company said.

    Suresh Panikar, senior manager of worldwide channel partner marketing and communications at LSI, said the controllers also support both high-performance SAS hard drives and cost-effective, high-capacity SATA drives, as well as energy-efficient solid state drives (SSDs) and bring standardized zoning which improves storage efficiencies by allowing multiple servers to share storage devices.

    They come with four ports and eight ports to reach up to a storage capacity of 480 terabytes.

    The new LSI MegaRAID controllers include five models – MegaRAID 9260-8i (eight internal ports), MegaRAID 9260-4i (four internal ports), MegaRAID 9280-8e (eight external ports), MegaRAID 9260DE-8i and MegaRAID 9280DE-8e. The 9260-8i is available now while the rest will be available by September.

    In addition to the next-generation product, the company announced it has teamed up with channel partners include vertical OEMs (VOEMs), direct market resellers (DMRs), resellers, and distributors to service its customers worldwide. LSI also provides forward looking fundings to those channel partners quarterly in advance for them to have more sufficient resources in promoting and selling LSI products.

    Phil Bullinger, executive vice president and general manager of the Engenio Storage Group at LSI, said: "LSI’s strong channel partnerships are a key strategic advantage in the marketplace and central to the company’s business strategy."

  • SanDisk CEO Harari Bullish About Flash Memory


    SanDisk CEO Eli Harari believes that at $2/GB SSDs aren’t competitive yet with hard drives.

    But he is bullish about the technology’s prospects and believes it offers an ideal storage solution for netbooks.

    In an interview with Tech Trader Daily, he said that you can buy an 80 GB HDD for USD $30-$35.

    SanDisk CEO Eli Harari

    However, that same USD $30 would only get you 15 GB of flash. He suggests that 32 GB of storage is probably enough for many netbook applications.

    But to be competitive with hard drives, Harari said the flash industry will have to be able to sell at USD $1/GB while maintaining profitability.

    He said that wasn’t possible at the current 42-43 nm process technology now used for manufacturing flash.

    But he believes it should be possible at 24 nm, or two generations ahead of the current technology.

    Harari told Tech Traders usage of SSDs will start to pick up in this year’s second half and hit the mainstream in a big way in 2011.

  • Researchers Opt For COPAN's Fast Access and Security


    One of the world’s leading life science research institutes announced today that it has chosen a COPAN Systems-based storage solution to meet its demanding data storage needs.

    The Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) has a strong record of innovation in the molecular biology of disease.

    Researching, developing, testing and delivering these medical breakthroughs require generating, analyzing and retaining huge quantities of data.

    This critical data is not necessarily accessed regularly but must be kept instantly available at all times for crucial analysis.

    Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, Switzerland

    Dean Flanders, head of informatics at FMI, said no other company on the market could match the COPAN Systems solution in such a demanding environment.

    “Our competitive review found that no other system could provide this kind of high performance, scalability and cost-effectiveness to meet our persistent data needs," he said.

    "This means we can provide fast access to a vast amount of data in a very small footprint.”

    Located in Basel, Switzerland, a large proportion of FMI’s life science data is generated from microscopy, but new projects led the institute to seek a storage solution to support a wider range of data.

    A single new piece of laboratory equipment can radically alter the organization’s storage needs.

    For example, two new Illumina Genome Analyzers are each capable of producing up to two terabytes of data per week.

    In this environment, FMI sought a cost-effective solution for backing up and restoring multi-terabyte file systems while coping with limited power, cooling and space resources.

    The institute, part of the Novartis Research Foundation, needed to innovate beyond a traditional file server system which leaves too much persistent data on expensive tier one storage, straining existing infrastructure.

    A traditional HSM system was out of the question since the high volume and file size of FMI’s life science data meant a tape system would present slow access rates, data integrity issues and no online access.

    FMI was also concerned about pressure on space, power and cooling resources as their data production grows and their system scales.

    To meet these challenges, FMI selected COPAN Systems’ disk-based Virtual Tape Library, because of its fast access times with the security and reliability of disk.

    The new highly scalable tiered file system has almost no impact to the existing cooling and power infrastructure.

    By migrating persistent data to the new COPAN Systems solution, FMI frees up more expensive tier one storage for its original purpose – modifying and storing quickly changing transactional data.

    Some of the key benefits of the new system for FMI are:

    • Scalability: The system currently holds 40 terabytes of data but can scale in one rack to 896 terabytes without redesigning or changing cooling requirements.
    • Simplicity: By writing a file to FMI’s HSM file system within a defined period of time, the file can be automatically copied to the COPAN Systems MAID platform and another copy created to tape in a remote location as required.
    • Efficiency: COPAN Systems’ ultra-dense disk configurations are enhanced using Enterprise MAID technology. COPAN Systems powers off disks that have no outstanding IO requests, thus reducing power consumption by around 85 percent.