Sun launches StorEdge 3300 series in partnership with storage-system manufacturer DotHillEnschede 16 October 2002 The Sun StorEdge 3300 Series products extend Sun's promise of Complete Storage Solutions by delivering enterprise features into the workgroup. Available October 15 at the Net@Work 2002 Partner Forum show in Florida, the new storage arrays will bring added value to businesses with small to medium deployment requirements and enable customers to do more with less. The first product in the series will be the Sun StorEdge 3310 SCSI array. The new series are the fruit of a partnership with storage-system maker DotHill. DotHill is developing the systems to Sun's specifications. DotHill's hardware features are compliant with Network Equipment Building System (NEBS) standards required by telecommunications companies for computing equipment that withstands shocks, smoke, and high temperatures.
The Sun StorEdge 3300 Series strategically complements the Sun StorEdge product family, and is positioned underneath UNIX market leaders Sun StorEdge 9900, 6900 and 3900 Series arrays. They are designed and tested to take full advantage of Sun's entry level server line that includes the highly regarded Sun LX50, Sun Fire V120, 280R, V480 and V880 servers. Open to heterogeneous environments, these products are ideal for Sun customers who need compact, ultra-dense, ruggedized disk arrays to simplify storage planning and management.
Due to the Sun StorEdge 3310 array's single to dual RAID controllers and simple Web GUI, customers can quickly and cost-effectively expand capacity and easily add Logical Unit Number (LUNs) and disk drives. For a customer to do this using a competing product, they would have to buy additional equipment, shut down their systems, and back up to tape before they can begin to add storage capacity.
Also unique to this product category, the Sun StorEdge 3310 SCSI array includes remote management services software so that IT managers can meet their data storage needs wherever they may be located. It also provides the adaptability needed to grow their business efficiently, connecting to server systems without wasting precious data centre space. By delivering these feature sets in a workgroup system to customers, this array is ideal for a broad range of customers including industrial, retail, life sciences, telco and government who seek simplicity and easier management.
The first product to hit server racks is expected to be the Sun StorEdge 3310 SCSI array. The 2U box supports between 5 to 12 disk drives; single or dual SCSI bus options; single or dual redundant hardware RAID controllers and 512 MB of battery-protected cache per controller. The series will run on all of the latest platforms, including Sun Linux 5.0 and Red Hat Linux distribution 7.3. The series is expected to support Sun Cluster 3.0 software, Sun Solstice DiskSuite software and VERITAS Volume Manager software.
The StorEdge 3310 is a 5.25-inch-thick system with 12 hard drives. A 3310 also can control two other 3310s for extra capacity. It starts at $7000 but is more likely to be purchased in configurations costing about $12.000 to $13.000. Future products will include a 1.75-inch-thick system as well as higher-end models that can share files as a network-attached storage (NAS) storage system or use Fibre Channel high-speed storage network technology.
Initial shipments of the StorEdge 3000 series will include 36GB disk drives, with a 73GB version shipping in about two months. This would mean that 15TB could be contained in a single rack. Hot swapable disks would allow customers to expand capacity without having to shut down systems. An even smaller 1U-high SCSI model, plus fibre channel (FC) and NAS models, are scheduled for release early next year.
The 3000 would become compatible with the Bluefin storage interoperability standard, but would involve a firmware change. All the new 3000 products will debut by the end of the first quarter of 2003. The 3000 line will eventually replace Sun's S1, D1, A1000 and D1000 products. The Sun StorEdge 3300 Series products will support the Linux, NT and Windows 2000 operating systems and the Solaris Operating Environment (Solaris OE).
Ad Emmen |
 |