Tech 10: Must-See Big Data Storage Products

Serious About Storage

With the amount of data generated by IT systems doubling roughly every two years, IT managers are pulling their hair out trying to find a way to store all that information without breaking the bank. Throw in cloud computing and virtualized IT systems and the once relatively straight-forward chore of storing data has become very complex indeed.

Much of the buying decision comes down to balancing performance against cost. If the data needs to be quickly accessible, high performance (such as that provide by flash technology) is needed. Or are we talking about backing up and archiving data? That means high-capacity systems are called for. This month's Tech Ten features a number of recently introduced data storage systems that can help IT managers meet the big data challenge.

American Megatrends StorTrends 3500i SSD Array

The StorTrends 3500i SSD Array combines solid state drive caching and SSD tiering in a single storage appliance that's optimized to support VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. The system, available as a hybrid or full flash array, delivers up to 56 TB of raw storage capacity in a 3U configuration, expandable up to 256 TB.

Cleversafe Slicestor 2440 and 4100 Dispersed Storage Servers

Cleversafe specializes in object-storage technology, which manages data as objects rather than as hierarchical files. The new 2440 and 4100 models provide 5 times and 10 times the "objects per second" (OPS) performance, respectively, of the older 1440 model. The new Cache Vault feature, part of the ClevOS 3.1 release, offers even higher OPS performance for smaller objects, providing faster access to data derived from original source material.

DataDirect Networks SFA12KX Appliance

This line-of-storage appliance platform is designed for data-intensive, high-performance computing environments. The system is based on the company's DDNTM In-Storage processing and SFX application-aware Flash caching technology, and incorporates the latest generation of the Intel Ivy Bridge processors. It's designed to deliver performance of 48 GBps and 1.4 million input/output operations per second.

Hewlett-Packard StoreOnce 6500

The new StoreOnce 6500 is at the high end of HP's StoreOnce Backup line, providing backup performance of 139 TB per hour and recovery performance of 75 TB per hour. The system capacity scales from 120 TB of raw data up to 2240 TB. The system offers enhanced security with the HP StoreOnce Security Pack, central monitoring of distributed storage systems with the HP StoreOnce Enterprise Manager, and autonomic restart capabilities to eliminate failed backup jobs.

IBM Storwize V5000

The Storwize line is IBM's primary storage product line for software-defined environments and virtual infrastructures. The V5000 fits between the V3000 and V7000 models in terms of features, performance, scalability and cost. The system has a maximum capacity of 672 TB of data, using 4-TB drives, and supports two-way clustering. A number of host interfaces are supported, including built-in 1-Gbit iSCSI and 6-Gbit SAS ports, plus optional 8-Gbit Fibre Channel or 10-Gbit iSCSI/10-Gbit FCoE host interface cards.

NetApp FAS8000 Storage Systems

NetApp is targeting its new FAS8000 series enterprise data storage systems toward enterprise customers who are managing data across both private and public clouds. The system, which includes the new FlexArray virtualization software and a new release of Data ONTAP, paves the way to software-defined storage by virtualizing and managing multivendor data storage. The raw data storage capacity ranges from 1,920 TB in the FAS 8020 model to 2,880 TB in the FAS8040 and 4,800 TB in the FAS8060 models.

Oracle ZS3 Series

The ZS3 Series, the newest addition to Oracle's line of ZFS Storage Appliances, simplifies database deployments, increases database performance and reduces storage requirements. The appliance includes the Oracle Intelligent Storage protocol, which automates database tuning and administration, and the Hybrid Columnar Compression technology, which compresses data by 10 to 50 times. The ZS3 is available in two configurations: the ZS3-2 midrange storage appliance with 512 GB of DRAM, 15.2 TB of cache and eight disk enclosures; and the ZS3-4 enterprise class appliance with 2 TB of DRAM, 25.3 TB of cache and 36 disk enclosures.

Overland Storage SnapScale X4

The SnapScale X4 provides high-density storage for managing large volumes of unstructured data. The system can house 1.4 petabytes of capacity in a standard 42U server rack using up to 36 drives in one node. The product unifies NAS and iSCSI storage volumes under one global namespace, and consolidates file-based and block-based access into a single storage architecture.

Quantum DXi4701 Series Deduplication Appliances

The DXi4701, the first model in this new series, offers a usable capacity range of 5 TB to 135 TB with 4-TB, high-density, self-encrypting disk drives. The series offers managed service providers and data center managers a low-cost option for physical and virtual backup and recovery tasks. The products are low-power consumption, support between 1- and 10-Gb Ethernet connectivity, and include install wizards and graphical reporting and replication-scheduling tools.

Western Digital Sentinel DS5100 and DS6100 Network Storage Servers

The WD Sentinel DS5100 and DS6100 are ultra-compact network storage servers that run on Intel Xeon processors and Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials. The four-bay Sentinel S-series includes WD 3.5-inch, datacenter-class hard drives, offering up to 16 TB of raw storage capacity. The systems also have dual dedicated 2.5-inch boot drives, dual gigabit Ethernet ports and dual external DC-in power adaptor ports. The servers also have the capability of running line-of-business applications.