Dot Hill Unveils 10Gbit iSCSI Arrays For SMB Channel

Dot Hill on Thursday expanded its SMB storage offerings with the company's first array with 10Gbit Ethernet iSCSI connectivity.

Dot Hill is targeting its new AssuredSAN 3400 series arrays at SMB customers looking for high-performance storage at a reasonable price, said Alan Bracken, hardware product manager for the Longmont, Colo.-based vendor.

The new AssuredSAN 3400 comes to market at a time when customers are expected to start looking at 10Gbit Ethernet as an alternative not only to higher-priced Fibre Channel but also to lower-cost Gbit Ethernet, Bracken said.

iSCSI, when run on a 10Gbit Ethernet network, rivals Fibre Channel in terms of performance while keeping costs down for SMB customers, Bracken said.

"By 2011 or 2012, we'll see a switchover from Gbit Ethernet to 10Gbit Ethernet for iSCSI," he said. "The cost of 10Gbit iSCSI storage will still be about twice that of Gbit iSCSI. But there will come a time soon when IT administrators will look at that and think, 'Two times the price for all that performance? I'd better do it.'"

Next: Details Of The AssuredSAN 3400 Series

The AssuredSAN 3400 series arrays fits either 12 or 24 hard drives into a 2U rack mount enclosure with one or two controllers, each of which includes 2GB of cache memory.

Customers can order the arrays with or without hard drives installed, and solution providers can add drives in the field, Bracken said.

Dot Hill offers three optional storage software applications, including AssuredSnap for data snapshots to protect data against accidental or malicious loss or corruption, AssuredCopy for copying and migrating of data volumes, and AssuredRemote, which sends data snapshots over a WAN for remote recovery and disaster recovery.

The AssuredSAN 3400 is the latest entry in Dot Hill's 3000 series of SMB arrays.

Other models offer 8-Gb Fibre Channel, 6-Gb SAS, and hybrid Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity.

Next: Expanding Dot Hill's New Channel Focus

Dot Hill has traditionally focused exclusively on the OEM storage channel where it counts among its customers such vendors as Hewlett-Packard and NetApp.

However, the company this Spring came to market with its first products aimed at solution providers, and paired those products with its first channel program.

The AssuredSAN 3400 Series is expected to ship to the channel starting November 1 with a list price starting at $18.970, which includes two controllers but no hard drives, Bracken said.