Dot Hill: 2U 24-Bay FC and SAS External RAID

Dot Hill Systems Corp. announced availability of a new line of 2U, 24-drive high performance, high density external RAID storage systems that incorporate small form factor (2.5-inch) hard disk drives and solid state disks (SSD). OEMs and system integrators currently evaluating the new solutions expect to start offering the products through their routes to market during the current calendar quarter.

2722
 
The 2722 Fibre Channel (4Gb FC) and 2522 Serial Attached SCSI (3Gb SAS) arrays feature intelligent, fully redundant enterprise-class controllers, with optional support for Dot Hill’s AssuredSnap snapshot and AssuredCopy volume copy data protection software modules. In addition, a 2U, 24-bay 2122 SAS JBOD unit is available to facilitate expansion of the 2722 or 2522 arrays.
 
Featuring a variety of drive options (10,000 or 15,000 RPM SAS, 5400 RPM SATA and SATA-compatible SSD drives), these systems will support a maximum of 96 SAS drives for a total capacity of 28.8 terabytes based on the newest 300 gigabyte SAS drives. An existing Dot Hill 2U, 12-drive 3.5-inch SAS expansion chassis with SAS, SATA or SSD drives can also be intermixed with the 2722 and 2522 arrays to accommodate both the performance and capacity requirements of demanding applications within the same storage pool or in tiered storage deployment, supporting configurations of up to 79.2 terabytes.
 
Utilizing SAS drives, both products have measured performance of up to 230,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS), a 130 percent performance increase as compared to prior generation 2U, 3.5-inch equivalent capacities. With the use of 80 percent-plus efficient power supplies, the new arrays represent as much as a 34 percent power savings over 2U, 12-drive arrays of equivalent 3.5-inch spindle counts, greatly enhancing the green aspects of the design.
 
“With benefits including higher performance and power efficiency when compared to 3.5-inch drives, Seagate Savvio 2.5-inch drives are well-suited for serving as the enterprise platform of choice for a wide range of storage applications,” said Henry Fabian, executive director, Seagate Core Product Marketing. “Today’s economic climate demands that IT organizations meet their needs with smarter solutions that can lower costs, simplify their operation and sustain their business over the long term."
 
The 2722 and 2522 are targeted at the mainstream high performance IT and mission-critical enterprise markets, as well as emerging growth markets such as video-on-demand and other applications that demand high performance in either I/Os per second or megabytes per second throughput.
 
In addition to the broader storage market, the 2722 and 2522 are also ideal for ruggedized, military, telecommunications, and mobile storage applications that demand high performance combined with efficient space utilization, as well as a wide range of business and mission-critical applications currently served by larger 3.5-inch based RAID systems, such as databases, business analytics, video streaming and email.
 
“Dot Hill has a strong legacy of delivering robust, high quality, mission-critical storage to some of the largest OEMs in the industry,” said Dana Kammersgard, president and chief executive officer, Dot Hill. “These first-to-market additions to our product lineup usher in a new era in compact, high performance RAID storage solutions that provide our customers with significant performance improvements while reducing overall operating costs. With the introduction of SSD support, we’re also extending Dot Hill’s reach into newer markets such as digital video-on-demand where extremely high IOPS performance and cost-effectiveness are essential.”
 
“Performance-optimized 2.5-inch form factor disk drives are already widely used within servers,” according to John Rydning, IDC’s research director for hard disk drives. “As more 2.5-inch based external storage systems such as Dot Hill’s new high performance, high density RAID storage systems come to market, we expect over 50 percent of performance-optimized HDDs shipped for external storage arrays to be 2.5-inch versus 3.5-inch by 2011.”

Additional Product Information
The R/Evolution architecture, which features hot-swap RAID controllers, is the basis of the 2522, 2722, and forthcoming 8Gb/sec Fibre Channel and 6Gb SAS controllers. For example, this allows end users to deploy 8Gb/sec Fibre-ready systems using the 2722 array, providing investment protection through a non-disruptive, data-in-place controller upgrade. In addition, the modular design of the 2522 and 2722 leverages field replaceable power supplies and fan modules used in the popular 2000 and 5000 series.
 
The 2722 and 2522 include improved firmware features such as easier host configuration, LUN access, and RAIDar 2.0 management software, an upgraded graphical user interface which utilizes the latest browser technology for an improved user experience. Both models support NEBS Level III and MIL-STD-810F, and are RoHS- and WEEE-compliant and use Dot Hill’s environmentally-friendly EcoStor battery-free cache alternative. The 2722 and 2522 are available with AC as well as DC power options, for improved energy efficiency.
 
Availability and Price
Dot Hill 2722 Fibre Channel storage arrays are expected to be generally available in January, while 2522 SAS arrays are expected to be generally available in April. List pricing will start under $16,000 for a fully populated 3.5 terabyte SAS drive system.