LSI JBOD Storage Enclosures in the Channel

LSI Corporation introduced in the channel two rack-optimized 6Gb/s SATA and SAS JBOD storage enclosures designed to allow businesses to cost-effectively respond to escalating data volumes and changing storage requirements. The LSI model 620J and 630J storage expansion enclosures are the latest additions to the broad LSI portfolio of storage building blocks, which enable channel customers to deploy affordable and highly scalable, high-performance storage solutions.

                      630J

"The advent of digital media, from mobile apps to online video, is creating relentless data growth, and JBOD enclosures have become a foundational technology for expanding storage capacity beyond the server to support it," said Brent Blanchard, director of worldwide channel sales and marketing, LSI. "By leveraging our deep storage system design expertise, proven silicon and extensive validation competencies, LSI is able to provide the channel with enterprise-class JBOD storage enclosures. This is the latest step in our continued effort to be the most trusted and comprehensive storage building block supplier to the channel."

The LSI 600 series JBODs are 2U, rack-mountable storage enclosures based on 6Gb/s SAS technology and powered by the LSI SAS2x36 6Gb/s SAS expander IC. They offer hot-swappable drive bays that support 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s SATA or SAS hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs) or self-encrypting drives. The LSI model 620J enclosure supports up to twenty-four 2.5-inch drives while the LSI model 630J enclosure supports up to twelve 3.5-inch drives. The enclosures support both high-bandwidth applications and transaction-intensive applications to offer exceptional performance for a wide range of applications including streaming video, cloud computing, Web hosting, database and email servers and online transaction processing.

"Data accumulates, and our customers in vertical segments ranging from media and entertainment to surveillance and healthcare are continually challenged to deliver the storage to keep up," said Joe Rorke, vice president of marketing, Rorke Data. "The addition of the LSI 600 series storage enclosures to our portfolio provides a cost-effective, high-performance storage solution that enables our customers to expand capacity beyond the server to meet growing data demands."

LSI 600 series JBODs are fully qualified for use with 6Gb/s LSI MegaRAID and 3ware RAID controllers and LSI HBAs with external ports, providing easy connectivity to servers for cost-effective storage expansion and scalability. LSI 6Gb/s SATA+SAS storage adapters allow users to expand and scale storage capacity up to 512 HDDs, enabling growing businesses to address storage capacity requirements of up to one petabyte by using multiple LSI 600 series JBODs. The JBODs can be used with other commercially available RAID controllers and HBAs and are compatible with a broad variety of HDD and SSD drive types. 

Continuous access to critical data is enabled by optional, fully redundant and hot-swappable Environmental Services Modules (ESMs). Each ESM features three 6Gb/s SAS ports, providing connectivity for two host devices and an expansion port to connect additional JBOD enclosures via SFF-8088 connections. The LSI 600 series JBODs offer SCSI Enclosure Services (SES) 2.0 support for management via inband SAS SMP protocol. Dual power supplies and cooling modules also are field replaceable by customers.

LEDs on the power supplies, ESMs and each individual drive carrier allow all system components to be closely monitored to help system administrators ensure storage stays up and running in the event of a component failure or malfunction. The LSI 600 series JBODs also include highly efficient power supplies and cooling modules which help lower power consumption for reduced overall energy expenditures.

Pricing (Estimated MSRP) and availability

• LSI 620J (2U, 2.5-inch 24 drive module): $2,795
• LSI 630J (2U, 3.5-inch 12 drive module): $2,595

The new JBODs from LSI are immediately available from select LSI distributors and system integrators.

"With its high performance and reliability, 6Gb/s SAS has emerged as a powerful solution to meet the demands of today’s mission-critical enterprise storage environments," said Brendan Collins, vice president, Product Marketing, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "Hitachi and LSI have worked closely together to ensure that system builders and end-users are able to seamlessly capitalize on 6Gb/s SAS. Using Hitachi Ultrastar C10K300 drives with the new LSI 600 series JBODs, users can take configuration flexibility to another level and expand their storage capacity outside the server to address a broad range of growing storage applications."

"Seagate and LSI have a proven track record of working together to provide channel customers with a powerful combination of self-encrypting drives and 6Gb/s SAS storage adapters for deployment of high-performance storage solutions offering government-grade data security," said Henry Fabian, executive director of product marketing, Seagate. "With the introduction of the LSI 600 series JBODs, customers can now leverage these same LSI and Seagate components to build an end-to-end 6Gb/s SAS ecosystem that scales capacity to accommodate data growth, without incurring the cost of additional servers or sacrificing functionality."

"Today’s enterprise customer is facing exponential data growth, however storing that data does not mean that costs have to grow at the same rate," said Joel Hagberg, vice president of Enterprise Marketing, Toshiba Storage Device Division. "By integrating Toshiba’s environmental-friendly MBE series hard disk drives into LSI 600 series JBODs, channel partners can design flexible, 6Gb/s SAS storage topologies that deliver the performance and scalability required by mission-critical applications, while saving on infrastructure expansion and power consumption."