11th Generation of Winchester Systems FlashDisk RAIDs

Winchester Systems Inc. announced its 11th generation of FlashDisk RAID Disk Arrays featuring a variety of data services including virtual storage, snapshots, mirroring, volume copy and automated disk-to-disk backup with zero-backup window.

        FlashDisk VX-2300 RAID disk arrays
            with six 2U expansion shelves

Additional innovations include ‘hybrid RAID’ with fibre channel ports for high speed SAN performance plus iSCSI ports for web-based disaster recovery, flash memory for cache backup with 10-year retention and FlashDisk Global Manager to monitor multiple arrays from a single browser based GUI.

"These 11th generation features build on a long history of innovation and represent a significant leap forward in overall value for the venerable FlashDisk RAID disk array product line," according to Mr. Joel Leider, the company’s chief executive officer.

The new models deliver up to 2,800 MB per second data throughput and up to 155,000 I/O operations per second and are available in two models:

• FlashDisk VX-2300 RAID disk arrays with a 2U base unit and up to six 2U expansion shelves, with 12 SAS or SATA drives of up to 2 TB each, for a total of 84 drives and 168 TB in total capacity.
• FlashDisk VX-3400 RAID disk arrays with a 3U base unit and up to six 3U expansion shelves, with 16 SAS or SATA drives of up to 2 TB each, for a total of 112 drives and 224 TB in total capacity.

As tiered storage systems, FlashDisk RAID disk arrays now effectively support three tiers of storage in a single solution. These tiers include primary storage using 15k rpm SAS disks for performance applications including virtual servers and database, secondary storage using SATA 7.2k rpm disks for backup, archive and bulk storage and a new intermediate tier for high volume reference materials including video surveillance, PACS medical imaging and data acquisition using the new SAS 7.2K rpm disks that need the reliability of SAS without the cost of high performance.

For added protection of today’s very large RAID disk arrays, the company includes high-speed, ASIC-driven RAID 6 dual-parity that protects data in the event of two drive failures as well as rebuild failures. According to the company’s white paper, ‘High Speed RAID 6,’ RAID 6 dual parity offers 500 to 30,000 times longer MTDL (Mean Time To Data Loss) than RAID 5.

"When you add in all the flexibility of high capacity, high performance tiered virtual storage with exceptional storage services, RAID 6 data integrity and hot-swap reliability – plus 24×7 call center, ‘call home’ alerts and on-site service all included at very affordable prices – you have by far the finest product and service offering with the most overwhelming value that Winchester Systems has ever offered in its 28-year history," elaborated Mr. Jerry Namery, the company’s chief technology officer.

Starting prices for the FlashDisk VX-2314S RAID disk array including all data services with six 1 TB SAS 7.2k rpm disks is $11,725 and with six 300 GB SAS 15k rpm disks is $12,785. Products are available now and delivery is 2-3 weeks ARO.