FlashDisk RAID With SFF 2.5-Inch HDDs at Winchester Systems

Winchester Systems Inc. announced their FlashDisk VX-2500 RAID Disk Arrays featuring up to 144 SFF (Small Form Factor) 2.5" disk drives combined with data services including virtual storage, snapshots, mirroring, volume copy and automated disk-to-disk backup with zero-backup window.

The VX-2500 is available bundled with CA ARCserve Replication for overwhelming value.

The VX-2500 base unit offers single or dual redundant, active-active, failover/failback controllers and provides up to eight 8 Gb Fibre Channel ports or four 6 Gb SAS host ports. The controllers include flash memory for cache backup with 10-year retention. The embedded FlashDisk Global Manager controls and monitors multiple VX-2500 arrays from a single browser based GUI.

The VX-2500 2U base unit supports 24 SFF 2.5" disks which are available in 15k, 10k and 7.2k rpm speeds with capacities to 600 GB each. The base unit supports up to six mix-n-match expansion shelves which includes 2U shelves with 24 SFF 2.5" disks, 2U shelves with twelve LFF (Large Form Factor) 3.5" disks, or 3U shelves with sixteen LFF 3.5" disks. Maximum capacity is 198 TB or 72 TB with strictly SFF 2.5" disks. The combination of three disk speeds and two disk sizes provides up to six tiers of storage.

"FlashDisk VX-2500 is ideal for primary storage delivering 24 small form factor 10k and 15k rpm disks in the space of 12 large form factor disks – cutting space and power literally in half – at lower cost," according to Mr. Jerry Namery, the company’s chief technical officer. "With 24 disks per shelf running at 15k rpm, the VX-2500 delivers more than twice the random IOPS, since 2.5" disks are about 13% faster than 3.5" disks, and is a fabulous application accelerator for virtualized servers, database, OLTP, financial and manufacturing," he highlighted.

CA ARCserve Replication protects availability of systems, applications and data. This host-based software offers local replication for business continuity and remote replication for disaster recovery, as well as continuous data protection for recovery from accidental deletions, data corruption or viruses.

"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 – plus CA ARCserve Replication, you get overwhelming value," elaborated Mr. Joel Leider, the company’s chief executive officer.

Prices for FlashDisk VX-2500 RAID disk arrays including all data services and CA ARCserve Replication start at under $16,000. Products are available and delivery is 2-3 weeks.