NEC Upgrades Mini-Hydra RAID for SMEs

NEC Corporation of America (NEC) has upgraded its HYDRAstor HS3 (mini-HYDRA) to deliver 60 percent higher throughput with 45 percent lower power usage compared to the previous mini-HYDRA generation.

The new HS3-310 targets SME and remote enterprise offices to provide enterprise-class performance at a significantly lower investment. In addition, NEC is also introducing an enhancement for its OpenStorage Suite for Symantec NetBakcup, delivering from 15 percent to 40 percent higher data throughput than standard CIFS or NFS protocols.

The mini-HYDRA is a single-node system that is compatible with the larger scale-out grid-based HYDRAstor system allowing a transition when capacity needs exceed 12TB. Once transitioned into a grid environment, HYDRAstor allows for global deduplication and scalability, which prevents silos of deduped data and efficiency loss, all on one single management system.

The new generation HYDRAstor HS3-310 maintains the same functionality of the HYDRAstor product line, including inline deduplication and compression at 2.1 TB/hr for standard I/O, as well as erasure-coded data resiliency which is typically only available on larger multi-node enterprise grid systems.

HYDRAstor’s Distributed Resilient Data (DRD) erasure-coding delivers better data resiliency and faster data rebuild with less capacity or processing overhead, compared to traditional RAID-5 or RAID-6. The new mini-HYDRA also maintains investment protection, enabling expansion to a multi-node HYDRAstor HS8-3000 grid system starting with a single node HS3-310.

Highlights of the HS3-310 mini-HYDRA include:

• Single-node system
• 6 x 1GbE connections to support higher connectivity and throughput
• Option for 10GbE connectivity

"The new mini-HYDRA offers SMEs advanced enterprise-class functionality and performance without locking customers into a physically bound system that won’t grow with the organization," said John Webster, Senior Partner, Evaluator Group analyst firm. "The mini-HYDRA’s full compatibility with the multi-node HYDRAstor grid system enables users to integrate remote offices, as well as maximize investment protection with upgrade path to a full grid as data needs grow."

With this release, NEC also enhances HYDRAstor’s OpenStorage Suite for Symantec NetBackup with the introduction of Express I/O purpose-built optimized I/O protocol, increasing performance for Symantec OpenStorage (OST) I/O by 15 to 40 percent or more when compared to standard CIFS or NFS protocols. Express I/O further enhances HYDRAstor’s OpenStorage Suite, which already includes Dynamic I/O for distributed front-end load balancing for maximum efficiency, as well as Optimized Copy services for leveraging HYDRAstor’s WAN-optimized RepliGrid technology for copying backup images to DR sites.

"The introduction of Express I/O further solidifies HYDRAstor’s performance leadership," said Gideon Senderov, Director, Advanced Storage Products, NEC Corporation of America. "With the introduction of the new high-performance HS3-310 and Express I/O option for even higher performance across the entire product line, HYDRAstor continues to enhance its offering and deliver greater value to our customers."

Dynamic data shredding is also available on the mini-HYDRA and in grid-based systems, allowing for mixed classified and unclassified data environments. This capability allows the administrator to shred deleted data, making it unrecoverable or readable. This is important for confidential data stored in an unsecured storage system with open user access.

"We know our customers’ data needs are not static and we work with them to seamlessly meet those demands while working with existing storage investments," said Senderov. "NEC continuously invests in its HYDRAstor product line and continues to develop innovative advanced functionality to meet customers’ growing data needs."

The new HYDRAstor HS3-310 with 1GbE connectivity, Express I/O option, and Dynamic Data Shredding functionality, is available.