eRacks/NAS36 Rackmount Storage Server Manages 100TB in 4U

eRacks Open Source Systems announced the availability of the eRacks/NAS36 rackmount storage server.

It combines a rack usage of 4U with a density of 36 drives (24 front and 12 rear), which, when combined with the current technology of 4TB drives, yields a total storage of 144TB.

With the forthcoming 6TB drives from WD HGST, this will increase to 216TB, giving a petascale solution in only 4U of rackspace.

This rounds out eRacks’ line of rackmount multi-drive storage servers and NAS solutions, filling the gap between the 24-drive eRacks/NAS24 and the 50-drive eRacks/NAS50, the company flagship storage server.

When populated with 36 removable drives in only 4U, this represent a density / price breakthrough – using the lowest price/TB 3TB drives, this enables 108TB of raw storage in 4U, and for less than $20,000, as configured on the eRacks website.

The unit is also available partially populated, at a reduced price, to make it accessible at a lower initial price, and the storage can be increased later by filling the empty drive trays.

The company can install any of the Linux distributions on request – Ubuntu, Debian, edHat, Centos, Fedora, even the Arch Linux distro, which is growing in popularity, as well as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or other Open Source OSs.

eRacks will also pre-install any open source NAS software, such as FreeNAS, OpenFIler, NAS4Free and OpenMediaVault, among others – and administrative dashboards and web GUIs are offered on most of these software choices.

Also available is open source software for big data/cloud storage, NAS, and networking – including Hadoop, MooseFS, CIFS, GlusterFS, etc – and eRacks is a partner with MooseFS.org.

In addition, the policy is to install any Linux/BSD distro or open source software on request.