Winchester Systems FlashDisk FX RAIDs With Modular Ports
Allow storage to be transferred from SAN to LAN to direct attach at any time.
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on October 1, 2014 at 2:28 pmWinchester Systems Inc. announced that FlashDisk FX Series RAID disk arrays are available with modular ports that allow the storage to be easily and inexpensively be transferred from SAN to LAN to direct attach at any time.
The system uses small, modular an inexpensive removable host port ‘personality cards’ that offer FC, SAS or iSCSI connectivity for flexibility.
The FlashDisk FX Series RAID disk arrays offer single or dual redundant controllers. Each controller includes eight built-in 1GbE iSCSI ports, with additional 1GbE or 10GbE iSCSI, 8Gb or 16Gb FC, or 6Gb SAS host ports provided via a hardware module that plugs onto the controller motherboard.
This modular design makes it easy to tailor each system to suit specific application requirements.
It also enables field upgrades: a FlashDisk FX Series system initially deployed with 1GbE ports, for example, can later be upgraded in the field to 10GbE or 16Gb FC when faster connectivity is needed.
New FlahDisk FX models include:
- FlashDisk FX2U12: a 2U rack-mount base unit that holds up to twelve 3.5-inch HDDs or SSDs, delive,g up to 5,000 MB/second and over 1 million IO/s.
- FlashDisk FX-3U16: a 3U rack-mount base unit that holds up to sixteen 3.5-inch HDDs or SSDs, delivering up to 5,500 MB/second and over 1.2 million IO/s.
- FlashDisk FX-2U24: a 2U rack-mount base unit that holds up to twenty-four 2.5-inch HDDs or SSDs, delivering up to 5,200 MB/second and over 1.4 million IO/s.
- FlashDisk FX-4U60: a 4U rack-mount base unit that holds up to sixty 3.5-inch HDDs or SSDs that scales to 2.1 PB per system and 3.6PB per 40U data center rack.
“Flexible hosting of high performance RID systems provides configuration flexibility prior to installation and especially after installation should the IT environment change,” according to Mark Jedraszek, storage architect at the company. “This provides investment protection – a storage system can be moved from 8Gb FC to 10GbE iSCSI with the simple change on an inexpensive personality card that can be swapped out in two minutes.“
Storage services including snapshots, mirroring and volume copy plus centralized web-based GUI are all standard. Replication and thin provisioning services are optional.
The disk arrays are easily configured to meet the demands of SMB data centers and departmental requirements. They can be configured with high speed SSDs plus 15,000 or 10,000rpm HDDs for database and transaction applications and with 4TB or 6TB HDDs for disk-to-disk backup, DR and archiving.
Prices for FlashDisk FX Series RAID disk arrays including all standard data services start at under $8,000 and include a three-year factory warranty. Products are available and delivery is 2-3 weeks.