Qnap With Unified NAS-SAS Solution and Qtier Automatic Data-Tiering

Qnap Systems, Inc. has sprung another surprise on the enterprise storage marketplace with the announcement of the TVS-ECx80U-SAS-RP unified NAS-SAS storage solution.

This system bridges the gap between all three different types of drives: speedy all-SSD storage, large capacity SATA drives and cost-effective SAS HDD systems. The TVS-ECx80U-SAS-RP series marries high-performance 12Gbps SAS drives with built-in ultra-high performance 256GB SSD caching. Powered by company’s QTS 4.2 management software along with the Qtier automated data-tiering technology, the system keeps frequently accessed data readily accessible and infrequently accessed data close at hand in less-costly HDD storage, improving the overall performance while reducing data warehousing costs.

TVS-ECx80U-SAS-RP hardware overview
With up to 24 HDDs, 12Gb SAS performance, and 256GB of SSD caching, the TVS-ECx80U-SAS-RP delivers fast frequently accessed files from the SSD drives, and balances less-accessed files in SAS and SATA HDDs. From a cost perspective, this is important as SSDs are still in the $0.30/GB cost band, while SAS and SATA drives are in the $0.04 ~ $0.06/GB range. The TVS-ECx80U-SAS-RP series features quad-core Xeon processor mated to 16GB of DDR3 RAM (expandable to 32GB) in a 2U ~ 4U chassis (model dependent) with a redundant power supply for enhanced fault-tolerance. The introduction of 12Gbp SAS architecture boosts performance 37% over previous 6Gb hardware. All models ship with four Gigabit LAN ports and feature optional 10GbE LAN connectivity. Up to eight company’s REXP expansion chassis can be connected for additional storage.

Qnap Qtier

Qtier technology overview
Intelligent Qtier technology dynamically analyzes and balances data into 3 tiers and is part of the QTS 4.2 management software update. ‘Hot’ frequently accessed data is kept in the SSD drives for fastest delivery and less-frequently used ‘warm’ data in high-performance SAS HDDs, and infrequently used ‘cold’ data on the most cost-effective SATA drives. Qtier uses a B-tree-update transaction algorithm and a 4MB data block ‘weighting’ system to determine which data is more or less frequently accessed and schedules that data for migration up or down the storage hierarchy as appropriate. This combination of data management with fast SSD caching is proven to accelerate system performance with lower TCO. Along with Qtier technology, the QTS 4.2 introduces volume and LUN snapshots which allow you to record the state of your storage at any time. Now you can create, manage and revert to Snapshots on your Qnap NAS and stay worry free from data loss.

Qnap Qtier