Xyratex Launches 2U Rack
for 2.5" Drives
HAVANT, UK -
April 2, 2008 - Xyratex Ltd. today announced the OneStor SP1224s - a 2U, 24
drive storage system for 2.5" drives.
It's the 2nd member
of the OneStor ESP family with common Field Replaceable Units and
SBB 2.0 compatibility –
enabling OEMs to reduce both product ramp-up time and inventory costs for
spares.
...Xyratex profile
Sans Digital Introduces 3.5" InstaRAID
Santa Fe
Springs, CA - February 15, 2008 - Sans Digital today introduced the
InstaRAID IR12TB - a a 3.5" SATA hard drive module which houses 2
internal 2.5" drives with RAID support.
The
IR12TB has a
built-in hardware RAID engine to support RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 0
(stripping) allowing data redundancy or performance increase, while only
occupying the space of a single 3.5" hard drive.
...Sans Digital
profile, Storage Boxes
Editor's
comments:- the idea is not entirely new. A few years ago
Adtron used to market
the
I35MB
Diskpak which included 2x PATA mirrored disks.
SeriTek Ships 5 Bay Hot-Swap SATA PM Enclosure
San Francisco,
Calif - January 15, 2008 - FirmTek, LLC announced availability of the
SeriTek/5PM SATA enclosure with port multiplier technology.
Housing up to 5 hot-swappable 3.5" drives in a $539.95 desktop aluminum
enclosure it can deliver
aggregate hard drive
performance beyond 220MBps with just one cable. When configured with 3
additional SeriTek/5PM enclosures (for a total of 20 drives), RAID 0 performance
can exceed 700Bps.
An interesting feature is a front-panel power
switch that carries a multi-second delay to prevent accidental power-down. The
enclosure is system independent, and will work with any Mac or Windows PC with
a controller that correctly follows the
eSATA II
specifications for Port Multiplication. ...FirmTek profile
CRU-DataPort Acquires WiebeTech
Vancouver, WA -
January 14, 2008 - CRU-DataPort has purchased WiebeTech.
James Wiebe, CEO of WiebeTech has joined CRU-DataPort as VP of
product development. Operations for the WiebeTech brand of products will remain
in Wichita , Kansas.
"We are pleased to add WiebeTech employees and their highly
respected product line to our organization. WiebeTech will become a fully
supported brand of CRU-DataPort," said CRU-DataPort's president & CEO
Randal Barber.
...CRU-DataPort profile,
...WiebeTech profile
Intel Launches Cool NAS Server for the
Home
SANTA
CLARA, Calif - November 6, 2007 - Intel Corp today announced a new NAS
storage platform for the home.
The
SS4200x
supports upto 4x 3.5"
hard disk drives in a "customizable
and consumer-friendly shell design" and is available with or without
software. For example the fully loaded Intel SS4200-E includes software from
EMC to create a flexible
NAS appliance. It is also
an ideal platform for Windows Home Server. The new products will be available
in December, starting at $500. ..Intel profile
Editor's
comments:- in the 1990s Sun
Microsystems introduced the world to pizza box servers and storage.
You'll recognise what inspired Intel's new box design next time you save
left over chile in your freezer.
QNAP Introduces 3.5" USB / eSATA
Backup Station
Taipei, Taiwan -
October 16, 2007 - QNAP Systems, Inc. today introduced the QBack-35S
to its external hard drive enclosure QBack series.
The titanium
black QBack-35S supports a single 3.5" SATA hard drive, up to 1TB storage
capacity, and USB and
eSATA interfaces.
QBack-35S is aimed at users who require fast and secure low cost data
backup. With QBack-35S, users can experience handsfree automatic
synchronization backup, AES 256-bit encryption, and e-mail (Outlook, Outlook
Express, and Windows Mail) backup.
The award-winning backup software
QBack is enclosed - which provides 4 backup modes. In addition to the
auto-sync backup, one touch backup is supported. Users can back up data
immediately by pressing the one touch button on the device. QBack also provides
instant and schedule backup modes.
...QNAP Systems profile,
Storage Boxes
Blackbird SATA RAID Nests on Desktops
TORRANCE, CA - August
14, 2007 - MicroNet Technology today rolled a out a new compact e-SATA
storage array for SMB and SOHO customers.
The new SR-4
Blackbird SATA
RAID array is MicroNet's
answer to the traditionally costly and bulky direct-attached
JBOD/RAID disk array. It
packs 4 SATA drive bays into a compact 12-pound device with a desktop footprint
about ½ the size of a sheet of notebook paper. Read performance is upto
240MB/sec, and write performance is upto 200MB/sec. OS support includes
Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
Each unit is bundled with an eSATA RAID
controller (PCI-Express or PCI-X). The SATA-2 drives plug directly into the
unit's backplane, eliminating the complexity of drive cabling and simplifying
the process of swapping out drives for repairs or upgrades.
MicroNet's SR-4 Blackbird SATA RAID arrays are available in 1, 2,3 and 4 TB
capacities. Pricing starts at $599 for a 1TB configuration with a PCI-X card and
ranges up to $ 2,499 for the 4TB model with a PCI-Express card.
...MicroNet profile,
Animal Brands
in the Storage Market
Supermicro Unveils Universal I/O SAS RAID
xxSan
Jose, CA - June 20, 2007 - Super Micro Computer, Inc. and LSI Corp
today announced 3 Supermicro Universal I/O SAS RAID cards based on the
SAS1078 RAID-On-Chip from LSI.
Optimized for Supermicro
UIO
servers,
these
cards feature 667MHz 256MB DDRII cache to deliver hardware RAID 5 and 6
data protection with flexible options for internal or external
SAS/SATA connections.
"When installed, these high-performance UIO SAS cards become part
of the server board, and the system still retains all of its PCI-Express and
PCI-X slots for expansion cards," asserts Charles Liang, CEO and president
of Supermicro. "Supermicro UIO cards enable our customers to create
optimized SAS solutions to match their specific requirements."
...LSI profile,
...Super Micro profile | |
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Serial
Attached SCSI: New Interface, New Storage Rack? - article by Terabytes Server
Storage Tech
Users need more than just host bus adapters
and
disk drives to deploy
the new
Serial Attached SCSI
technology.
But the traditional way of designing the backplanes in
storage racks could lead to high cost and not use the expansion and high
availability aspects of SAS to best advantage. In this article one of the
world's leading suppliers of computer chassis describes their award winning new
backplane concept which gets the best out of the new SAS technology while
reducing costs. . ...read
the article,
...TST profile,
Storage Boxes,
Rackmount Storage | |
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TMC-The Mate Company,
based in California, manufactures
an extensive range of cables,
adapters, converters and
terminators for fibre-channel, SCSI
SATA and
Serial Attached SCSI. | |
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Nibble:- Storage Boxes
During
the 1980's and most of the 1990's you would have been forgiven for thinking that
most computer systems looked pretty much the same. A PC from Compaq looked
similar to a PC from IBM, and you would have to look really close at most
portables to determine the brand. Most office computers and servers were
aesthetically challenged. Then Apple, Sony and Sun Microsystems started to
design computers to look pretty, and storage boxes followed suit.
But
meanwhile another revolution was brewing...
For decades, industrial
users, the military, and telcos had realised that the cost of housing and
looking after large numbers of computers was significant. If you're managing
hundreds, or even thousands of systems, then using standard rackmount modules is
the only way to minimise floor space, speed repair and replacement, and manage
thermal and safety issues. As millions of companies became wired to the
internet during the 1990's they ran into the same problems encountered by
earlier generations of IT managers who had bought mainframes during the 1960's
and 70's...
...Servers take up a lot of space.
The difference
was that unlike the computer rooms built as temples to IBM in earlier
generations, the modern economic paradigm was less tolerant of wasted floor
space. So rackmount became the "in thing" and is now the fastest
growing segment in the server market.
Today the range of storage
enclosures available to the computer buyer starts from portable gadgets which
you can take to the beach, and scales upto fault tolerant systems where the disk
drives and power supplies can be replaced while everything is powered up and
online. In the home, the storage box for the digital entertainment center, will
soon become as ubiquitous as hi-fi's and VCR's were in the 90's. Brushed
aluminium, matt black, bright colors, or woodgrain finish will become more
important product parameters to consumer RAID buyers than storage capacity and
network speed.
They'll all hold 200 movies, and 500 record albums,
connect to your TV, camera, and be backward compatible with your old DVD's, CD's
etc... so who cares about what's inside?
Style, ergonomics and
engineering excellence also have their part to play as corporate storage
systems become physically bigger and more expensive than the computers which
they connect to, the choice of enclosure and the options inherent in that choice
will become even more significant than before.
PS - for pretty
looking storage boxes see:-
Storage News
in Pictures | |
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Squeak! -
Animal Brands and Metaphors in the Storage Market
Animal
marketing metaphors are popular in service industries, but you'd be surprised
how many companies have used animals in their marketing of data storage
products and services.
The storage market was worth over $150 billion
in 2005, and as it gets bigger - more companies will turn to animal brands to
help differentiate their otherwise bland products and lend them artificial
(or deserving) characters and virtues.
The idea behind this type of
marketing is to suggest positive connotations so it's unlikely that anyone will
choose to associate their products with gremlins. But you may be surprised by
the population of the storage ark.
This reference articles lists all
known companies who have furry marketing brands, and also includes some which
are slimy, scaly and scary too. ...read the article,
Mice in storage |
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