SCIENCE

Nexsan has announced that Nexsan E-Series storage systems are enterprise-class storage systems shipping with 3TB SATA drives, delivering industry-leading capacity of 180TBs in just 4U of rack space. The E60X expansion chassis can be added to the E60 to house up to 60 more 3TB drives for a total of 360TBs in just 8U of rack space -- representing 4 to 5 times the storage density of leading competitors. And with AutoMAID level 4, Nexsan's industry-leading power management technology, applications automatically benefit from up to 85% power savings, with no special coding required. Additional enhancements include higher throughput, scaling and interoperability.

"Product 'specs' are intrinsically interesting, but only gain real value when they are relevant to the intended users; that's why Nexsan has chosen to purpose build products for the mid-market," said Mark Peters, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). "Its new E Series is based on Nexsan's Flexible Storage Platform, allowing the delivery of exactly the sort of overall package that demanding mid-market users want -- industry-leading storage density and power efficiency, together with enterprise-class features, while retaining a mid-market price point."

Nexsan also announced that its E18 storage system, previously only available with SSD and SAS drives, will now be offered with 1, 2, and 3TB SATA drives. This addition provides a flexible configuration for customers who do not need the ultimate capacity of the E60, but want to benefit from the higher performance storage controllers which power the E-Series. Like the E60, the E18 can be expanded with an additional 60 drives by virtue of the E60X expansion chassis. Both the E18 and E60 can mix and match SSD, SATA, and SAS drives to meet varying storage requirements. Both systems are now VMware Ready Certified, and are listed on VMware's hardware compatibility list, Additionally, the E60 and E18 storage systems can now step up from the built-in 1Gb iSCSI ports with an optional dual port 10Gb iSCSI card.

The Nexsan E-Series features an expandable, high density and high performance platform so that mid-market companies have the enterprise-class features they need today, with the scalability to extend their solution for tomorrow. Nexsan E-Series enhancements include:

• Performance: The next-generation storage controller in the Nexsan E-Series delivers 2.3 to 2.5 times the performance for sequential 1KB reads and writes compared to the previous-generation controller used in the SATABeast® and SASBeast® storage systems, and 1.3 to 1.4 times the performance for random 1KB reads and writes.
• Storage Density: Nexsan E-Series 3 TB SATA drive compatibility offers industry-leading storage density of 54TB in 2U with the E18, and 180TB in 4U with the E60. Each storage system can be expanded with the E60X which delivers up to 180TBs in just 4U. This industry-leading storage density is ideal for digital video storage, scientific data, archive storage and consolidated storage environments where large capacities, density, and power efficiency are highly valued.
• Mix and Match Drive Types: The Nexsan E-Series allows the customer to mix and match RAID types and drive types to meet varying storage requirements. RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, and 6 are supported in hardware, and a variety of SSD, SAS, and SATA drives are available.
• VMware Ready Certified: The E-Series has now been VMware certified for use in virtualized environments running ESX 4.0, ESX 4.0 U1, ESX 4.0 U2, ESX 4.1 and ESX 4.1 U1.

"For our environment, power savings, density and reliability are critical requirements," said Phil Butcher, Head of IT from The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "With more than 10PB installed, Nexsan's power-managed storage with AutoMAID helps deliver in an energy and space constrained environment. The E-Series product line also delivers the flexibility and high-density needed so that we can easily scale our infrastructure to meet operational requirements."

All Nexsan E-Series storage systems feature robust centralized storage management software for simplified deployment, management and support and offer a complete range of enterprise-class features including system redundancy for high availability and powerful performance for demanding applications. The Nexsan E-Series also delivers an easy and quick out of the box experience by integrating reliable Nexsan storage hardware and E-Series intelligence. Advanced technologies for high density, energy efficiency and reliability included with every E-Series storage solution include:

• Active Drawer Technology - This revolutionary approach to extreme density simplifies the maintenance of a high density storage system with easy to open drawers which eliminate heavy lifting and keep the drives active when the drawer is opened for adding or removing drives or replacing fans.
• AutoMAID Technology - Nexsan's new AutoMAID level 4 technology delivers industry-leading power management for up to 85% reduction in energy consumption without performance compromise for popular applications such as digital video storage and backup to disk.
• Cool Drive Technology - E-Series high density systems are specially designed for uniform airflow that ensures optimal thermal operation. The hot-swappable fans in the front and rear of the active drawers allow proper push/pull airflow.
• Anti-Vibration Technology - The E-Series significantly increases reliability with an industry-leading anti-vibration chassis design and with a unique method of mounting hard drives in back-to-back pairs.

"Mid-market customers need storage solutions that offer uncompromised enterprise features along with high density, expandability and high performance," said Gary Watson, CTO, Nexsan. "We continue to enhance our E-Series suite of storage systems for the ultimate in operational resilience, efficiency and reliability so that our customers have a different kind of storage experience, one where they get more from the storage environment both today and tomorrow."

The newly enhanced Nexsan E-Series storage systems are available immediately. Pricing for the E18 with SAS drives and a single controller starts at under $43K MSRP, and the E60 with SATA drives and a single controller starts at under $49K MSRP. Pricing for the E60 with 3TB SATA drives and a single controller starts at under $80K MSRP.