AssuredSAN 4004 Models Deliver Rock Solid Reliability and Wicked-Fast Performance

Dot Hill Systems has announced the availability of its new AssuredSAN 4004 storage models, based on the company’s ninth-generation RAID architecture. These products offer greater data security, faster throughput and substantial business benefits for markets that demand extremely high-bandwidth performance, such as cloud service providers, media & entertainment, oil & gas, telecommunications, big data analytics and digital image archiving. The new AssuredSAN 4004 arrays are now available worldwide through the Dot Hill channels and select OEM and embedded solution partners. Host interface options include 12Gb SAS, 16Gb FC, 1Gb and 10Gb iSCSI and the only hybrid 16Gb Gen 5 Fibre Channel/10Gb iSCSI converged interface.

“Reliability and performance are critical factors for our customers across the range of markets that we serve,” said Dana Kammersgard, president and CEO, Dot Hill Systems. “These new products build on our field-proven high availability and deliver more performance in this price category to help businesses improve application productivity and business competitiveness with faster workload response times. In addition, with converged network connectivity our customers have more options for consolidating and adapting Fibre Channel and iSCSI SAN architectures within their data centers with one storage investment.”

With an installed base exceeding 600,000 systems, Dot Hill has demonstrated 99.999% availability with real-world field data, helping to assure organizations of round-the-clock access to data. The AssuredSAN 4004 offers our partners a first-mover advantage as the industry transitions to 16Gb Fibre Channel and 12Gb SAS interfaces. Multiple OEM customers are either already shipping or are in late stage evaluations.

“Dot Hill is committed to developing high-functioning, seriously smart storage solutions, offered at tremendously competitive price points,” said Jim Jonez, senior director of marketing, Dot Hill. “Our early-to-market AssuredSAN 4004 products are engineered to deliver superior performance, and offer a leg up to our customers when it comes to seamless integration, reliability and stellar service.”

The Dot Hill AssuredSAN 4004 Series is available in a variety of configurations for SSD, 2.5-inch HDD and 3.5-inch HDD, including highly versatile AssuredSAN 4824 and AssuredSAN 4834 converged interface models. Each AssuredSAN converged interface storage array includes two four-port controllers and can be easily configured in the field with eight 16Gb Fibre Channel ports, eight 10Gb iSCSI ports, or a combination of four 16Gb Fibre Channel and four 10Gb iSCSI ports.  IT managers often use Fibre Channel for the storage network within the data center, and iSCSI for replication and other data management services outside of the data center.

These storage arrays are fully backward-compatible with 8Gb/4Gb Fibre Channel and1Gb iSCSI networking solutions such as switches and host bus adapters. AssuredSAN 4524 and AssuredSAN 4534 12Gb SAS models are fully backward-compatible with 6Gb SAS investments. All 4004 models are meta-data compatible with previous generation AssuredSAN arrays, so that customers can accomplish data-in-place migration by simply upgrading to 4004 generation controllers.

Performance, Data Availability and Compatibility that Dot Hill Customers Expect

All Dot Hill AssuredSAN 4004 solutions are built on the company’s ninth-generation RAID stack, which delivers up to 100,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) from disk, sustained sequential read performance of up to 6400 MB/second and writes of up to 5300 MB/second. The Dot Hill RAID Companion Processor (RCP) allows 4004 solutions to deliver dramatic performance gains at very aggressive price points. AssuredSAN 4004 solutions also integrate all the performance tuning and optimizations of the previous-generation AssuredSAN 4000 models, which includes streaming performance optimization to handle randomized, sequential workloads. Dot Hill’s latest firmware utilizes a proprietary Adaptive Read-ahead Algorithm that analyzes workloads and fine tunes options to optimize the performance of specific kinds of demanding workloads, delivering better response times and meeting IT service level agreements.

“Our reseller partners appreciate the price/performance value proposition that Dot Hill continues to deliver. The 4004 models will enable our partners to win new customers in key vertical markets like media & entertainment, where high definition and 3D workflows require high bandwidth storage solutions. This market is ready for 16Gb Fibre Channel and 12Gb SAS solutions,” stated Brad Painter, vice president of channel sales, Dot Hill.

“Aside from providing superior streaming performance for bandwidth-intensive applications, the new AssuredSAN 4004 Series storage solutions offer unprecedented flexibility,” said Jon Guess, president, ALT Systems. “The versatile converged interface of these solutions allows organizations to instantly convert their storage in the field from 16Gb Fibre Channel to 10Gb iSCSI, vice versa, or a combination of both. This extremely attractive feature maximizes our customers’ options and allows organizations to future-proof their IT investments.”

Support for a Full Complement of Data Management Software and SSD Drives

AssuredSAN 4004 arrays support the full complement of Dot Hill’s data management services including the company’s RAIDar management interface, and disaster recovery software comprised of AssuredSnap for point-in-time snapshots, AssuredCopy for creating volume copies and AssuredRemote for array-based remote replication. Support for popular storage software platforms such as VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer and Veeam Backup & Replication is included. Consistent with previous AssuredSAN products, flash based SSD drives are supported across the Dot Hill product line.

Data Security through Full Disk Encryption

The Dot Hill platform also includes support for HGST and Seagate Full Disk Encryption (FDE). Self-encrypting drives encrypt every write operation and decrypt every read operation without user intervention. With drive-level protection of data, FDE drives remain fully protected even if they are stolen, taken out of service, or repurposed. FDE support is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2014.

Availability and Pricing

Products will begin shipping in volume worldwide to authorized Dot Hill channel partners in November.  Select OEMs are shipping now.

The suggested list price for a 48 terabyte AssuredSAN 4834 16Gb Fibre Channel/10Gb iSCSI model is $39,869. A similar dual controller configuration with eight ports of 12Gb SAS is $40,265 suggested list price.