Storage system to slash admin costs

Hitachi Data Systems has announced its new 37Tbyte Lightning storage system, claiming it is five times faster than its predecessor Freedom Storage.

And Graham Penn, general manager of research at IDC, has praised the system, saying "at 37Tbytes, the Lightning has enough capacity to replace tape storage for large amounts of data".

The Lightning 9900 was designed to let users consolidate five storage systems into one and automate management tasks, enabling fewer storage systems and lowering costs.

"If users reduce per-megabyte administration costs by 40 per cent, for example, they will gain a return of over 3000 per cent," said Ross Harper, storage solutions product manager at Hitachi Data Systems.

The Lightning features a software solution called Dynamic Optimiser that eliminates ‘hot spots' and automates performance at pre-set levels. The system also combines with FlashAccess software, which locks files into a cache, guaranteeing data access at memory, not disk, speed.

The storage system features new internal switch fabric technology called Hi-Star, which replaces the shared-bus architecture of current subsystems.

"Its switch fabric architecture makes a great fit for SANs , with the performance and capacity to scale," Penn commented.

Multiple, nonblocking data paths increase throughput even as a new load is added. Up to 6.4Gbyte/sec is allotted to internal bandwidth, providing high levels of scalability for input/output traffic, and allowing better management of peaks in Web site activity, the company said.

Lightning 9900 also lets users recover data quickly following a disaster, using NanoCopy, a nondisruptive point-in-time copy and data integrity feature. In addition, users will be able to add capacity and new features without disrupting applications.

"Hitachi Data Systems is the only vendor offering a 100 per cent data availability guarantee," Penn said. "This is important for companies that need to plan for some 85 to 95 per cent growth in storage over the next two years."

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