Dot Hill launches 12Gb SAS arrays and 16Gb Fibre Channel/10Gb iSCSI Converged Interface storage

“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 organisations 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 optimisation to handle randomised, sequential workloads. Dot Hill’s latest firmware utilises 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.
“The new AssuredSAN 4004 Series really moves the goalposts in streaming performance, and will provide an excellent range of storage platforms for our customers working in sectors such as media & entertainment and HPC,” said Andy Hooper, Solutions General Manager at Dot Hill distributor, Hammer. “The flexibility introduced by the dual personality host ports allows end users to seamlessly upgrade their systems in the field with future-proof interface upgrades, and also offers the ability to mix both Fibre Channel and iSCSI on a single controller which is a common choice when designing a remote replication solution.”

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.