Nexsan gives 42TB array a make-over for picky Apple fans
SATABeast cleans up, brushes its metal
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Storage system developer Nexsan Technologies is releasing a new version of its SATABeast disk array designed for Apple XServe and Mac Pro systems.
The SATABeast Xi holds up to 42TB of storage in a 4U form-factor. The hardware is similar to Nexsan's current SATABeast array, but with tweaks to the box design, web management GUI and software wizards. The changes address Apple product aesthetics as well as networking peculiarities.
Note the lack of butt-ugliness seen in the regular SATABeast
The array has 4gb/s Fibre Channel interface ports and support for iSCSI. It also sports AutoMAID for slowing the spin of idle hard drives and a dual-redundant controller for data protection.
Nexsan envisions most XServe or Mac Pro customers that need this kind of massive storage coming from the film, video and music industry — a group that tends to fancy Mac-based applications.
So they've also cranked the bevel knob to 11 in order to make the web-based management GUI look more like something Steve Jobs would have coughed up.
And gradients. Don't forget gradients!
Bear in mind there's no formal endorsement for the Xi from Apple. Those only willing to partake in devices sanctified by The Big Fruit must be satisfied with the 10.5TB offered by Apple's Xserve RAID array.
But if you need the extra space, you could always cram this puppy into the brand new XServe and Mac Pro models Apple unveiled just yesterday. It can also used as storage in other operating systems as well.
The price of the array will be about $1,200 per TB, about the same as the regular SATABeast price tag. The unit is being galavanted at the MacWorld Conference in San Francisco next week, with shipments expected to begin March 15. ®
COMMENTS
They are good...
So I have more of these then you can count on your fingers and toes, actually more then all your friends fingers and toes. Yes they are a bit noisy, no they don't overheat, in my world they are very affordable MUCH better then the thumpers which DO overhead and frankly ZFS s..ks put a lot of small files in a multiple TB file system and it's toast. I've tried EVERY other vendor I think there is out there including the other 48 bay guys, they may supply the chassis for all the netapps, but it's clear why no-one uses their controllers and firmware... I easily put eight of these in a rack without going to high to get to the drives out the top, I've never had a problem with that part of them, there's nothing else (that works) that gives you this kind of density. The only complaint I have is the front cover and how the led's are covered you either have to be far away which I can't be with rack after rack row after row or you have to bend down to see the lights. Guess I should request this style... HOWEVER the email notification has never failed me so I don't care much about the lights and I don't even bother doing the smtpwalk or wget nonsense etc like I've had to do with many other vendors.
Not that good...
We trialled one of these boxes a while ago as an alternative to a Thumper (X4500). The performance was attrocious. As far as I recall the price wasn't competetive compared to the X4500 either (this is academia, so it may be different in the real world). Courses for horses, however we just bought 1 ~35TB (usable) X4500, and I think have 5 more on order.
I'd rather use that with NFS and an Xserve.
Replies
Ok, those brushed metal Cisco things look god awful - yellow silkscreen w/ brushed metal w/ grey? In any case they wouldn't go with this raid box or an xserve. I think that someone should bring back paisley, or maybe just pinstripes - that could really make a rack look trendy. Unless you went with the paisley idea.
And the Thumper offers ZFS, which I have yet to play with, but from what I've seen it is far more capable for logical volumes and raid than any dedicated array hardware that I've configured. I've used a fair amount of different web interfaces for the things, and I can't say that I've gotten all the way through a single deployment without at least a few outbursts of uncontrollable swearing. Then again I've never gotten through a Solaris 10 install without a similar amount of cursing.
Oh, and because nobody has mentioned it yet...
42 Terabytes? Thats a whole lotta porn!
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