Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/06/02/supermicro_spins_down_for_cold_storage/

No spinning rust here: Supermicro's cold data fridge is FROZEN

We do mean 'no spinning' literally with this one

By Chris Mellor

Posted in Storage, 2nd June 2014 13:58 GMT

Fancy storing data until hell freezes over? Server house Supermicro has a cold storage product aimed at data that must be kept, can't be thrown away but is accessed only rarely: its SuperStorage Server with spun-down disks.

According to Supermicro, the product "minimizes power consumption and reduces cooling requirements by spinning down or powering off idle drives and managing data streams via Supermicro’s compact, low-power Intel Atom C2750-based serverboard for cold storage."

This is a 1U, 32-inch deep rack enclosure holding a dozen 4TB or 6TB 3.5-inch drives with Atom or, for more data-intensive apps, Xeon processors. The options are:

Supermicro SuperStorage Server

Supermicro SuperStorage Server

This is a little like the Facebook OCP OpenVault cold storage product which is a 2U x 30-drive enclosures with two x86 server nodes to be built by Foxconn. The Supermicro product is smaller, both physically and capacity-wise.

Stifel MD Aaron Rakers writes: "We believe SuperMicro is finding traction in cold storage (high-capacity) discussions, while also benefiting from supplier partnerships with emerging vendors such as Nimble Storage, Nutanix, Nexenta, Coho Data, Scale Computing, etc." ®