ETERNUS sunshine for a spotless drive

Fujitsu is applying the ETERNUS brand to the CentricStor and FibreCat storage products from the now-ended Fujitsu/Siemens Computers joint venture, and introducing an Eternus DX array for small and medium enterprises.

ETERNUS is now Fujitsu's world-wide brand for storage products. The CentricStor virtual tape library (VTL) becomes the ETERNUS CS, whilst the FibreCat TX entry-level tape system is to be renamed the ETERNUS TX. There will be new functionality coming to the CentricStor CS over the next few months.

The new SME storage array is the ETERNUS DX with Fujitsu saying it is designed for remote offices, distributed applications, and cost-sensitive enterprise application environments.

There are two models: the DX60 and DX80. They offer 3.5-inch SAS drives with a 4-port Fibre Channel connection to host servers. Both iSCSI and SAS connectivity are coming after September.

These systems succeed the FibreCAT SX60 and SX80 and the ETERNUS2000 systems. Customers can continue to buy the ETERNUS2000 for iSCSI and SAS capabilities until these interconnects are released under the ETERNUS DX brand.

The last quarter of the year will also see the introduction of solid state drive (SSD) storage to the product line, as well as 2.5-inch SAS low power hard drives.

The arrays feature encryption and energy-saving drive spin-down in the form of an EcoMode function. This is based on MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) technology, that allows disks that are no longer needed (such as disks planned for daily backups) to be shut down to conserve energy.

All the main array components are hot-pluggable and data is protected via a variety of RAID levels, including RAID 6 for protection against two drive failures. Like previous FSC arrays the DX products have a CacheProtector feature which writes the contents of the RAID controller cache to flash memory if a power outage occurs. A capacitor then recharges within minutes, allowing the cache to be used again much more quickly than with a battery-backed system.

The entry-level DX60 has a 2U controller enclosure - with one or two controllers - plus a 2U expansion shelf for a maximum of 24 drives. It can be fitted with high-performance 15K and 10K SAS drives, or nearline SAS drives spinning at 7,200rpm with capacities of 500, 750GB or 1TB, meaning a maximum capacity of 24TB. Combined with the EcoMode drives, that makes three tiers of storage within the array.

Host servers are connected by 4Gbit/s Fibre Channel. The controller functionality includes virtual LUNs, snapshot and mirrors. The larger DX80 also has 2U enclosures, but ten of them, and supports up to 120 drives. It has either 4 or 8Gbit/s FC connectivity. Both DX products can be fitted with BakBone Replicator for added data protection.

They will be available worldwide from Fujitsu and its authorised partners from July 1, 2009. Entry configurations will be available starting at less than $6,000. ®