Isilon Expands NAS Array Line

Clustered storage provider Isilon Systems, which supplies fast network-attached storage systems for a list of movie studios and television stations that produce digital films, on March 10 launched a significant expansion of its mainline storage arrays.

Isilon released new versions of its S-Series and NL-Series storage systems and unveiled an addition to its X-Series product line.

With these additions, Isilon now is able to offer a full range of what it calls "scale-out" NAS packages that enable users to improve productivity of applications, workflows and processes, the company said.

Resource Library:

Isilon specializes in high-end network storage designed for extremely heavy I/O activity and large linear file transfers, such as video and audio streaming, oil and gas exploration applications, and scientific research.

The new additions are:

IQ 5400S: This delivers more than 1 million IOPS from a single file system—conservatively, 10 times more than most conventional NAS Fibre Channel systems, the company said. It combines a 15K RPM SAS (serial-attached SCSI) drive, quad-Gigabit Ethernet front-end networking, and high-performance InfiniBand back-end node interconnects.

IQ 36000X: This is the latest addition to Isilon's X-Series, delivering up to 3.45 petabytes of capacity and more than 30GB per second of throughput from a single file system—60 times more than a traditional scale-up NAS storage system, the company claimed.

IQ 36NL: This nearline array houses 36TB of raw storage in a 4U (7-inch) chassis and scales out to 3.45PB in a single file system, greater than 200 times traditional scale-up NAS systems, according to Isilon.

"Even in the face of a challenging macroeconomic environment, file-based data continues to accelerate, driven by the rapid data growth in industries such as media and entertainment, life sciences, Internet, and manufacturing," said IDC Research Manager Noemi Greyzdorf. "To address this progressive shift, enterprise businesses will be best served by deploying systems that deliver simplified file-based data management across storage tiers, as well as efficient utilization of performance and capacity. Today, scale-out NAS solutions meet these criteria and can help organizations increase operational efficiencies and optimize capital expenditures."

Isilon's S-Series, NL-Series and X-Series products are all immediately available. The IQ 5400S is listed at $49,999 per node, the IQ 36000X is listed at $137,000 per node and the IQ 36NL is listed at $72,000 per node.