ONStor, Nexsan Join Forces for NAS Solution

High scalability, large file system capacity, high throughput, and low cost make the new Bobcat-SATABlade combination an attractive proposition.

ONStor and Nexsan have combined forces to provide an integrated, scalable, general-purpose, price-competitive NAS solution that competes head to head with those offered by industry behemoths like NetApp and EMC.

The ONStor/Nexsan solution combines ONStor Inc.s Bobcat NAS Gateway (Model 2220) with Nexsan Technologies SATABlade storage (either 2TB or 3.2TB). Together, they provide shared file storage for Windows, Unix and Linux clients and servers on a LAN.

The combination of the two technologies addresses many challenges organizations have, including Windows file server consolidation, home directory storage, backup consolidation, Unix/Linux/Windows consolidation, and remote site storage.

Most importantly, the combination of ONStors and Nexsans technologies results in a complete NAS (Network Attached Storage) system that has the performance and scalability of enterprise solutions from Network Appliance Inc. and EMC Corp., but at a much lower cost, according to Jon Toor, vice president of marketing at ONStor of Los Gatos, Calif.

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In addition to high performance—more than 200MB/sec gateway throughput for the ONStor product and 10,000 RPM drives in the Nexsan SATABlade—and scalability up to the petabyte level, cost is a major selling point. At less than $30,000 for the combined solution, the cost is significantly less than an organization would pay for a similar solution from EMC or NetApp, he said.

Click here to read more about NetApps NAS gateway, gFiler.

"ONStor can come in at a very low cost because its a gateway and can use storage a company has already installed, and Nexsan has an inexpensive, dense storage system. The combination allows customers to put together an integrated solution for NAS that will be extremely competitive against the EMCs and NetApps of the world," said Tony Asaro, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group in Milford, Mass.

The high scalability and very large file system capacity—it can support up to 100TB in a file system and up to 400 files—also makes this solution worth considering, Asaro said.

"Unstructured data thats usually stored on a NAS system is growing at such a rapid rate that you need that kind of scalability," he said. "And as you add files and capacity, the performance holds up." Asaro said he has tested the system at the ESG labs to verify performance claims.

Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Nexsan also adds to the mix. The most important contribution the company makes, Asaro said, is that its been in production for a long time and has a good reputation. "Storage is difficult to do, but Nexsan has a lot of field-proven customers," he noted.

Combining the capabilities of the ONStor Bobcat NAS Gateway and the Nexsan SATABlade creates formidable competition, even against powerhouses like NetApp and EMC, in large part because those larger organizations are focused on pursuing bigger fish, Asaro said.

"I have to believe they will win a lot of those deals based on the offering and the price," he said. "Customers need an alternative. If they need 10TB of NAS storage, they shouldnt have to pay a half million dollars for it, and thats what this combination does."

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