News flash from Longmont, Colo., long one of the data storage capitals of the world: Dot Hill Systems on June 29 announced that it has joined a growing group of storage makers shipping 6Gb SAS arrays for direct-attached or clustered SAN usage.
The old 3Gb SAS is history. 6Gb is here now and 10Gb will be available shortly.
Dot Hill has two new models: the 3520 2U 24-drive array that uses 2.5-inch drives, and the 3530 2U 12-drive standard array, which offers the lowest overall price for 24TB of storage utilizing 2TB 3.5-inch drives.
Each controller features four 6Gb SAS 2.0 connections for a maximum of eight host-attach connections per array and enable expansion dynamically in direct-attached storage environments. With four ports per controller, the machines eliminate the need for a switched SAN environment.
However, if you want to use them in an economical SAN, go for it. The 3520/3530 enables a server cluster without needing a switch. With eight total ports, the 3520 and 3530 enable up to eight servers to access the same storage system, or four servers with redundant cabling – enabling a low-cost, switchless SAN environment, if so desired.
The 3000 Series also provides support for SSD, SAS, and SATA drives for tiered storage initiatives, with expansion of up to seven JBOD [just a bunch of disks] systems, and up to 144 2.5-inch drives.
Other features include snapshots and volume copy, energy-efficient drive spin-down, and mixed drive-type support.
Dot Hill makes innards for storage makers that include Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi Data Systems, NEC, Fujitsu, NetApp, and Stratus Technologies.