New Dell Servers, Storage Units Take Aim at Data Center Efficiency

by John Pallatto

The PowerEdge 6100 Server is designed for high performance cluster computing; to support private and public cloud platforms; and to support large-scale Web 2.0 applications. The system can support up to four independently serviceable nodes. Each node supports dual Intel Zeon 5500/5600 series quad and hex-core processors.

The PowerEdge C6100 shares power supplies, fans and backplanes to reduce total power consumption. Dell claims this gain in energy efficiency also reduces cooling requirements and lowers overall operating costs.

Dell optimized the PowerEdge C2100 design for data centers where processing power is a necessity and space is at a premium. This model delivers electric power use and cost efficiency in data centers where high memory and storage density are critical. The C2100 is equipped with two six- or quad-core Intel Xeon 5500/5600 series processors with 18 DDR3 [Double Data Rate 3] memory slots that lets IT managers expand memory without increasing the number of nodes.

The PowerEdgeC1100 is designed for the most compact data centers where massive memory and storage capacity is needed for applications that require memory caching and for Web analytics or Web 2.0 applications. This model is equipped with two Intel Xeon 5500/5600 series processors and 18 DDR3 high performance DIMM [Dual In-line Memory Modules].

On March 24, Dell also announced the DX Object Storage Solution which the company says is desiged to store, access and distribute billions of files and other digital content from massive archives to the cloud. The system uses object storage which allows the attachment of metadata to the digital data which provides additional identifying information. Dell plans to release the DX Object Storage Platform in the 2010 second quarter.

The Dell/EMC DD630 is a backup disk with build-in deduplication that provides up to 12TB of raw storage capacity and up to 168TB or logical storage capacity. Logical capacity is the amount of undeduplicated data that could be backed up over time with a 20 dedupe ratio and 4TB of useable storage capacity. It delivers maximum throughput of up to 11TB per hour.

The Dell/EMS DD610 has a raw capacity of up to 6TB and 80TB of logical capacity. The DD6XX line of backup drives are designed to allow data centers to improve data protection and reduce recovery time while lowering the cost of expanding backup storage capacity. This model delivers throughput of up to 675GB per hour.

This model provides raw capacity of up to 1.5TB of raw capacity and up to 17TB of logical capacity. It delivers maximum throughput of up to 450GB per hour. The three models of the Dell/EMC DD line are available now.

This model is designed as a unified storage system that provides advanced failover and automated storage tiering to support multiprotocol environments. This model scales up to 480 disks. The NS models are designed to enable customers to pay for what they need as they expand their storage capacity or consolidate existing storage capacity to reduce costs and avoid the risks of over-provisioning.

The Dell/EMS NS120 is designed as an affordable NAS [Network Attached Storage] unit that scales up to 120 drives and can connect to multiple storage networks. It has two 4GB Fibre Channel ports for storage array connectivity. These new NS model units will be available in April 2010.