Storage Technology Corp. next week will announce new versions of its flagship disk array and of its top tape drive, and will also unveil plans for a new disk archiving product.
The company, better known as StorageTek, on Tuesday will roll out the D280 array, manufactured by LSI Logic Corp.s Storage Systems group. It will feature 2G-bps Fibre Channel ports for the network connections and for connecting to internal drives. Scaling to 37 terabytes, its an alternative to other midrange products like EMC Corp.s Clariion CX-600, said Tom Major, vice president and general manager for disk storage.
The D280 is an upgrade from the Louisville, Colo., companys D170 series. The D178 model held 40 terabytes, using 181GB drives spinning at 7,200 revolutions per minute, while the D280 has reduced capacity with 141GB drives, but theyre faster, at 10,000 RPMs, Major said.
Pricing for the D280 starts at about $90,000 for a 1-terabyte unit and includes SANtricity 8.3, the latest version of StorageTeks storage-area network management software, he said. New in Version 8.3 is automatic support for Veritas Software Corp.s Dynamic Multipathing technology; previously SANtricity required manual configuration.
On Monday, StorageTek will announce a new high-end tape drive, the $39,500 T9940B, which holds 200GB of data, transferred at 30MB per second, with 2G-bps Fibre Channel and FICON ports. That compares to the prior version, the T9940A, which holds 60GB of data, transferred at 10MB per second, with a 1G-bps SCSI and ESCON ports.
StorageTek also has a new disk archiving product on its road map, called BladeStore, to compete against EMCs Centera and Network Appliance Inc.s NearStore products. BladeStore will debut next month, using a combination of LSIs technology and StorageTeks own software, Major said. Like the Centera and NearStore products, it will use low-cost ATA (Advanced Technology Architecture) drives to hold data thats frequently accessed but rarely changes.