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Sometimes it appears as though the large storage manufacturers quietly plan behind the scenes to launch new products at the same time.
On Aug. 25, a day when several other major storage makers (EMC, Dell, NetApp, LSI and Spectra Logic) came out with new storage offerings for midrange enterprises, IBM launched its System Storage DS5020 Express, a storage disk package aimed at-you guessed it-midrange businesses.
And why not? The market numbers are in clear agreement that midrange enterprises, small and midsize businesses, and home offices are where the current and future growth is in data storage.
The System Storage DS5020 Express sets itself apart by including self-encrypting hard drives designed for cloud services providers that host business applications.
The DS5020 Express includes four Fibre Channel interfaces at a top speed of 8G bps and iSCSI connectivity, a combination providing flexibility that is welcomed in most data centers. The DS5020 Express can support up to 112 drives by fitting in EXP520 expansion units. Drive options include Fibre Channel, self-encrypting Fibre Channel and SATA (Serial ATA).
The DS5020 Express’ physical array features a modular design and is designed to deliver its best performance with virtualized components such as IBM PowerVM, Microsoft Windows 2008 Hyper-V and VMware vSphere 4, IBM said.
The DS5020’s self-encrypting drives are designed to support business-critical applications, IBM said. The array also includes partitioning and IBM’s FlashCopy, VolumeCopy and Enhanced Remote Mirroring.
The System Storage DS5020 Express will be available Sept. 4. Pricing starts at $22,500, which includes IBM service support and a three-year warranty.
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