FEATURED by Josh Shaman
Synology DS1513+ NAS Review
The Synology DS1513+ is a 5-bay NAS that provides up to 20TB of raw storage with the ability to scale out to 60TB using expansion bays, and it features a dual core 2.13GHz processor, 2GB of RAM and Synology's DiskStation Manager 4.2 (DSM 4.2) software. The DS1513+ is also shipped with loads of connectivity via USB 3.0 and 2.0, Ethernet and eSATA ports. The DS1513+ updates and replaces the DS1512+ and is designed for the enterprise SMB market. Compared to the DS1512+, the DS1513+ provides increased throughput, more redundancy and easier business application usage. Another stanadard feature included on the DS1513+ is Synology High Availability which works to prevent drawn-out downtime and performs network load balancing to optimize storage across drives.
FEATURED by Josh Shaman
HGST Ultrastar C10K900 Review
The HGST Ultrastar C10K900 is an enterprise-class, 2.5" HDD that interfaces over SAS, has a spindle speed of 10,000RPM and ranges up to 900GB in capacity. The Ultrastar C10K900 also comes in at a 14.8mm z-Height, classing it in the 15mm category. That small form factor helps to reduce organizations' overall TCO, especially in networked storage arrays or any space and/or power constrained environments. On top of that, other optimal environments for the Ultrastar C10K900 are blade and rack-mounted servers for applications such as online transaction processing (OLTP), any high performance scenario, and cloud computing.
June 18th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
SanDisk FlashSoft 3.2 Announced
SanDisk is announcing the new version of its FlashSoft software for Window Server and Linux operating systems as part of a significant upgrade to its enterprise software portfolio. FlashSoft 3.2 is a server-side solid state caching software designed to strengthen the performance of existing applications and server and storage systems. FlashSoft 3.2 now features support for multiple SSDs as well as SSD mirroring for write-back caching. Additionally, it supports up to four caches on just one server and a maximum cache now up to 2TB per cache. FlashSoft 3.2 also now supports DAS and SAN configurations and can accelerate up to 2,048 volumes per cache.
June 18th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
Zetta.net DataProtect 4.0 Availability Announced
Zetta.net is announcing the general availability of its DataProtect 4.0 which is an enterprise-grade cloud backup and disaster recovery solution designed for SMEs, remote and branch offices, and managed service providers (MSPs). DataProtect 4.0 provides several new features including WAN traffic optimization, local backup functionality for all data sets, a new UI, and an improved Exchange Server Backup plug-in. Zetta.net is also announcing its growth with its customer base having expanded year-over-year by 243% and with Series B funding of $8,000,000 to enable further expansion (which bring the company's total backing to $39.5 million).
June 14th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
Seagate and IBM Enterprise SSHD Announced
Seagate recently blogged about a new enterprise solid state hybrid hard drive (SSHD) though the company has yet to publicly mention the product. The new enterprise SSHD is branded as an IBM drive and is designed as a storage upgrade in IBM System x servers. From what is known so far, the drives are based off of Seagate models that are 2.5" form factor, 600GB drives that spin at 10,000RPM and interface over 6Gb/s SAS. The drive also features a robust 128MB of on-board cache, and the hybrid component comes in the form of 16GB of eMLC NAND. With the enterprise SSHD that is designed for mid-range servers and storage subsystems, Seagate is aiming at 100% better performance than the base 10K drive.
June 14th, 2013 by Bill Valle
DataCore SANsymphony-V Updates Announced
DataCore Software is announcing updates to its SANsymphony-V storage virtualization platform as part of its version R9 release. The new version of the software adds the following enhancements: improved management with wizards, templates, and support for group commands for multiple hosts; a new database repository option for recording and analyzing performance history and trends; improved remote replication and connectivity optimizations for faster and more efficient performance; and support for higher speed 16Gbit Fibre Channel networking. Overall, the SANsymphony-V Update 9.0.3 is a strategic productivity solution that works infrastructure-wide across many storage hardware brands and models.
June 12th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
HP Converged Cloud Expansion Announced
HP is announcing innovations to its Converged Cloud portfolio for greater agility and innovation as well as reduced cost for hybrid cloud environments. Part of that announcement is that HP has now delivered the next phase of a common OpenStack-based architecture for HP’s private, managed and public cloud offerings. On top of that, HP announced new software and services that accelerate time-to-market for private cloud, and HP has unveiled new capabilities for its managed and public cloud solutions. Much of what HP is announcing comes on the heels of research that HP commissioned that suggests that by 2016, 75% of enterprise IT will be delivered across hybrid cloud. The study also open standards are important for cloud deployment.
June 12th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
Imation Assureon 7 Announced
Imation is announcing the release of its Nexsan Assureon 7 disk-based secure automated archive solution which consolidates storage tiers, secures data and reduces complexity in storage management for SMEs. Particularly, government, healthcare and financial organizations that deal with compliance for industry and government regulations are the target-market for this software which can automate storage policies to encrypt, self-authenticate, self-manage, self-heal and self-configure storage for all unstructured files and content. Going one step further, Assureon doesn't necessitate that applications be customized to use proprietary APIs in order to store data in the archive making Assureon easier to operate.
June 11th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
HP Big Data Analytics Expansion Announced
HP today announced the expansion of their big data portfolio with one of the additions being HP HAVEn. Overall, these additions provide organizations with improved data insight and a view of real-time outcomes as HP commissioned research shows that more than a third of organizations have failed with a big data initiative. HP's expanded portfolio provides the tools for these organizations to be more successful. In part, that's where HP HAVEn comes in. HAVEn is a big data analytics platform that utilizes HP’s analytics software, hardware and services to create big data-ready analytics applications and solutions.
June 11th, 2013 by Bill Valle
HP StoreOnce Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) Announced
HP is announcing StoreOnce Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) which is a new hardware-agnostic, software-defined storage solution that is deployed as a VM on existing industry-standard server infrastructures. StoreOnce VSA can reduce capital expenses by up to 65% compared to a dedicated backup appliance. Running the same software as the physical HP StoreOnce appliances, it shares the same data services including cross-family replication, backup application integration, and federated deduplication. This new solution is the only deduplication technology that can be deployed from a target appliance, media server, application source, and VMs.
The SAS 616iSD 10G is part of an extensive line of block-level storage arrays offered by JetStor. The iSCSI 616iSD offers up to 48TB of storage via 16 3.5" bays in a 3U enclosure. JetStor features dual redundant active/active RAID controllers and four 10GbE ports, two per controller. Each controller is powered by an Intel IOP342 64-bit Chevelon dual-core storage processor, and includes features like parity-assist ASIC, iSCSI-assist engine and TCP Offload Engine (TOE). Should 48TB prove insufficient, the 616iSD can be expanded with four JBOD shelves (SAS716J) for a maximum capacity of 240TB per array.
The StarTech 2636 cabinet is a 15U server rack that ships fully assembled and is ready to go right out of the box. The growing rack space requirements of the 
The Mellanox SX1036 is a 1U managed Ethernet switch that provides up to 2.88Tb/s of non-blocking throughput via 36 40Gb/s QSFP ports that can be broken out to achieve up to 64 10Gb/s ports or offer a mixture of 40Gb/s and 10Gb/s connectivity. As a backbone to the .jpg)
The Lenovo ThinkServer RD630 represents a calculated entry into the server market: an affordable server with specifications that support database applications and virtualized infrastructure. The RD630 was announced earlier this year as part of an initiative to expand the ThinkServer brand into enterprise cloud and virtualization deployments. It is a scalable 2U rack server solution featuring hardware RAID and eight to sixteen 2.5-inch hot-swap SAS or SATA drives. Powering the ThinkServer is the Intel Xeon E5-2600 processor family with the Intel C602 Chipset. New products like the RD630 are positioning Lenovo to take on other OEMs like Dell and HP that already operate in the enterprise server market.
Eaton’s Advanced Monitored family of ePDUs are designed to allow administrators to remotely monitor the power usage of individual outlets or sections over the network. Out-of-the-box web monitoring is built into the ePDU, and SNMP allows integration with third-party management systems. The eAM001 Advanced Monitored ePDU brings 20 C13 outlets and 4 C19 outlets to the 
