April 4th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
LenovoEMC Announces Updated LifeLine 4.0 OS
LenovoEMC is announcing their next generation LifeLine 4.0 Operating System for Iomega NAS products which are now part of LenovoEMC. LenovoEMC LifeLine 4.0 OS features a variety of updated capabilities as well as new features. LifeLine 4.0 includes Integrated Virtualization Technology (IVX), Snapshots for the first time, SSD Cache Pools, iSCSI Security, Active Directory Hybrid Authentication as well as additional improvements. The updates focus on management, security and increasing the availability of businesses' content in order to create a better end-user experience.
Read moreApril 1st, 2013 by Doug Crowthers
Tripp Lite SmartRack SRCOOL12K Review
As we've continued to expand our Enterprise Testing Lab, we've needed to look for ways to improve our cooling within the lab environment without the large expense of external cooling units. The team over at Tripp Lite offered us an easy all-in-one solution with its SMARTRACK Series SRCOOL12K, Self-Contained Portable Air Conditioning Unit. The SRCOOL12K is available in 120V (SRCOOL12K) or 230V (SRXCOOL12K) models. The unit offers 12,000 BTU of cooling power that provides adequate cooling for a 500 square foot room. That makes the SRCOOL12K well-suited for our Enterprise Testing Lab's footprint.
March 30th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
Imation RDX Media Secure USB 3.0 Review (RDX-USB3)
The Imation RDX Media Secure Docking Station and its paired RDX cartridges featuring Media Secure Client software provide users with an alternative to tape storage solutions and standard external hard drives used for backup purposes. The RDX Docking Station furnishes users with the speed of USB 3.0 connectivity and the long-term scalability tapes have historically provided. The cartridges have wide-ranging capacity offerings and beyond that, they come in both standard and encrypted models allowing users to choose the features that they need to meet budget or compliance restraints. That said, the Imation RDX Media Secure is positioned for the SMB market and this particular iteration can meet the backup needs of either a workstation or a small server group.
March 29th, 2013 by Kevin OBrien
Samsung SM843 Enterprise SSD Review
The Samsung SM843 takes over from the PM830 as the entry and mainstream enterprise-class SSD designed for use in situations that tend to be read-intensive like compute server boot drives, higher-end client workstation needs, and certain embedded applications. The drive utilizes a SATA interface, offers a slim 7mm drive height, and leverages an in-house Samsung 20nm MLC NAND as well as a Samsung controller and firmware stack. To allay concerns, the SM843 offers write endurance of 1PB (1000TB). Design-wise, the SM843 looks much like its client-focused cousin, the 840 Pro, however the core differences are added over-provisioning in the SM843 to show higher endurance and a firmware that's tuned for workloads that are more read-heavy.
March 29th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
Dell Announces Support for 4TB HDDs in Compellent Storage Arrays
Dell has announced the availability of its densest Dell Compellent storage arrays that offer support for Seagate's latest 4TB SAS hard drives offering a 33% capacity boost over the previous generation 3TB drives. Compellent arrays dynamically tier data; frequently accessed data is shifted onto high-performance SSD, Fibre Channel, and high-speed SAS drives, while Compellent designates less commonly accessed data to high-capacity SAS drives. This optimization enables companies to increase capacity while maintaing performance and control on budgetary issues. Dell is the first major SAN provider to offer the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 4TB 3.5" HDDs which will be included in the Compellent SC200 enclosure.
Read moreMarch 28th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
Tripp Lite SmartOnline UPS Review (SU3000RTXL2U)
Tripp Lite's SU3000RTXL2U is an online UPS system (uninterruptable power supply) that provides 3000VA/2500 watts of reliable battery backup for up to seven outlets. The unit sustains regulated voltage, frequency, and a pure sine wave to confine itself from power brownouts and failures. Tripp Lite specifically designed this model to protect medical equipment, wiring closets, switches, storage devices, routers, and servers from power issues that can cause critical systems to go offline. The Tripp Lite SmartOnline instantly kicks into action by continuously routing power through a double-conversion circuit, giving it a 0ms transfer time. Battery life itself is projected at 6 minutes for a full load at 2500 watts and 15 minutes for a half load at 1250 watts without additional battery packs connected.
March 25th, 2013 by Kevin OBrien
LSI Nytro WarpDrive BLP4-400 Application Accelerator Review
The LSI Nytro WarpDrive BLP4-400 is a half-height half-length PCIe application accelerator that offers 400GB of eMLC NAND. Like the WLP4-200 200GB SLC model we have reviewed previously, the BLP4-400 combines four NAND pools leveraging SandForce controllers into a single storage volume. The drive is designed to be easy to deploy; the universal form factor slots easily into most servers, and thanks to LSI's background in HBAs and RAID cards, the WarpDrive usually doesn't require additional software or drivers to be installed. The WarpDrive family is as close as it gets to plug and play in an enterprise flash storage environment.
March 25th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
Nimbus Announces HALO 2013 Software
Nimbus Data announced the release of their new software HALO 2013, which is marketed toward IT managers working within the cloud who are interested in building all-flash memory architectures. HALO 2013 provides administrators with a simple ten minute startup that allows them to quickly access the analytical tools necessary to measure both the efficiency and performance of Nimbus flash arrays including the new Gemini flash arrays that house up to 48TB in a 2U form factor. Updates to HALO 2013 include an open API (application programming interface), mobile apps for streaming live stats and viewing charts remotely, and, shown below, advanced analytics to monitor over 200 metrics.
March 21st, 2013 by Bill Valle
Qlogic FabricCache: First in SSD Caching Across Multiple Servers on SAN
A popular industry trend is to utilize ultra fast flash drives to cache data on servers for faster access for demanding business applications. Qlogic has gone a step further than most by having the data cached by these flash devices across a pool of servers on the SAN. FabricCache transforms a single-server captive cache into a resource that can be tapped by multiple servers that support a wide variety of enterprise applications. Last year QLogic began showing the technology off as Mt. Rainier, today's announcement provides more detail on the first product in this family, the FabricCache QLE10000.
March 18th, 2013 by Guest Author
What is Object Storage?
Now this is where things get fun. With the move towards cloud computing and service delivery over the public internet, traditional storage access paradigms like NAS and SAN are starting to see new options move into the neighborhood. While probably more closely related to NAS vs. SAN, object-based storage does not provide a block-oriented interface or access via a file system and file folders, but rather it organizes data into variable-sized containers, or objects. Each object has the data itself (a stream of bytes) as well as metadata (data about the data). Read more
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 
