HP StoreEasy 5000 Storage Review (StoreEasy 5530)

HP has been going through a transformation recently when it comes to the branding of their storage products. 3PAR, LeftHand, NAS and JBOD storage solutions have become more neatly accounted for with clear steps defined to help buyers understand which solutions fit their needs. The StoreEasy family addresses the SMB and midmarket with storage offerings that range from 1U entry-level filers to more complex arrays that could include elements from the enterprise 3PAR and virtual storage offerings. The StoreEasy 5000 takes its place at the top of the StoreEasy family. The StoreEasy 5530 configuration that we're now reviewing can either operate on its own as the primary NAS storage for a small organization or branch/remote office, or the 5530 can form the beginning of a much larger storage environment. Either way, the StoreEasy runs Windows Storage Server 2012 and is designed to be an easy drop-in for Windows-based environments. The storage server itself offers dual blade servers in an active/active configuration to offer not just a highly-available (HA) solution, but one that can also load balance and offer non-disruptive in-place upgrades.

April 7th, 2013 by Kevin OBrien

Aberdeen AberNAS N31L Review

The Aberdeen AberNAS N31L is among Aberdeen's ultra-dense NAS storage arrays that are all designed to offer maximum capacity levels at more affordable prices than the upper echelon providers. The AberNAS is packed with features including capacity for up to 64TB of storage via 16 3.5" bays. The 3U form factor NAS also features Intel Xeon E5 family processors, up to 512MB RAM, and exceptional connectivity via 10GBe LAN and six standard PCI Express 3.0 slots. The Aberdeen N31L also features LSI SAS 6G RAID and extra compatibility via full support for Aberdeen's SAS 6G 4U/45Bay and 3U/28Bay JBOD for users that need to expand their array's capacity.

January 1st, 2013 by Kevin OBrien

Synology RackStation RS3412xs Review

The Synology RackStation RS3412xs and RS3412RPxs 2U rack mount NAS units offer 10 3.5" drive bays and Synology's robust DiskStation Manager 4.1 (DSM). Synology offers several enterprise-class features, note the RP in the RS3412RPxs stands for redundant power supply, and Synology offers an optional 10GbE card to take advantage of top-line performance of 100,000+ IOPS using SSDs in RAID5. The chassis supports up to 40TB natively with 4TB hard drives, and can scale to 136TB of total capacity using the RX1211 or RX1211RP expansion shelves.

September 17th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien

JetStor SAS 616iSD 10G iSCSI SAN Review

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.

July 23rd, 2012 by Kevin OBrien

Drobo B1200i Review

If we know anything about Drobo and the new B1200i, their mission statement is to keep storage simple. The 12-bay SAN has historically supported up to 48TB of storage via SATA and SAS hard drives via Drobo's BeyondRAID automatic and instantaneous drive management system. Now the B1200i has a new trick up its sleeve, automated data-aware tiering. Maintaining the simplicity mantra, the B1200i can support a trio of SSDs to deliver automatic data tiering, while preserving the other nine bays for large capacity storage, all with plug-and-play simplicity.

May 15th, 2013 by Kevin OBrien