- Application Accelerator
- SSD
- HDD
- Large Enterprise Storage
- Medium SAN/NAS (12+ bays)
- Small SAN/NAS (up to 8 bays)
- Backup and Recovery
- Attached Storage
- Storage Adapters
- Networking
- Server Rack
- Server
- Power Management
- Software
- Accessories
December 31st, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
Eaton 9PX UPS Review
The Eaton 9PX UPS is a new high-efficiency battery backup designed for the protection of medium-to-high-density IT equipment in computer rooms as well as small data centers in industrial, manufacturing, medical and telecommunications applications. Offered in sizes between 5-11kVA, the 9PX is aimed toward a wide range of operating conditions, with installations supporting the 9PX UPS itself or scale-out configurations with up to twelve additional EMBs (extended battery modules) to offer additional runtime. With claims of high operating efficiency (>98%) and AMB technology to extend the service life of batteries by up to 50%, Eaton is gearing to help IT departments save on power consumption and lower operating costs with the new 9PX UPS.
December 21st, 2012 by Doug Crowthers
Netgear ProSafe WNDAP660 Dual-Band Wireless Access Point Review
The Netgear ProSafe WNDAP660 is the company's premiere dual-band wireless-N access point router from its business-line of networking products. The access point offers 802.11n (3x3) connection, with throughput up to 450 Mbps, along with dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios for maximum wireless throughput. For business users it also offers a set of robust security features include WPA, WPA2, rogue AP detection, 802.1x with RADIUS support, Advanced Security with Wireless Intrusion Detection (WIDS) and Wireless Intrusion Prevention (WIPS) support.
December 20th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
EchoStreams GridStreams Quad-Node Server Review
The EchoStreams GridStreams is a 2U, high-density quad-node server platform designed for high-performance datacenter and Open Computing Alliance cloud service providers. Each of the four nodes features a half-width motherboard with support for single or dual Intel Xeon 2600 processors and room for one or two PCIe expansion slots depending on motherboard configuration. The GridStreams offers a bank of eight 7mm 2.5" drive bays in the middle, designed to be shared two each across the compute nodes. Configured for data center use, the nodes and drive bays serviceable from the front of the chassis, both are hot swappable. Only fans and power are on the back of the chassis, designed to be swapped out in new datacenter environments in which the rack provides both 12VDC and cooling airflow to the server chassis.
December 17th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
iXsystems Titan 316J JBOD Review
The iXsystems Titan iX-316J is a 16 3.5" bay, JBOD storage expansion shelf. The JBOD has become a permanent fixture of the Storage Review lab, enabling us to directly connect SATA or SAS drives to a host compute system via LSI 9207-8e SAS expander. The iX-316J can be used in a variety of use cases, ranging from accepting up to 64TB of SATA drives, all the way up to the speedier 2.5" 10K and 15K drives, should the user choose to go that route. In this review we look at three different sets of hard drives, clearly illustrating the performance vs. capacity trade-offs that occur with modern enterprise hard drives.
December 7th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
OCZ Talos 2 Enterprise SSD Review
The OCZ Talos 2 is an enterprise SSD that uses a SAS interface, MLC NAND and 2.5" form factor. The Talos 2 comes in two variations, an R model that includes powerfail protection and more over provisioning and a C model that does not, giving enterprises flexibility based on their needs. Architecturally, the Talos 2 is somewhat unique in the marketplace in that it uses dual controllers in a 2.5" form factor. OCZ leverages their Virtualized Controller Architecture (VCA) 2.0 to tie together a pair of SandForce flash controllers, which provides both performance and capacity benefits.
December 5th, 2012 by Doug Crowthers
WD RE 4TB Enterprise Hard Drive Review (WD4000FYYZ)
Western Digital RAID Edition (RE) 4TB Enterprise drive takes the RE family to the 4TB capacity limit. The new drive offers a SATA 6Gbps interface with RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER), dual actuator technology, enterprise build quailty to name a few of the features that make the Western Digital RE's ideal for Enterprise users looking for the fine balance between performance and capacity.
December 2nd, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
Synology DS1512+ NAS Review
The Synology DS1512+ is a 5-bay NAS designed for small business use that features a dual core 2.13GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and Synology's DiskStation Manager (DSM) software. Synology sells their NAS units without disks, so users purchase the enclosure and add any combination of 2.5" or 3.5" drives they wish. While the entry-NAS market for even the SMB space typically have 4-bays, the 5-bay option from Synology is nice in that the system is better geared towards handling two drive failures with RAID6, offering a little extra data protection in the event a drive dies during RAID rebuild. The DS1512+ is designed to grow as well, with expansion support of 5 or 10 more bays via eSATA and Synology's DX510 expansion units for total capacity up to 60TB.
November 15th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
Intel SSD DC S3700 Series Enterprise SSD Review
The Intel SSD DC S3700 uses a 6Gb/s SATA interface paired with MLC NAND, in-house controller and is offered in both 2.5" and 1.8" form factors. The S3700 is designed for the mainstream and high-performance enterprise market segments and carries an aggressive pricing scheme (40% lower MSRP than prior model), making the drive consumable by just about any server compute or flash array need. The easy to deploy message, along with Intel's heritage of offering SSDs with leading endurance and performance makes the S3700 compelling to a wide range of use cases.
November 12th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
STEC s840 Enterprise SSD Review
The STEC s840 is a 6Gb/s SAS SSD targeted toward the high performance enterprise market segment. The s840 features a completely designed and developed in-house controller and firmware stack paired with MLC NAND in a 15mm, 2.5" form factor. It comes in 200GB, 400GB and 800GB capacities and offers sustained read throughput of up to 529MB/s, write throughput of 453MB/s and maximum read IOPS of 118,000. As with most enterprise SSDs, STEC is about more than just raw performance though; STEC has a robust portfolio of intellectual property that gives them certain advantages in SSD design, along with a heritage that goes back to 1994.
November 12th, 2012 by Josh Linden
NETGEAR ProSafe Plus JGS524E 24-Port Ethernet Switch Review
ProSafe Plus is Netgear’s family of SMB switches that provide some advanced Layer 2 network functionality such as VLAN and per-port QoS, with a streamlined management interface for situations where full-blown managed switches are not necessary or practical to administrate. The ProSafe Plus JGS524E provides 24 ports with up to 2,000 Mbps of dedicated, non-blocking bandwidth per port in a compact rack-mountable chassis.
