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QNAP Ups Its Game Into the Enterprise Market

by Adam Armstrong

Today QNAP Systems, Inc. announced the release of the first product in what will be a new line for mission-critical tasks and intensive virtualization applications. The newest product is the Enterprise ZFS NAS ES1640dc and marks the first step for QNAP into the larger enterprise storage market. QNAP claims that its new ES1640dc can deliver business-class cloud computing data storage and full support for virtualization environments. QNAP will also be using a new operating system (OS) on the ES1640dc, the FreeBSD-based QES.


Today QNAP Systems, Inc. announced the release of the first product in what will be a new line for mission-critical tasks and intensive virtualization applications. The newest product is the Enterprise ZFS NAS ES1640dc and marks the first step for QNAP into the larger enterprise storage market. QNAP claims that its new ES1640dc can deliver business-class cloud computing data storage and full support for virtualization environments. QNAP will also be using a new operating system (OS) on the ES1640dc, the FreeBSD-based QES.

QNAP will be tackling the enterprise market with a lot more powerful hardware in its new ZFS NAS ES1640dc. The ES1640dc is powered by Intel Xeon E5-2420 v2 processors, 32GB RAM, and features dual active-active controllers (providing businesses with what QNAP is claiming, near-zero downtime high availability). The ES1640dc also has battery-protected DRAM write cache, dual 10GbE ports, optional 40GbE NIC, redundant power supplies, and a field-replaceable design for easier maintenance. To add even more capacity users can connect EJ1600 expansion enclosures via the dual path mini-SAS.

The new ES1640dc uses a FreeBSD-based QES operating system. According to QNAP, this new OS will assist businesses in building the most cost-efficient VDI platform and storage for critical data. This new QES OS also comes with other advanced features such as flexible storage pools, simplified management, high-performance SSD cache, near-limitless snapshots, SnapSync, block-based data deduplication, in-line compression and thin provisioning with reclaim for optimized utilization in virtual machine storage. QES also supports iSCSI Cinder Node drivers and provides block-level storage space to virtual machines.

The ES1640dc is QNAP’s first OpenStack Ready NAS. It is also certified for VMware vSphere 6.0, and is compatible with Microsoft Hyper-V. That being said, the new ES1640dc can support VMware VAAI and Microsoft ODX to increase performance by offloading server loading for ESXi server and Hyper-V respectively. The new NAS can further enhance operational and management in virtualization applications through the QNAP vSphere Client plug-in, web plug-in, and QNAP SMI-S provider.

Key specifications

  • Enterprise ZFS NAS ES1640dc 
    • Dual-controller
    • Form factor: 3U rackmount
    • CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2420 v2 6-core processor
    • Memory: 32GB DDR3 ECC RDIMM for main memory and 16GB write cache DIMM per controller
    • Drives: 16x 3.5”/2.5” SAS 6Gbps hard drives or 2.5” SAS/SATA SSDs (optional LSISS9252 SAS-to-SATA Interposer is required)
    • mSATA SSD dedicated to NVRAM
    • Interface:
      • 2x 10GbE (RJ45) LAN ports; PCIe Gen3 x8 slot: reserved for 40GbE or 10GbE LAN card
      • PCIe Gen2 x4 slot: reserved for dual path Mini-SAS
      • 2x USB 3.0 ports
    • Power: 770W redundant power supplies 
  • Expansion enclosure EJ1600: 
    • Dual-controller
    • Form factor: 3U rackmount
    • 2x Mini-SAS ports
    • Drives: 16x 3.5"/2.5” SAS 6Gbps hard drives or 2.5” SAS/SATA SSDs (optional LSISS9252 SAS-to-SATA Interposer is required)
    • Power: 450W redundant power supplies

Availability

The Enterprise ZFS NAS ES1640dc and expansion enclosure EJ1600 are available now.

QNAP ZFS NAS ES1640dc product page

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