Cleversafe, DataDirect Unveil High-Performance Storage

Cleversafe and DataDirect Networks, which both make storage arrays for multi-petabyte big data storage and high-performance computing, unveiled new storage appliances Monday.

Cleversafe introduced a new Slicestor model for its Dispersed Storage Network, which manages unstructured data storage, while DataDirect announced the SFA 10K-M and 10K-ME storage appliances, which are scalable to 720 TB and support DataDirect's ExaScaler and GridScaler Parallel File Systems.

Cleversafe's new Slicestor arrays are available in a 4U (7-inch) high enclosure with 45 drives, using either cost- or performance-optimized serial ATA (SATA) drives. Currently these drives are at 3 TB and consist of 5,400 RPM drives for capacity and cost savings, or 7,200 RPM SATA drives for performance.

The two Slicestor models are: the 1410, which scales to 135 TB and uses 5,400-RPM SATA drives, and the 1420, which uses 7,200-RPM SATA. The 1410 is targeted for long-term data archives, while the 1420 is aimed at nearline archives. The 1410 costs $56,850; the 1420 costs $65,000.

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In a CleverSafe object-based storage system, multiple Slicestors are clustered and the resulting storage pool can be shared by multiple access protocols. The pool made up of Slicestore Storage Nodes is accessed by the Accesser appliance, which uses HTTP/REST APIs. Each pool of storage is managed by the dsNet Manager 2100, which is responsible for fault management, reporting, provisioning, monitoring, configuration, and system optimization. The Cleversafe system can also be deployed as software on industry-standard server platforms.

Slicestor appliances are responsible for slicing the data up and dispersing it among separate disks, storage nodes, and geographic locations. When an individual storage node goes down, the data can be reconstructed from a subset of the slices stored.

DataDirect's new SFA 10K-ME consists of mixed serial-attached SCSI (SAS), SATA, or solid state drives with 16x QDR InfiniBand or 10-GbE network interfaces. The SFA 10K-M is intended for block storage and also consists of SAS, SATA, and solid state drives. The SFA 10K-ME performs at 5 GBps for embedded file systems; the SFA 10K-M shows 840,000 I/Ops for its solid state drives. Both arrays fit between Data Direct's S2A6620 and its SFA10-K-X in capacity and scalability.

The new DataDirect arrays are targeted for high-performance computing applications, file-sharing, data analytics, video surveillance, and Web content storage.

Further, the SFA 10K-ME and SFA 10K-M are VMware-ready and employ RAID technology for data integrity and error correction. Users can start with as few as two drives and scale two drives at a time.

The SFA 10K-M starts at $100,000.

Deni Connor is founding analyst for Storage Strategies NOW, an industry analyst firm that focuses on storage, virtualization, and servers.

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