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Unified storage combo binds NAS, SAN and DR

Nexsan and Reldata ally for low cost network storage

Nexsan and Reldata have linked up to produce an IP-based unified storage system that offers both SAN and NAS capabilities, and will be sold by both companies' dealers.

According to Reldata boss Dr Boris Anderer, the joint product - called Unified Smart Storage - is a complete system in its own right, not merely a bundle. He said it consolidates an iSCSI SAN server, NAS for file storage, and data replication features for enterprise-grade disaster recovery.

"It's a very stable and fast unified storage solution," he said. "It delivers high availability, wire-speed throughput and unmatched capacity at between $2000 and $3000 [£1000-£1500] per TB. If you compare that with NetApp or EMC entry-level solutions, for example, you will see we have a huge cost advantage."

He added that the system's disaster recovery features include incremental snapshots and remote mirroring, both done at block level over iSCSI. "Most other systems around do file system replication," he claimed.

Nexsan's speciality is high performance storage arrays, mostly using SATA disk, while Reldata does storage gateways - IP-based boxes that connect to various kinds of hard disk and serve it up as files or blocks.

The joint system incorporates Reldata's 9240 gateway, which has six Gigabit Ethernet ports, plus two UltraSCSI connections and dual 4Gig Fibre Channel ports for connecting existing storage devices.

Anderer noted that as well as being cheaper than equivalents from Reldata's other storage partners, such as Infortrend, LSI and DotHill, the system's Nexsan SATAbeast disk unit uses MAID (massive array of idle disk) techniques to power-down unused drives and cut energy use. ®

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