Hitachi Data Systems is taking a higher-end approach to the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market.
HDS unveiled the new Hitachi Thunder 9520V Workgroup Modular Storage system, a serial ATA (SATA)version of its midrange Thunder systems. At about $22,000-$24,000 for a 3.4 TB solution, the 9520V offers software and features found in HDS’ midrange offerings.
“It’s an SMB machine, but it’s got big-time enterprise features,” said Jeff Hill, HDS’ director of infrastructure product marketing.
Instead of competing with low-end SANofferings like the Dell/EMC AX100 or the HP MSA1000, the 9520V is aimed more at EMC’s CX300 and HP’s MSA1500 offerings.
The 9520V was developed as a result of feedback from HDS’ channel partners, who wanted a complete storage solution to offer their SMB customers, said Karen Sigman, HDS’ senior director of global channels.
The 9520V can scale to 13TB, and it can also be attached to HDS’ high-end TagmaStore system for tiered storage. Shipped with switches and HBAs from Brocade, McData and Emulex, the solution is “easy to install and configure,” said Hill, an important consideration for SMB customers.
The 9520V delivers 4.2GB per second of cached bandwidth, which HDS says is six times greater than the nearest ATA-based comparative product, and high connectivity, data availability and reliability. It also boasts the same SATA Data Protection as the SATA Intermix Option in the high-end Thunder 9500 V Series line. The 9520V also supports Hi-Track 24/7 “call home” technology to help diagnose and resolve issues early, plus fully redundant components that can be replaced without downtime.
The 9520 V supports all the management tools and software options that are available on the Thunder 9500 V Series, such as the Hitachi Resource Manager utility package, which is included with the unit, and the optional Hitachi ShadowImage In-System Replication, Copy-on-Write software (formerly QuickShadow), and Cross-System Copy (formerly HiCopy). In heterogeneous environments, the Hitachi HiCommand Storage Area Management Suite provides management through optional application and business modules.
With these starter solutions, channel partners “will be able to help their customers consolidate storage onto a Thunder 9520V system and quickly and easily build and deploy their first SAN,” HDS said.
The 9520V solutions will be sold by Hitachi TrueNorth Channel partners, including computer Lenovo and Acer in Asia and Gateway in the Americas, and channel partners MAXDATA in Europe and Bell Microproducts in North America.