Qumulo QF2 P-Series: Product Overview and Insight

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Bottom line:

Qumulo has put together a solid NAS line with the QF2 P-Series. With NVMe, it can compete with any solution. So among the many NAS solutions on this list, the QF2 is geared for buyers who need performance.

However, it lacks the ability to scale to the level of some other vendor offerings. But should be considered for small and mid-sized deployments where demanding workloads are in play, such as genomic sequencing and analysis, scientific computing and machine learning.

Company description:

Qumulo is a pioneer in file storage for the cloud era. Qumulo File Fabric (QF2) gives businesses the freedom to store, manage and access petabytes of file-based data in the data center and in the cloud at a global scale. Founded in 2012 by the inventors of scale-out NAS, Qumulo serves the modern file storage and management needs of Global 2000 customers.

Product description:

Qumulo’s QF2 is a scale-out file storage system that can run on premises or in the cloud. When QF2 runs on the company’s P-Series all-flash storage hardware, it creates a high-performance NAS device suitable for applications like machine learning, gene sequencing, HD video editing and more. It comes in two versions: the P-23T with 23 TB of raw capacity or the P-92 T with 92 TB of raw capacity.

Key Features:

• The latest P-series combines Qumolo File Fabric software with high-speed NVMe

• Intel Skylake SP processors

• high-bandwidth Intel SSDs

• the latest 100GbE networking.

• The Qumulo P-series delivers 16GBs per second in a minimum configuration four-node system with what is said to be the best price performance of any all-flash file storage solution.

• Up to 24 x 3.84 SSDs

• 192 GB RAM

RAID/Data Protection features:

• Continuous replication.

Storage Saving Features:

• Capacity quotas Support for both SMB and NFS protocols.

Data Management features:

• Real-time visibility and control regardless of the size of the file system.

• Programmability with REST APIs.

• Manage file sets numbering in the billions of files in any operating environment.

Implementation:

Once the nodes are racked and cabled, all an administrator has to do is sign the end-user license agreement (EULA), name the cluster, set up an admin name and password and perhaps enter some IP addresses. Installation is painless. From the moment QF2 is unboxed to when it can start serving data is a matter of hours, not days.

“From beginning to end it was as easy as it gets when deploying a storage solution. From configuration and purchasing to implementation and testing, Qumulo was involved every step of the way to ensure everything went smoothly,” said a systems manager in the media industry.

Technical support:

Highly rated support. Qumulo’s Customer Success program, Qumulo Care, pairs each user with a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM) who has deep experience working with file storage systems and understands the associated workflows and applications.

“Best high-touch customer support I’ve experienced,” said an IT administrator in the media industry.

Capacity:

At highest capacity: 92 TB.

Performance:

4 GB per second throughput from a single node or 16GB/s for a minimum-configuration four-node cluster, and up to 400,000 IOPS.

Markets and Use Cases:

For the world’s most demanding workloads, including: 

• Next-generation genomic sequencing and analysis

• Uncompressed 4K editorial

• Scientific computing

• Large-scale datasets for machine learning applications.

Delivery:

It is a software platform that runs on standard hardware provided by Qumulo or by partners such as HPE. It can also be run in the public cloud.

Pricing:

QF2 pricing is based on a single subscription service that covers everything, including software, updates and support.