45Drives: Storinator Hybrid Gen 2.0 Storage Systems

45Drives, division of Protocase Inc., announced the launch of Storinator Hybrid Gen 2.0 storage solutions.

Storinator Hybrid F8X3

Most storage servers use a single type of primary storage media, like HDDs or SSDs.

All-HDD servers excel at inexpensively storing large amounts of data, and serve it back over your network at very high speeds, although small-file random access workloads will challenge them. All-SSD servers excel at small file random access workloads, but at present, are much more expensive and tend not to be used on large data sets. That’s why hybrid storage servers are exciting.

Hybrid Storage servers use both HDDs and SSDs. This can allow you to leverage the cost-effective bulk storage and throughput of HDDs with the low latency of SSDs. For the right application, this can provide serious performance benefits.

Of course, the company has been making big, strong, fast hybrid storage servers for a number of years now, which have proven to be real high-performance workhorses as both single servers, and as nodes in storage clusters. Today, it announces the Storinator Hybrid generation 2.0.

Standardized drive ratio

The drive ratio for each size has been standardized with the Storinator Hybrid 2.0,. You can see this in the model names of the servers.

Storinator Hybrid model naming convention

This drive ratio is optimized for common ZFS and Ceph applications. Compared to the 1.0, this standardization will make sizing servers/nodes much simpler. (We will be doing a blog in the near future on server performance that includes hybrids.)

Row-aligned HBA’s
Each row of the Hybrid 2.0 storage server is now independent from each other, meaning there is one dedicated storage controller (HBA) for each row.

This gives the benefit of:

• Simplified drive to slot mapping, so it is easy for an operator to track down a specific drive.

• Improved serviceability to the underlying hardware.

• Support for hardware RAID storage controllers if the end application requires it (Windows for example).

Single row hybrid storage

F8X1

The design of the Storinator Hybrid 1.0 did not allow for single row servers. This has been rectified in gen-2.0 with the F8X1, offering 12 HDDs plus 8 SSDs. This is a node sizing for creating low cost, high performance Ceph clusters using journaling (dedicated rocksdb).

Cable management and serviceability
One of the first things you’ll notice when looking at the new hybrid design is the numerous cable management improvements made throughout the device.

Instead of using sticky mats for cable ties, we now use screwed in brackets. These make it easy to access necessary cables when you need to make replacements or upgrades.

Generation 2.0 cable mounts next to generation 1.0

The Hybrid 2.0 has increased the space in the motherboard chamber to give an easier time servicing your unit. We used this extra space for this cable management mount that holds the power cables for the drives upright.

Fan bracket

The middle fan bracket has been redesigned with serviceability in mind. It is now easy to disconnect the fan cables and remove the entire section without needing to dig around too much.

Improved boot drive acces

Boot drive access on  Storinator Hybrid Gen 2.0 is toolless.

Another change to the motherboard chamber was adding a toolless bracket to access the boot drive. It is now just as easy to access your boot drives as it is to access any of the other drives in your unit.

Airflow

Storinator Hybrid 2.0 has implemented changes to improve airflow:

• In the drive chamber, the new SSD mounting system and consistent orientation of the drives allow more air to move through and around the SSDs.
• In the motherboard chamber,

• • a dedicated air baffle (for the F8X2 or F8X3) and fan to funnel airflow directly over the PCIe storage and NICs.
  • Increased area behind the power supply allows for higher number of fans to allow uniform CFM through the chamber.

Resource:
Video: Thursday Tech Tip – Storinator Hybrid Redesign