DataON Storage Unleashes 12Gb SAS

DataON Storage, provider of OS-agnostic storage enclosures, announces 12Gb SAS technology into its DNS line of HA modular JBOD storage enclosures.

12Gb SAS JBOD DNS-2624

The advancement of 12Gb SAS connectivity allows the storage JBOD enclosures to support end-to-end 12Gb/s connectivity from server node to external scalable storage. This technology provides double the bandwidth and sustained throughput efficiency to meet the demands of I/O-intensive applications, cloud datacenters and virtualized server environments.

The DataON 2U 24-bay, 4U 24-bay and 4U 60-bay storage enclosures with 12Gb/s support extend the ability of software-defined storage (SDS) platforms to further take advantage of all SSD storage deployments.

“As a valued Nexenta Elite Alliance Partner, DataON’s enterprise JBODs provide the reliability and performance to deliver Nexenta’s unified storage platform more efficiently and economically than the traditional and proprietary massively expensive storage systems,” states Tony Hampel, Nexenta Systems, Inc.‘s director of product marketing. “By choosing NexentaStor and the DataON JBODs for all-flash storage, our customers have a clear enterprise alternative with a compelling TCO advantage to meet the reliability and scalability needed for performance-intensive storage demands.”

DataON Storage unveiled its OS-agnostic 12Gb SAS JBOD DNS-2624 at the annual LSI Accelerating Innovation Summit (AIS) event to be held at the Doubletree convention venue in San Jose, CA, November 20-21, 2013.

Initial testing has yielded performance figures furnishing 1.1millon IO/s and over 6.5GB/s throughput utilizing a single HBA card and the DataON DNS-2624.

“Since your file system is only as fast as your physical storage, this transition to 12Gb SAS will be essential to unleash the full performance potential of flash-based storage,” said Trenton R. Baker, VP business development, DataON Storage. “The DNS Series of JBOD enclosures will ensure optimal performance and efficiency for cloud and enterprise datacenters by alleviating bottlenecks to help manage explosive data demands.”

The test bed solution consisted of the DNS-2624 dual I/O module 12Gb SAS JBOD enclosure utilizing LSI 9300-8E 12Gb SAS HBAs and Toshiba PX02SM SAS 12Gb/s SSDs. I/Ometer test results confirmed a 118% data transfer improvement from an older generation 6Gb/s SSD deployment to an end-to-end 12Gb/s SSD deployment.

“The Toshiba PX02SM Series SSDs compatible with the DataON 12Gb/s enclosures provide next-generation performance and reliability to database and enterprise customers,” said Don Jeanette, senior director of marketing at Toshiba Corp.’s storage products business unit.

Based upon previous I/O performance testing it was learned that utilizing 6Gb/s SSDs in the 12Gb/s DataON JBOD enclosure can provide up to a 58% performance bump from an all 6Gb/s deployment, primarily due to the LSI DataBolt SAS expander technology. DataBolt technology is designed to aggregate bandwidth from 6Gb/s storage to a 12Gb/s data stream resulting in performance boost and a smooth device transition.

“LSI has a strong history of working closely with industry ecosystem partners such as DataON Storage,” said Robin Wagner, senior director of marketing, datacenter solutions group, LSI Corp. “We’re excited that the DataON JBOD can take advantage of LSI 12Gb SAS HBAs along with LSI’s DataBolt feature that enables early access to 12GB SAS performance to help pave the way for a smooth technology transition.”

The DNS family of storage systems from DataON delivers the storage building blocks required to deploy big data and cloud infrastructures with business critical applications. Utilizing a ‘Start Small Grow Big’ strategy, DataON enables users to connect the DNS-2624 with LSI HBAs to achieve availability with scale-out file server capabilities using NFS in iSCSI or FC environments and SMB 3 protocol with RDMA, such as with Windows Server2012 R2, to provide IT administrators with a performing cost-effective storage solution.

“Windows Server 2012 R2 with Storage Spaces introduces groundbreaking storage functionality and cost benefits and takes advantage of SAS-based JBOD enclosures,” said Matt Garson, senior program manager, Windows, Microsoft Corp. “By providing 12Gb SAS connectivity, the DataON DNS-2624 can help deliver the performance necessary for a wide range of customer workloads while providing cost-effective storage.”

In addition to JBOD enclosures, DataON Storage will be bringing 12Gb SAS to its Cluster-in-a-Box platform to consolidate both server and storage into a single computing platform, shrink hardware costs, minimize footprint requirements, and simplify cabling and installation.