Start-Up Active Storage in RAID for Mac

Active Storage, Inc. unveiled the Active Storage XRAID, a powerful and compact high-availability RAID system for Apple users providing up to 16TB (Terabytes) of storage in a sleek enclosure occupying only 3 units (3U) of rack space, all managed with the industry’s only native Mac OS X management suite.

The design of the system offers almost unlimited capacity and performance expansion in a Fibre Channel network. Low cost expansion is possible using a cost-effective Active Storage XRAID Expansion enclosure, doubling the capacity for up to 32TB of storage using a single set of redundant RAID controllers.

“When we first saw the Active Storage XRAID we knew we found a perfect replacement for the discontinued Apple Xserve RAID. We had been looking for an elegant and easy to use RAID, offering an outstanding hardware feature set, built by some of the best storage engineering minds anywhere. And with the Active Storage XRAID we get all of that”, said David W. Gohara, Ph.D. at Washington University in St. Louis, MO.

The Active Storage XRAID offers incredible price performance for Apple users. The system offers industry leading throughput up to 1570MB/s on standard direct-attached server benchmarks, and is spectacular in Xsan 2 installations where up to 4 streams of 8-bit 1080p uncompressed video are delivered by one Active Storage XRAID system.

The Active Storage XRAID is a new product, but the company is not new to storage. Active is driven by a team of seasoned storage industry developers and innovators with many awards and industry firsts to their credit, most recently having driven the development of the award-winning and highly regarded Apple Xserve RAID during their tenure at Apple.

“The Active Storage XRAID is the next stage in storage for Apple users. From the onset, our goal was to capture the great innovative spirit of the Apple Xserve RAID, but to also update the concept utilizing the latest storage technology available. It was important to us to put user input on management and performance in the forefront”, said Active Storage CEO Alex Grossman, formerly the senior director of hardware server and storage at Apple.

The Active Storage XRAID differs from competing systems by offering the industry’s first true native Mac OS X storage management suite, featuring Bonjour discovery, a Cocoa-developed monitoring application, a Cocoa Admin Application, a Dashboard Widget, and an iPhone management App. This rich suite of management tools allows simplified setup and management, making the Active Storage XRAID usable out of the box for even the most complex Xsan or multi-server installations in a matter of minutes. Additionally, the systems deliver outstanding performance without the complex and cumbersome scripts other systems require.

Pricing and Availability
Active Storage XRAID is available for immediate orders, and will ship beginning October 27, 2008 in the USA, Canada and Mexico. Active Storage XRAID products are available through selected VARs and Resellers. The Active Storage XRAID is suggested retail priced at US$14,999. The Active Storage XRAID Expansion System is suggested retail priced at US$12,999. Both systems come tested and ready to use out of the box, including redundant power and cooling, a remote management software suite and all rack mounting hardware. Each system comes complete with a limited 3-year warranty. Extended warranties and on-site service are available.