Originally posted by: TonyPearson

Continuing my series of posts on the IBM Storage launch of February 9, I cover some new disk options.

IBM System Storage DCS9900

The DCS9900 uses a 4U enclosure to hold 60 (that's sixty, SIX-ZERO) drives! Normally, hot-swapable drives face the front or back surface of the rack, but these surfaces are valuable "real estate", so instead, the drives stick downward into a tray that rolls out, giving you full access to access any of the drives. The DCS9900 added support for 2TB (7200 RPM) SATA drives, and 600GB (15K RPM) SAS drives. The systems use ten-pack RAID-6 ranks, 8+2P.

(If this sounds a lot like the newly announced SONAS product, it should! The two products share "DNA", and so can be considered sister products, packing 60 drives into a 4U enclosure. By comparison, the SONAS initially only supports 1TB SATA in RAID-6 ten-packs 8+2P, and 450GB SAS in RAID-5 ten-packs 8+P+S, but now that 2TB SATA and 600GB SAS drives have been qualified for the DCS9900, we hope to qualify these for the SONAS soon as well.)

Learn more about the DCS9900 from the IBM [Press Release].

IBM System Storage DS3000 series

The DS3000 adds support for 600GB SAS drives. Here is the IBM [Press Release].

IBM System Storage N series

IBM adds support for 600GB FC and 600GB SAS drives for the entire N series from the smallest N3000 series to the largest N7000 series. Here is the IBM [Press Release].

Next week, I'll continue to chip away, bit by bit, at this huge storage launch.

technorati tags: IBM, DCS9900, RAID-6, RAID-5, SAS, SATA, FC, SONAS, DS3000, N3000, N6000, N7000