XenData debuts X1 Archive Appliance for LTO, cloud and optical disc to offer archiving functionality in a small footprint

Data storage company XenData launched on Tuesday its X1 Archive Appliance that connects to a network and allows file-based applications to seamlessly archive to LTO external drives, Sony Optical Disc Archive (ODA) drives or cloud object storage. The appliance runs Windows 10 Pro and is powered by XenData Archive Series and FS Mirror software.

The archive appears locally as a single logical drive – the X: drive, and comes with multiple ways to write to and restore files from it. The ‘Share the X’ drives over network and users can write to it and restore from it like any disk-based share. By using the FS Mirror, users can synchronize one or more locally accessible file systems or file shares to the LTO archive. The FS Mirror can create archive drop-boxes on the network that automatically move files to the archive, while using third party applications that integrate with XenData's XML API.

The X1 is available in three models: for LTO external drives, ODA external drives and for cloud. Each model is based on Intel NUC hardware and includes a high-endurance 1.92 TB SSD cache for enhanced performance.

The X1 for LTO connects to an LTO external drive via Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3, and for LTO drives with SAS connections, they may be connected via a Thunderbolt to SAS converter. The appliance manages an unlimited number of LTO cartridges and up to 2 billion files. It enables file transfers that span across cartridges and, when using two or more attached LTO drives, it supports automatic cartridge replication.

The X1 for ODA supports Gen 1, 2 and 3 drives with cartridge capacities up to 5.5 TB. They connect to the X1 via USB 3. As with LTO, the X1 manages an unlimited number of cartridges and it supports file transfers that use the 1.92 TB cache to span cartridges.

The X1 model for archiving to cloud storage supports multiple clouds including AWS S3, Azure and Wasabi S3. The system may be configured to replicate files to different cloud locations and different cloud providers.

The X1 Archive Appliance is immediately available. The models for managing an LTO or ODA external drive are priced at US$5,950 and the X1 for Cloud starts at $2,495.

nCorium, KIOXIA America, EchoStreams come together to deliver high-performance storage platform based on PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs

nCorium, in collaboration with KIOXIA America, Inc.(formerly Toshiba Memory America, Inc.), the U.S.-based subsidiary of KIOXIA Corporation, and EchoStreams Innovative Solutions Inc. announced a new storage acceleration platform. 

Based on nCorium’s second-generation, near-memory acceleration engines, KIOXIA’s PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs and EchoStreams’ FlacheStreams Storage Server, this fully integrated solution is designed to perform storage functions in-line and stripe data to local or remote flash storage.

Applications such as high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence, deep learning, data analytics, computer-aided engineering, climate modeling, and entertainment rely on parallel file systems to achieve high-throughput storage they require. 

As disk drives in parallel file systems are rapidly replaced by high-bandwidth SSDs, the processing capabilities of traditional architectures simply fail to keep up. nCorium’s storage acceleration platform delivers improved capabilities by offloading compute-intensive functions to the near memory acceleration engines called nCorium Compute in Memory Modules (nCIMMs).

Panasas releases PanFS on the ActiveStor Ultra Storage System to enhance performance, efficiency

Panasas announced that its re-engineered PanFS parallel file system, delivered on the Panasas ActiveStor Ultra appliance, is now shipping and in early deployment at Sumitomo Metal Mining and the University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute. Built for price/performance and engineered for manageability, the new generation of PanFS is integrated with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware to deliver the fastest parallel file system at any price point.

The system is also deployed at a large U.S.-based aerospace manufacturer, at the world’s largest provider of subsurface data to the energy sector, and at a U.S.-based global security and aerospace company. 

The next generation of PanFS on ActiveStor Ultra offers unlimited performance scaling in 4 GB/s building blocks, utilizing multi-tier intelligent data placement to maximize storage performance by placing metadata on low-latency NVMe SSDs, small files on high IOPS SSDs and large files on high-bandwidth HDDs. The system’s balanced node architecture optimizes networking, CPU, memory and storage capacity to prevent hot spots and bottlenecks, ensuring consistently high performance regardless of workload.

The PanFS parallel file system is delivered on Panasas ActiveStor Ultra, a turnkey appliance that provides the extreme performance, enterprise-grade reliability and manageability required to process large and complex datasets. These datasets are associated with HPC workloads and emerging applications such as AI, precision medicine, autonomous driving, and augmented and virtual reality. 

ActiveStor Ultra goes from dock to data in one day, providing a plug-and-play solution that is easy to install, manage and grow. With ActiveStor Ultra’s modular architecture and building-block design, enterprises can start small and scale linearly by scaling metadata performance, bandwidth and capacity independently and without limitations.

“The re-engineered PanFS returns Panasas to the ranks of top-performing HPC data storage systems on the market, while maintaining the frustration-free storage experience our customers have come to expect and value,” said Faye Pairman, chief executive officer at Panasas. “With the new PanFS on ActiveStor Ultra, our customers can take advantage of the industry’s leading price/performance in a storage appliance that maximizes simplicity, boosts reliability, and delivers the lowest total cost of ownership.”

“The advanced-research computing infrastructure deployed at the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute has used Panasas data storage for more than 12 years,” said James Wilgenbusch, Ph.D., director of research computing, office of the vice president for research, University of Minnesota. “Ours is a truly mixed workload environment, and we value the ease and speed with which Panasas handles multi-discipline workloads such as CFD, CAE, computational physics and chemistry, and bioinformatics, to name a few. The new PanFS on ActiveStor Ultra expands on that tradition by delivering an appliance built for unlimited linear performance scalability at a highly attractive price point.”

“When we moved to a large cluster system we decided to deploy a parallel storage solution that delivered operational simplicity in addition to limitless scalability of capacity and performance,” said Toshiki Kishimoto, general manager, Computer-Aided Engineering and Development Dept., Technology Division, Sumitomo Metal Mining. “PanFS on ActiveStor Ultra offers us an environment that doesn’t require tuning to maintain peak performance, automates common maintenance and recovery tasks, and in case of questions, we have immediate access to support expertise from highly-qualified storage professionals.”

Nasuni announces latest release of its file services platform for modernizing NAS infrastructure

Nasuni Corp. announced Wednesday latest release of its file services platform for modernizing network attached storage (NAS) infrastructure. Nasuni’s new version gives enterprises access to artificial intelligence (AI) and search analytics for unstructured data, as well as powerful cloud migration capabilities. Companies gain a springboard for agile, intelligent migrations and cloud-first approaches, as well multi-cloud flexibility. 

Unstructured data has exploded, while globalization and agility pressures have made traditional NAS infrastructures inadequate. Businesses should no longer build file server silos, which can be costly, complex and unable to keep up with prevailing demands. 

Powered by file system, Nasuni delivers a file services platform built for the cloud that combines performance of local file servers with the scalability and durability of cloud storage, at roughly half the cost of traditional file infrastructures. 

The Nasuni Analytics Connector allows customers to turn unstructured data into big data. A consolidated cloud-based file system enables customers to export a temporary second copy of their file data to use with analytics software, AI, machine learning and other data recognition tools such as AWS Rekognition and Macie. This new release also features support for leading search software, including SharePoint Search, Acronis FilesConnect, Cloudtenna, Search Blox, Graymeta, and NeoFinder.

Customers can start their journey from traditional on-premises NAS to the cloud with the Nasuni AWS Cloud Migration Services and Nasuni Azure Cloud Migration Services. Nasuni’s services for AWS now include both Amazon Snowball and the Nasuni Cloud Migrator for AWS. Nasuni’s services for Azure now include Microsoft’s Data Box and Nasuni’s Cloud Migrator for Azure. These new services enable customers to seamlessly move data to Amazon S3 or Microsoft Azure storage faster and with less effort than a self-driven cloud migration, enabling a successful cloud-first strategy.

In addition to support for AWS and Azure, new support for Google Cloud Storage extends Nasuni’s public cloud storage capabilities to all three major public cloud providers, enabling customers to implement multi-cloud strategies based on their specific business or application requirements. This new release now supports more private cloud storage solutions, including NetApp StorageGRID, Nutanix Objects, IBM COS, Hitachi Vantara HCP, and Scality RING.

Users can migrate NAS silos to the cloud storage of their choice for on-demand capacity expansion, built-in backup, instant disaster recovery, and multi-site file sharing. They also gain sophisticated data insights and accelerate their cloud storage strategies with Nasuni’s ability to scale and foster collaboration across distributed workforces.

Nasuni enables enterprises to seamlessly navigate their entire journey from NAS consolidation to workforce productivity. The Nasuni platform is trusted by many of the largest organizations in retail, consumer goods, creative services, oil and gas, architecture, engineering, construction and manufacturing. The company is experiencing record growth, with a 250 percent increase in data under management over the last 24 months. 

Nasuni is now deployed in more than 7,000 locations in 70 countries. Nasuni’s growth reflects its customers’ needs to simplify how critical file data is stored and protected, while empowering users to share and collaborate on files across multiple sites and geographies with maximum performance and reliability.

Nasuni’s new enhancements will be available by the end of the year. The Nasuni platform comes in three editions -- Essentials, Advanced and Premium.