NEC S1500 Storage Array

NEC Updated: 2008-04-14 RSS
NEC S1500 Storage Array

NEC's S1500 Storage Array is an entry-level model that offers excellent performance and TCO reduction, including support for a mixed SATA/FC configuration that meets the demands of differing quality of service requirements. The S1500 supports four high speed 4Gbps host connections, high-performance RAID processors, and inter-controller communication at 2Gbps.

A disk array for customers with smaller storage requirements, NEC's S1500 Storage Array has a standard 3U EIA cabinet with the capacity for 15 disk drives. An additional 3 optional disk enclosures can be connected to the S1500, providing a maximum capacity of 27TB with 60 disk drives. RAID-6 technology is included to ensure continued operation even if errors occur in two hard disks at the same time. This technology greatly enhances the availability of the disk array and can be used together with other storage pools such as RAID-1 and RAID-5.

High Performance RAID Processors
High-performance ASIC RAID processors enable inter-controller communication at 2Gbps which utilizes shared memory. These features not only enhance the performance of the system, but helps with dynamic load balancing of the host interfaces. The switch-based disk enclosures allow for high-speed access to the disk drives being used.

Standard Four FC Host Ports, Four Gbps Each
Up to two servers with dual paths can be connected without an FC switch, enabling a simple and low-cost configuration. For larger configurations, one to two fabric switches are installed between the storage device and host systems.

Component Redundancy
Redundancy with field-replaceable, hot-swapping is provided for all major components such as controllers, cache memory, power supplies, battery backup units, and fans - insuring business up-time even in the rare event of a component failure.

RAID-6 Technology
RAID-6 technology ensures continued operation even if errors occur in two hard drives at the same time. RAID-6 greatly enhances the availability of the disk array, and can be used together with RAID-1 and RAID-5 storage pools. RAID-6 records two parity values, P and Q, which are generated by two independent equations made from the data. NEC's S1500 Storage Array contains a new ASIC LSI RAID processor, which carries out the complex RAID operations. RAID-6 provides high performance and keeps the device highly reliable.

DynamicPool
Traditionally, logical disks could only be managed in units of the physical sets of disks that made up the RAID, users had to install a fixed number of disks even if they were not necessary. The new dynamic pool function permits logical disk capacities to be changed dynamically. Physical disks can be added one at a time. The logical disks required can be managed efficiently, and the system is free from physical restrictions

Phoenix Technology for Advanced Preventative Maintenance
Using Phoenix Technology, a disk drive causing a delay in response can be separated from the RAID pool, and a background diagnosis automatically performed. If no defects are found, the drive can be returned to the original RAID configuration without the need for switching to a hot spare disk.

Flexible Equipment Configuration and High Scalability
Flexible hard disk drive options are offered to meet a wide variety of needs:
73 GB FC (15,000 rpm)
147 GB FC (10,000 and 15,000 rpm)
300 GB FC (10,000 rpm)
500 GB SATA (7,200 rpm)

In addition, the S1500 Storage Array has dual controllers, supports SATA 500GB drives and can be intermixed with FC drives within the same array. RAID-1, RAID-5, RAID-10, RAID-50, and RAID-6 can be installed in mixed configurations. Four host FC ports are built-in as a standard. A maximum of 3 additional disk enclosures, each capable of mounting 15 disk drives can be connected to equate to 60 HDD. The S1500 Storage Array can support 1 GB to 2 GB of cache per controller, for a total of up to 4 GB of cache memory.

StorageManager
StorageManager is the integrated storage software package that provides basic control to NEC's S1500 Storage Array. This software features GUI display for the configuration, monitoring, error reporting, and performance information on logical disks and controllers.

AccessControl (optional)
Access to the logical disks can be set for individual ports or hosts (LUN masking).

PerformanceMonitor (optional)
Includes real-time status of information on the array's performance, load monitoring, and statistical analysis.

ReplicationSuite (DDR+DSV) (optional)
DDR or Dynamic Data Replication provides for full copies of LUNs. Generally these copies are fractured and re-assigned to other connected hosts for such needs as batch processing, testing with production data, or even parallel backup. DSV or Dynamic Snap Volume provides for a copy of the changed data between two points in time (PIT). This technology facilitates advanced recovery of data from up to 16 earlier states without the need to locate and search through traditional tape medium. Since only the changed data is written, cost savings is realized over the full copy methodology.