Nexsan has launched a line of solid-state enhanced unified storage systems, known as the NST series. In addition to providing both file-mode (NAS) and block-mode (iSCSI), the NST series combines solid–state storage with SATA and SAS drives via Nexsan's proprietary FASTier acceleration technology. FASTier automatically and intelligently uses the speed of solid state memory in a fully fault-tolerant architecture to dramatically accelerate the performance of SAS and SATA spinning media – all in one integrated system.
NST unified storage systems with FASTier optimize caching and tiering by utilizing DRAM and flash-based solid state memory, along with spinning media, to triple real-world random I/O performance. This enables server applications to become accelerated without the significant costs of pure SSD systems. The new NST systems combine FASTier's sophisticated software with up to 24 Xeon CPU cores, 192GB of DRAM, 12 dedicated RAID engines, and up to1PB of storage capacity. FASTier can scale from 100GB to 2.8TB, allowing an NST system to hold entire working sets, further amplifying performance with high IOPS and reduced latency without complication, or the need to utilize a separate management paradigm.
Mark Peters, Senior Analyst, ESG said, "Unified storage is attractive in terms of both operational and financial efficiencies – a winning combination by any standard. The combination of unremitting data growth, a still-cautious macro-economic climate and massively higher expectations of IT, means users are not only seeking better cost structures in their infrastructure but simultaneously want better performance and application support. Nexsan can provide that mix with its FASTier enabled NST5000, by delivering significant advances in unified storage that can help IT organizations to economically increase their productivity in both highly virtualized and/or cloud computing environments."
Gary Watson, CTO, Nexsan said, "At Nexsan, our goal is to deliver the best-in-class, turn-key solutions that match the needs of today's demanding midsize enterprises. With the NST systems, we have paired support for iSCSI block, NFS/CIFS shared folders, snapshots, replication, quotas, thin provisioning, and online capacity expansion all into one easy-to-manage solution. The result is an enterprise class storage system that can meet the capacity, performance and availability needs of any environment, without a heavy investment."
