Xserve RAID offers 3.5TB

storage system, a 3U high-availability, rack storage system that now delivers up to 3.5 terabytes (TB) of storage, performance of up to 210MBps throughput and what it says is the industry's "most aggressive price for storage of just over $3 per gigabyte." The new Xserve RAID, also includes support for Windows and Linux-based computing environments, industry standard Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) connectors and support from 11 companies including Microsoft, VERITAS, Red Hat, Brocade and QLogic.

"For the first time, customers running Windows and Linux can take advantage of Xserve RAID’s incredible price performance and breakthrough technology," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior VP of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Less than a year after we shipped the first Xserve RAID, we're now offering more power and more storage at an even lower price per gigabyte. With prices starting at just $5,999, we're offering an incredible storage solution at just a fraction of the cost of Sun, HP, Dell or EMC."



Designed with 14 independent ATA/100 drive channels, Xserve RAID provides up to 3.5TB of storage capacity, while the dual independent RAID controllers offer sustained throughput of over 200MBps—high enough to support uncompressed 10-bit HD video editing using protected RAID level 5. The Apple Xserve RAID has qualified under the Microsoft Designed for Windows Logo Program and also completed all of the tests necessary for qualification under the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system.



RAID Admin, Apple's Java-based management and monitoring utility has been enhanced with new features, including RAID Set Slicing. It allows administrators to partition RAID sets into smaller segments allowing storage to be distributed on up to 16 servers; RAID Set Expansion makes adding hard drives a simple task with no downtime required. RAID Admin also features enhanced testing and repair tools and a more intuitive user interface.



Xserve RAID connects to any Xserve or Power Mac using the dual-channel 2GB Apple Fibre Channel PCI Card sold separately ($500). The high-speed, industry-standard storage interface offers dedicated bandwidth with a throughput of up to 210 MBps and ships comes with two high-speed 2.9-meter copper fibre channel SFP-to-SFP cables and accepts SFP optical transceivers for use with fiber-optic cables. It is available in three configurations--each with 8MB of drive cache and 128MB cache per controller (expandable to 512MB): 1TB (4x250GB drives) for $6,000; 1.75TB (7x250GB) for $7,500; and 3.5TB (14x250GB) for $11,000.

by MacNN Staff