84TB in 4U with 2TB Disk Drives

NexSAN has done it again. Density, density and greater density! 84TB in 4U?

This is indeed the case now that the NexSAN SATABeast and SATAbeastXi can be populated with the new 2TB SATA disk drives.

If you are looking for a solution that has absolute density, look no further as once again this Green RAID solution is absolutely unique and with thousands of units in the field this tested solution will certainly not disappoint you.

Interested in the SATABeast. Contact us at Sunstar Co.
info@sunstarco.com 800.663.5523
Gavin
www.sunstarco.com

iSCSI Storage here to stay

It's easy to install - almost as fast as Fibre attached storage and yes reliable. So why not purchase an iSCSI SAN?

Actually many companies are going the iSCSI root, however it is not the ideal solution for all. If you need very fast storage and are working with large databases - perhaps it will be best to stay with Fibre attached storage. Not all vendors agree and some vehemently state - "ours is fast enough". This might indeed be the case, however most primary storage in enterprise accounts tend to stick with a particular manufacturer and Fibre has worked in the past so why not continue.

We at Sunstar Company do recommend iSCSI Attached Storage for many many of our clients. For the most part they are easy to install, reliable and yes fast. Most manufacturers that do offer an iSCSi solution have in the past paired the unit with SATA drives, thus good but not great performance. Now with the new SAS drives, we are looking at a higher performing solution.

We tend to offer the following solutions when we have a client looking to purchase iSCSI:

• NexSAN - Their line of storage supports a choice of Fibre and iSCSI ports or SAS and iSCSI ports. In conjunction with The Edge that SATABeast or SATABoy will now supports NAS with a choice of SATA or SAS drives.
• iQstor - iSCSI storage with software functionality, choice of Fibre or SATA drives.
• RELDATA - iSCSI Gateway (use your existing storage) or purchase the head with storage. iSCSI - add NAS, replication and more.
• Arena- basic box - add drives and you are ready to go.
• StoreVault from NetApp - Twelve drive solution - SATA drives - NAS options and software.

All these manufacturers support iSCSI and you have a choice when connecting to your network. Download the Microsoft iSCSI drive (free) and install or purchase a TOE [network interface cards with TCP/IP offload engines] . Not absolutly necessary - however some folks tend to think that they do offer an advantage. Personally I have not see too much of a diiference in performance.

Contact us at Sunstar and let us steer youi to the solution that best fits your requirements and budget.

info@sunstarco.com (800) 663-5523

Thank You

Gavin

iSCSI RAID now VMware Certified

Sunstar Company, Inc is please to announce that the iQ2850 iSCSI storage system has been certified for use with VMware Infrastructure 3. Based on this completed interoperability testing, iQstor’s iQ2850 will now be included in the Storage / SAN Compatibility Guide for VMware ESX 3.5, a part of VMware Infrastructure 3, as a supported storage platform.

The iQstor iQ2850 iSCSI SAN is easily installed in under twenty minutes -- simplifying integration and accelerating migration into virtual environments. By deploying the iQ2850 with VMware Infrastructure 3, IT managers are able to leverage a simple, flexible virtual storage solution that can scale easily and affordably to meet changing business requirements.

iQstor’s iQ2850 iSCSI SAN includes:

• integrated data protection and management features such as storage virtualization
• snapshot
• volume-copy
• remote replication
• storage provisioning
• and policy-based capacity growth.

The iQ2850 provides simple storage consolidation, enabling virtual infrastructures to improve storage utilization and data protection methods, facilitate disaster recovery and optimize virtualized server availability and workload migration.

Every iQ2850 offers seamless and affordable online capacity expansion - up to 240 drives - and features eight iSCSI host ports for flexible, multi-host accessibility. iQstor’s fully redundant active-active architecture provides a complete and fault-tolerant SAN.

If this is iSCSI RAID solution is of interest to you please contact us:

800.663.5523 info@sunstarco.com

Gavin

www.sunstarco.com

iSCSI Storage for the future?

Question - If Fibre Channel SANs are the present are iSCSI SAN's the future of storage area networks?

Facts:

• iSCSI is preferred over Fibre Channel and outperforms Fiber Channel SANs when using small and mid-range servers with limited data transfers
• Fiber Channel SANs are superior when compared to iSCSI SANs when large database transfers and input/output operations take place.
• Ethernet is the most simplistic part of iSCSI. It runs on Ethernet. The odds are good that you and your coworkers are familiar with Ethernet—positive and negative points. With iSCSI, you can rely on inexpensive, commodity hardware and can get your SAN running quickly and easily.
• In most iSCSI equipment, the snapshot feature is included in the base price of the product. Snapshots provide significant data protection in that they can protect your data between backups.
• Replication - optional
• Scalability - depends on the manufacturer

iSCSI SAN technologies are improving and will soon be available to handle the high Input/Output operations of database transfers that are better supported Fiber Channel SANs.

For additional information - visit our web site: www.sunstarco.com
info@sunstarco.com 800.663.5523
Many Thanks

Gavin
Sunstar Company, Inc.

Should we install an iSCSI SAN

First lets understand iSCSI
iSCSI is Internet SCSI (Small Computer System Interface), an Internet Protocol (IP)-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities.

Bu carrying SCSI commands over IP networks, iSCSI is used to facilitate data transfers over intranets and to manage storage over long distances.

iSCSI can be used to transmit data over local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), or the Internet and can enable location-independent data storage and retrieval.

iSCSI is one of two main approaches to storage data transmission over IP networks; the other method, Fibre Channel over IP, translates Fibre Channel control codes and data into IP packets for transmission between distant Fibre Channel SANs.

Sunstar offer a selection of manufacturers utilizing iSCSI in order to build a SAN.
Please follow this link to a selection of vendors?
Some of the storage manufacturers have built in tools - other in essence offer purely an iSCSI connection.

Do contact us if you have any questions?
info@sunstarco.com
800.663.5523
www.sunstarco.com

Thank You