DELL CONTINUES TO SIMPLIFY STORAGE FOR SMEs
- New SAN array offers enhanced ease of use features, allows new capacity provisioning in as little as a minute
- Navisphere® Express simplifies deployment and maintenance
ROUND ROCK, Texas, Jan. 8, 2008 – Dell today announced the availability of the AX4-5, an entry-level storage area network (SAN) solution specifically designed to meet the growing storage needs of small and medium-sized organizations. Detailed technical information can be found at Dell AX4-5.
According to IDC, demand for storage capacity continues to grow at a rate of nearly 60 percent per year.1 Small to
medium-sized entities, including branch offices of larger organizations, increasingly face challenges related to data
growth and management while IT budgets remain flat.
The Dell AX4-5 array can meet the needs of rapidly growing data capacity with the ability to expand up to 60 drives and
soon support up to 60TB of data2. The AX4-5 array can be configured for Fibre Channel or iSCSI networks and supports
mixed drive configurations to suit customer-specific needs: SAS drives for high performance and SATA drives for
capacity.
“This is the latest step in the strong partnership between Dell and EMC,” said Darren Thomas, vice president and general
manager, Dell storage. “We’ve worked closely with EMC to define, design and deliver this system tailored to SMEs.
Together we are delivering capabilities not previously seen in entry-level SANs.”
Additional features of the Dell AX4-5 include:
- Excellent Data Availability and Reliability: AX4-5 controllers provide end-to-end data integrity, through continuous
background disk consistency checking, mirrored cache, and cache destaging in the event of a significant failure. The
array is designed to protect data in the controller, on the drive, and throughout the data path.
- Simple Deployment and Advanced Management: The AX4-5 comes with EMC Navisphere Express, an intuitive user interface
that simplifies installation and operation. The AX4-5 has also inherited many demonstrated software capabilities that
have only been available on the more advanced Dell/EMC CX3 arrays. This allows for “single pane of glass” management for
users with multiple EMC arrays, as well as optional data replication and migration tools which will be available soon.3
- Scalable Architecture: The AX4-5 will be able to support up to 64 hosts and 60 drives across five enclosures to help
keep up with data growth. With the simplified wizard-based management users can allocate additional capacity in as
little as a minute.
- Flexibility and Drive Options: AX4-5 iSCSI arrays support cost-effective IP networks, while Fibre Channel arrays
utilize high performance 4Gb/s connections. The AX4-5 can also easily mix SAS drives geared for performance with SATA
drives that deliver cost-effective capacity.
Click here for more information on the Dell AX4-5. Information on Dell’s storage portfolio is available at Dell.com/storage.
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1 IDC, "Worldwide Storage 2008 Top 10 Predictions: New Paradigms," Doc # 209796, December 2007
2 With 1TB drive planned availability in 1Q 2008
3 Planned availability in 1Q 2008
EMC and Navisphere are registered trademarks of EMC Corp.
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