This news came out a little while ago, but I thought I’d cover it here nonetheless. Seagate and StorONE recently announced that the Seagate Exos AP 5U84 Application Platform would support StorONE’s S1:Enterprise Storage Platform.
It’s A Box!
[image courtesy of StorONE]
The Exos 5U84 Dual Node supports:
- 2x 1.8 GHz CPU (E5-2648L v4)
- 2x 256GB RAM
- Storage capacities between 250TB and 1.3PB
It’s Software!
Hardware is fun, but it’s the software that really helps here, with support for:
- Full High Availability
- Automated Tiering
- No Write Cache
- Rapid RAID Rebuilds
- Unlimited Snapshots
- Cascading Replication
- Self Encrypting Drives
It offers support for multiple access protocols, including iSCSI, NFS, SMB, and S3. Note that there is no FC support with this unit.
Thoughts and Further Reading
I’ve had positive things to say about StorONE in the past, particularly when it comes to transparent pricing and the ability to run this storage solution on commodity hardware. I’ve been on the fence about whether hybrid storage solutions are really on the way out. It felt like they were, for a while, and then folks kept coming up with tweaks to software that meant you could get even more bang for your buck (per GB). Much like tape, I think it would be premature to say that hybrid storage using spinning disk is dead just yet.
Obviously, the folks at StorONE have skin in this particular game, so they’re going to talk about how hybrid isn’t going anywhere. It’s much the same as Michael Dell telling me that the on-premises server market is hotting up. When a vendor is selling something, it’s in their interest to convince you that a market exists for that thing and it is hot. That said, some of the numbers Crump and the team at StorONE have shown me are indeed compelling. When you couple those numbers with the cost of the solution (you can work out for yourself here) it becomes difficult to dismiss out of hand.
When I look at storage solutions I like to look at the numbers, and the hardware, and how it’s supported. But what’s really important is whether the solution is up to the task of the workload I need to throw at it. I also want to know that someone can fix my problem when the magic smoke escapes said storage solution. After a while in the industry, you start to realise that, regardless of what the brochures look like, there are a few different ways that these kind of things get put together. Invariably, unless the solution is known for being reckless with data integrity, or super slow, there’s going to be a point at which the technical advantages become less of a point of differentiation. It’s at that point where the economics really come into play.
The world is software-defined in a lot of ways, but this doesn’t mean you can run your favourite storage code on any old box and expect a great outcome. It does, however, mean that you no longer have to pay a premium to get good performance, good capacity, and a reliable outcome for your workload. You also get the opportunity to enjoy performance improvements as the code improves, without necessarily needing to update your hardware. Which is kind of neat, particularly if you’ve ever paid a pretty penny for golden screwdriver upgrades from big brand disk slingers in the past. This solution might not be for everyone, particularly if you already have a big arrangement with some of the bigger vendors. But if you’re looking to do something, and can’t stretch the economics to an All-Flash solution, this is worth a look.