JMR Releases The ORCA — The First 4U 42-Drive SATA Triple Active Enterprise-Capable RAID Solution
JMR Electronics, a leading manufacturer of data storage solutions that offer the industry's widest selection of Fibre Channel, SATA and SCSI storage systems, today rolled out its next-generation SATA technology platform, creating new standards for affordable, high-density enterprise class storage with the release of the ORCA, a compact multi-terabyte disk array that provides enterprise-class features in a low-profile, cost-effective package.
JMR's new ORCA combines speed, enterprise feature sets, capacity, ultra-high availability and scalability; at a cost that makes it a viable replacement for traditional, less dense enterprise class storage systems, as well as large tape libraries. The ORCA starts at around $40,000 for a 16TB configuration. Utilizing JMR's Turbo RAID controller technology, ORCA delivers access to data at speeds unheard of in SATA RAID systems available today.
The compact ORCA architecture leverages the industry's highest storage density per square inch – 16.8TB in just 4U of rack space - and can pack up to 168TB of capacity in a single data center rack. Each individual ORCA array supports the ability to daisy chain units together to create a storage system of over one Petabyte.
"We feel this product will revolutionize the need for low cost, full feature, highly dense, storage solution that does not cut cost by sacrificing the features customers want. This unit has it all, speed, density, high-availability and management features not found in any other SATA product on the market today," according to Josef Rabinovitz, JMR's President.
JMR designed the ORCA to meet enterprise-class availability requirements by incorporating triple redundancy of fans and power supplies, as well as the first triple active Multi-Parity RAID controllers, which can handle both fibre and SATA disk drives. The compact footprint and high storage density make ORCA the ideal platform for a wide range of capacity-intensive applications.
JMR's ORCA Storage System is built on innovative architecture that sets the standard for modularity and flexibility in storage systems. ORCA eliminates the cost and complexity associated with scaling traditional storage systems, eliminating down time and unnecessary infrastructure costs.
The JMR ORCA Storage System combines a network of Disk Controller Modules (DCM), operating as members of a cluster, which share a virtualized pool of storage using ORCA Disk Enclosures. Each DCM manages an independent workload while also being available for fail over, should a DCM become unavailable. To further enhance reliability, DCMs may be geographically distributed (up to 300M) to improve business continuity or improve integration with host systems.
Connectivity
- 8 fully independent (no hubs) 2 Gb/s Fibre Channel ports per DCM. As many as 24 available ports in redundant configurations.
- All DCM ports configurable as either a host or disk channel.
- DCMs available as Single, Active-Active or Active-Active-Active configurations.
- Ability to start with as little as 30 disk drives and scale to over 840 drives
- Support for both Fibre Channel and SATA disks within one storage system, using ORCA or Fortra enclosures.
- Expand capacity and performance on the fly within one storage system means no obsolescence.
- 1GB cache per DCM, upgradeable to 2GB per DCM.
- Redundant DCMs capable of operating in either Active-Active or Active-Active-Active.
- DCM nodes may be spaced 300M apart, providing another layer of fault tolerance with Replication module added for Synchronous replication.
- No single point of failure: No shared backplane between DEM.
- Supports virtually all RAID levels including Multiple Parity, allowing for the failure of more than one drive per RAID set.
- RAID Group scrubbing for background verification of data.
- LUNs may be masked in any combination of Fibre Channel port and/or World Wide Name.
- Up to 2048 LUNs.
- Up to 256 drives may be configured to construct a LUN, spread across multiple ORCAs for high performance and reliability.
As one of the first manufacturers to develop a complete family of Fibre Channel and SATA storage solutions, JMR offers a wide array of scalable storage systems to handle both bandwidth- and I/O-intensive environments. The company's FORTRA family is an advanced, modular storage technology incorporating patented technologies with solutions spanning from 4-, 6-, 8-, 10- and 15-bay desktop JBODs to the 15- and 16- bay Fibre-to-Fibre and SATA RAID solutions. JMR also manufactures the widest selection of SCSI solutions, as well as custom OEM products in its USA-based ISO 9001:2000 facilities. JMR was also the first to launch a full SATA RAID solution for the backup to disk and secondary storage markets. Additional information on JMR and its product offerings can be found at www.jmr.com.