Digi-Data's T2000 Takes a Power Nap; RAID Controller Gets a Makeover

Business Wire,  July 31, 2006  

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COLUMBIA, Md. -- Digi-Data Corporation, a leading U.S.-based manufacturer of clustered RAID controllers for utility storage, data protection and archive markets, announces its latest update of the T2000 Controller. Two key features have been added to enhance its functionality -- disk power management (the 'power nap') and UPS flash support.

The Power Nap

The energy costs involved with power and cooling for disk systems generally represents 27% of the total energy spending for the data center. Many customers using the T2000 cluster with the Virtual Tape Library (VTL) attachment are only transferring data a few hours per night into the storage pool mapped to the VTL system. Other storage pools are only active through the day shift. But spare and free drives are not utilized unless a failure occurs or instant expansion is required. These facts spurred the T2000 power nap feature, designed to spin-down between 75% and 88% of the disks in an inactive RAID group, based on user configurable time thresholds. With the power nap, the storage system benefits from reduced power and cooling, as well as improved drive life.

Unique Power Protection

Traditional storage systems house two controller boards in a single rack mountable enclosure. These systems use a battery to back-up the cache, which weakens over time and creates the exposure for data loss. Digi-Data's STORM (Storage On Redundant Modules) architecture packages a single controller in an enclosure, which can be assigned to a single workload or a group of servers. Multiple (up to four) controllers can be clustered to provide massive bandwidth or capacity. Digi-Data's T2000 Controller has a unique implementation using flash memory to capture and retain "write data" in the event of a power system failure. In less than 20 seconds, the data in the write cache is copied to flash memory and protected from loss. This allows the use of a smaller UPS system and provides permanent retention of the data, without the exposure of a weak battery resulting in data loss.

The T2000's power nap, UPS flash support and other advanced features optimize the system for tier-2 applications and data protection. "Clustered storage architectures are just a little different than mainstream modular disk. We've focused our development and integration activities to allow customers to easily add performance, capacity or attachments to the system," says Ken Willis, chief technology officer for Digi-Data. "Adding a Virtual Tape Library or a NAS head is quite common, versus just using the system for SAN attached storage."

Pricing and Availability

The T2000 is now available. For more information please visit www.digidata.com/t2000.html.

Digi-Data

Digi-Data Corporation, based in Columbia, MD, is a leading manufacturer of high-performance storage systems and controllers, with over 55,000 systems installed worldwide. The company offers innovative solutions with products like the T2000 Controller and bigVAULT online digital storage. Since 1960, Digi-Data has engineered its products to the highest standards, combining proven technologies and innovative thinking to continually achieve unprecedented levels of performance, reliability, scalability and ease of management. For more information, visit www.digidata.com

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