Dell Debuts Dense Small Business Storage Arrays

Dell is out to help small and midsized businesses weather the data storage capacity crunch with new PowerVault hardware.

The PowerVault MD3 is the company’s densest yet, says Dell, with the capability to pack up to 60 drives and 180 TB of storage within a 4U enclosure. With the addition of two expansion arrays, SMBs can now stuff 180 hard drives into 12U of rack space for a storage array that provides 540 terabytes (TB) of capacity.

The PowerVault MD3 supports Fibre Channel, SAS and iSCSI. Dynamic Disk Pools functionality recovers “failed drives faster than traditional RAID environments,” says Dell.

Dell also turned its attention to SMB data protection with updates to the DR4000 disk-based backup and recovery system. Featuring deduplication and compression technology from Dell’s acquisition of Ocarina Networks, the DR4000 aims to keep the size of backups under manageable levels.

Now, the DR4000 supports many-to-one replication, allowing organizations with multiple locations — and hence multiple backup appliances — to replicate data to one centralized location.

Also new is support for Symantec’s OpenStorage (OST) API. This capability promotes improved access and manageability of the DR4000 across Symantec’s popular backup software ecosystem. When used in conjunction with DR Rapid Data Access, Symantec OST enables the system to reach backup speeds of up to 4 TB of data per hour.

All told, Brett Roscoe, general manager of Dell Data Management Solutions, thinks that people responsible for small business IT will find a lot to like about his company’s revamped SMB storage portfolio. “Dell continues to invest in its SMB and mid-market storage solutions to help customers looking for the right balance of performance and value,” he states in a company release.

“The dense array design of the new MD3 combined with enhanced software capabilities across our MD and DR products provide the power to do more with a growing set of features and capabilities that provide new levels of efficiency and performance,” adds Roscoe.

To sweeten the deal, Dell offers a new zero-percent leasing option. SMBs that lease at least $5,000 worth of PowerVault, PowerEdge servers and PowerConnect switches are eligible for the zero-percent fair market value financing program offered by Dell Financial Services. The program runs through November 2nd in the United States.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Internetnews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.