ACADEMIA

LapiStor Ltd - a specialist designer and manufacturer of high-performance and cost-effective data storage solutions - extended its Valueline range of products – launching the DiscPac 5316. This latest addition to the LapiStor family of products features 16 Serial-ATA drive bays, with eight Terabytes of storage capacity, in a compact 3U enclosure. It also offers multiple-host configuration options, such as dual Ultra 320 SCSI and dual Fibre Channel 2Gbit host connections, providing RAID level 6 protection. “The DiscPac 5316 is part of the Valueline 5000 Series, offering a low-cost, high-density RAID solution with maximum flexibility and scalability.” said Tony Howard, Managing Director of LapiStor. “With the price point and the RAID6 functionality, we envisage particularly strong demand for this product from SMEs – and for a range of applications including post-production and CCTV.” ”We recognise that many of our customers do not have the time and facilities to devote to installing, monitoring and operating RAID systems on a frequent basis and we have therefore designed this series of products with a heavy emphasis on making it as simple as possible to use. For example, an embedded web-based GUI interface is among its distinctive features, easing the task of IT staff.” Featuring S-ATA II, on the drive side, and Ultra 320 SCSI or 2Gbit Fibre Channel interface, on the host side, other members of the 5000 Series include the 4 drive 1U and 12 drive 2U. The 5000 Series provides RAID level 0, 1, 3, 5 and 6 protection. Each product in the series also provides powerful performance. For ease of installation, operation and maintenance, modular, hot-swappable active components are incorporated to minimise the possibility of downtime. The use of dual host channels further minimises the risks of downtime. In addition, hot swap cooling fan modules guard the product from overheating and hot swap redundant power supply units ensure steady operation of the system. The controller supports up to 1GB cache memory. It also features a 64-bit Risc processor with both level one and 256KB of level two internal cache, an Ethernet LAN port and two RS232 ports for out-of-band management. Within the firmware, safety features include intelligent drive handling, auto cache flush and auto shutdown to protect subsystem data.