Dot Hill Systems Corp. has announced that it is now shipping its next generation 3000 Series storage arrays featuring "end-to-end" 6Gb storage to deliver high throughput and exceptional performance and to answer the industry's call for infrastructure that meets the needs of today's 24/7/365 business computing environments.

Dot Hill is introducing two models: the 3520 2U 24-drive solution that leverages high performance, energy-saving 2.5-inch drives, and the 3530 2U 12-drive standard array, which offers the lowest overall price for 24TB of storage utilizing 2TB 3.5-inch drives. Each controller includes four 6Gb SAS 2.0 connections, for a maximum of eight host-attach connections per storage array.  The Dot Hill 3520 and 3530 enable businesses to expand storage dynamically and easily in direct-attached storage environments. With four ports per controller, the solutions deliver exceptional performance, while eliminating the need for a switched SAN environment.

The 3520/3530 also helps reduce costs involved with server clustering – enabling IT managers to reap the benefits of this environment (higher availability, reliability, and scalability) in a more cost-effective manner. The 3520/3530 enables IT managers to establish a server cluster without the cost or expense of a switch. With eight total ports, the 3520 and 3530 enable up to eight servers to access the same storage system, or four servers with redundant cabling – enabling a low-cost, switchless SAN environment.

The 3000 Series provides ultimate scalability and flexibility, with support for SSD, SAS, and SATA drives for tiered storage initiatives, with expansion of up to seven JBOD systems, and up to 144 2.5-inch drives.

Other key features of the new models include Dot Hill's advanced data management offerings for snapshot and volume copy, energy-efficient drive spin-down, and mixed drive-type support, as well as additional design features that serve to lower the cost and complexity of storage configurations, enabling IT managers to support initiatives such as server clustering.

The new offerings are the latest additions to Dot Hill's 3000 Series introduced in February 2010 -- feature-rich, entry level storage solutions that rival more costly midrange products, providing small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) and data center managers with access to cost-effective and energy-efficient storage options. The hallmark high throughput and I/O performance of the 3000 Series makes it ideal for performance-intensive applications such as server virtualization, server backup, video and media, as well as databases and email. Dot Hill's 3000 Series also offers 8Gb Fibre Channel arrays, and dual-protocol 8Gb Fibre Channel/1Gb iSCSI RAID storage arrays.

Features and Functionality Address Today's Business Requirements, Delivering Benefits Far Beyond the Data Center

Dot Hill's 3520 and 3530 arrays feature full 6Gb SAS end-to-end connectivity throughout the entire system, including the drives, backplane and host connections, addressing the industry's need for higher bandwidth connections between servers and directly attached storage to support faster application data access speeds. With SAS 2.0 capability, each server connection can deliver up to 24Gb/second data throughput, significantly higher than Fibre Channel and iSCSI alternatives.

Additionally, the 3530 and 3520 are NEBS Level 3- and MIL STD 810F-compliant and offer the requisite level of ruggedization to meet the most stringent requirements. The arrays also include a number of eco-friendly features, including drive-spin-down to reduce power consumption during non-peak hours and Bronze-rated, 80+ efficient power supplies.

"High performance storage solutions that also lower the overall cost and complexity of management and deployment are most needed by businesses today," said Jim Jonez, senior director of marketing of Dot Hill Systems. "The addition of SAS host-attach to our 3000 Series storage arrays delivers scalability and reliability to a larger audience with the most transaction-intensive and demanding computing environments, and supports deployment flexibility and configuration agility to address emerging requirements and improve storage ROI."

Additional features of the 3000 Series include:

Eco-friendly -- Enhancements such as drive-spin-down capability and Bronze-rated power supplies reduce operating costs. All 3000 Series models include Dot Hill's patented EcoStor "green" battery-free alternative for cache memory, which leverages a combination of super capacitors and flash memory that outlasts traditional batteries. Businesses can lower maintenance and disposal costs, and reduce server and application down-time associated with battery replacement.

Advanced data protection -- The 3000 Series comes with optional AssuredSnap (with up to 1000 snapshots capability) and AssuredCopy data protection software (supporting up to 128 volume copies), providing the necessary protection for business- critical applications such as email.

Configuration and management made easy -- The 3520/3530 SAS arrays are easy to configure and manage with RAIDar 2.0, Dot Hill's intuitive web-based interface which provides storage setup and monitoring without the need for host-based software. RAIDar 2.0 saves time with configuration and installation wizards, and schedulers for snapshots and replication.