Imation Launches New Fully Unified Hybrid Storage Solutions with Fibre Channel to Meet Demanding SAN and NAS Workloads

Launch of Nexsan™ NST6000 platform adds Fibre Channel support and boosts performance, scalability; NST6000MC Metro Storage Cluster delivers high availability and disaster recovery between data centers

Imation Launches New Fully Unified Hybrid Storage Solutions with Fibre Channel to Meet Demanding SAN and NAS Workloads (Graphic: Business Wire)

OAKDALE, Minn.--()--Imation (NYSE:IMN), a global data storage and information security company, today announced its next-generation, Nexsan NST™ unified hybrid storage platform and NestOS™ 3.0, a highly scalable, flexible storage operating system. The new NST6000 platform adds Fibre Channel support and meets demanding SAN and NAS workloads without sacrificing performance.

The NST6000 is a fully unified hybrid storage platform, providing simultaneous support of block (Fibre Channel, iSCSI) and file-level (NFS, CIFS, SMB and FTP) data traffic in a single solution without additional software overhead or licenses. The NST6000 is ideal for organizations that need highly scalable and high-performance storage that supports SAN and NAS enterprise-class workloads at the same time.

An application-friendly hybrid storage system, the NST6000 leverages solid-state technology to create the FASTier™ acceleration tier. FASTier technology increases storage I/O performance, lowers latency and extends the life of SSDs. The NST6000 and FASTier acceleration technology are ideal for organizations that are growing their virtualized environments, expanding database applications and adding other applications that require adaptable, high-performance storage.

The first NST6000 model, the NST6530, features dedicated high performance controllers and a front-end FASTier caching engine connected to powerful and efficient Nexsan E-Series storage, to meet the most demanding random I/O performance requirements, up to five petabytes. Optimized for virtualized IT environments with high capacity requirements, the Nexsan NST6530 system will be demonstrated for the first time at VMworld 2013, from August 25-29 in San Francisco, at booth #847. The NST6530 system simultaneously supports large-scale I/O intensive workloads generated from multiple virtual machines.

“By including Fibre Channel support in the Nexsan NST system, organizations can finally deploy a compact, efficient, fully unified hybrid storage system that lowers capital and operating expenses, and scales to meet the extreme data growth occurring in all organizations,” said Mike Stolz, Imation’s vice president of Nexsan marketing and support. “Senior executives, storage admins and IT and data center pros view unified hybrid storage as essential to numerous strategic initiatives, including ongoing server virtualization, backup and archiving, overall data center cost optimization, and support of the increasingly complex natures of their application deployments.”

The heart of the NST6530 system is the NestOS 3.0 storage operating system, which will be available across the Nexsan NST hybrid storage solutions. “NestOS 3.0 is an exciting starting point for a new class of fully unified hybrid storage solutions,” said Ralph Akhras, vice president of product development for Imation’s Nexsan solutions. “To develop it, we brought together feedback from end users and partners along with a development team that has a broad range of storage systems design and programming expertise."

"With the NST6530, Imation has accelerated the advancement of the Nexsan product line by providing an architecture that delivers high performance unified storage for sequential and random I/O," said George Crump, president and founder, Storage Switzerland. "Hybrid storage systems that support both file and block, such as the NST6530 with FASTier caching technology will increasingly become the workhorse of the data center."

RFA Uses Nexsan NST Systems to Power Virtualized Environments
Richard Fleischman & Associates (RFA), a technology consultant and managed services provider for the financial services industry, has deployed an Nexsan NST unified hybrid storage solution both on-premise for client IT infrastructures, and in their own data center, where they deliver a range of hosted infrastructure and software services. RFA and its clients needed a storage solution that could scale vertically – deploying fewer storage arrays while maintaining high performance.

“Our customers are almost 100 percent virtualized,” said Gregory Milis, CTO at RFA. “The Nexsan NST architecture handles a large amount of random I/O, and allows us to have capacity without sacrificing performance and to reduce the storage footprint in our data center. You would have to buy – and manage – twice as much storage to get the same performance and scale that we have with the NST hybrid solution.”

Milis notes that many customers will benefit from the Fibre Channel connectivity available in the new Nexsan NST6530 solution.

“Having Fibre Channel connectivity in the NST6530 solution will allow customers to take full advantage of the hybrid storage array, especially those who already have made substantial investments in Fibre Channel connectivity,” Milis said.

High availability and Disaster Recovery Solution: NST6000MC Metro Storage Cluster
Imation is also announcing the NST6000MC Metro Storage Cluster. The NST6000MC Metro Storage Cluster is an integrated, high availability and disaster recovery solution that extends data replication and failover capability from within a data center to a site on campus, or to sites located up to 10 km away. The Nexsan NST6000MC Metro Storage Cluster consists of two active/active controller nodes configured with Nexsan E-Series Fibre Channel storage arrays.

Specifications and Availability
The Nexsan NST6000MC Metro Storage Cluster solution is available immediately through Nexsan channel partners. The NST6530 and NestOS 3.0 will be available this fall. Fibre Channel connectivity will only be available on NST6000 series systems.

For full specifications on the new Nexsan NST6000 series systems, download the data sheets:

Nexsan NST6000 system: http://www.nexsan.com/products/NST-Series/~/media/Nexsan/Files/library/datasheets/NST6000_DS.pdf

Nexsan NST6000MC Metro Storage Cluster: http://www.nexsan.com/products/NST-Series/~/media/Nexsan/Files/library/datasheets/NST6000MC_DS.pdf

For more information on Imation’s Nexsan solutions, visit www.imation.com/nexsan.

About Imation
Imation (NYSE: IMN) is a global data storage and information security company. Our products and solutions help organizations and individuals store, manage and protect their digital content. Imation’s storage and security portfolio includes Nexsan high-density, archive and solid-state optimized unified hybrid storage solutions; IronKey mobile security solutions that address the needs of professionals for secure data transport and mobile workspaces; and consumer storage solutions, audio products and accessories sold under the Imation, Memorex and TDK Life on Record brands. Imation reaches customers in more than 100 countries through a powerful global distribution network. For more information, visit www.imation.com.

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Imation, the Imation logo, Nexsan, NST, NestOS, and FASTier are trademarks of Imation Corp. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Contacts

Imation Corp.
Ken Kadet, 651-704-3388
kkadet@imation.com
or
Schwartz MSL Public Relations For Imation
Mercedes Carrasco, 781-684-0770
imation@schwartzmsl.com

Contacts

Imation Corp.
Ken Kadet, 651-704-3388
kkadet@imation.com
or
Schwartz MSL Public Relations For Imation
Mercedes Carrasco, 781-684-0770
imation@schwartzmsl.com