Where there's Lightning, there's Thunder
By Kevin Komiega, Assistant News Editor
23 Jan 2001, searchStorage
Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has come up with a new storage system that brings some of its enterprise-level technologies to the midrange-computing environment. The company announced the launch of the Hitachi Freedom Storage Thunder 9200, the latest member of the Freedom Storage 9000 all-Fibre family.
Features of the Thunder 9200 include ShadowImage 9200, remote copy, logical unit security for Storage Area Networks (SANs), dynamic logical unit management, multiple RAID-level support, and 2G Byte/sec-ready host interfaces. Santa Clara, Calif.-based HDS, a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., said the Thunder 9200 is designed to compete with EMC's Clariion and Compaq's StorageWorks products in the midrange space, and sees the new offering as a complement to the Lightning 9900models announced in June and November of last year.
"Hitachi makes everything from nylons to nuclear power stations," said Philip Townesend, director of market development and communications. "HDS is Hitachi's primary arm into the enterprise computing environment."
According to Townesend, the Thunder 9200 is designed to bring to the midrange some of the technologies HDS developed in the 9000 series, but at a cheaper price point. He added that some of Thunder's features give it a leg up on the competition.
"The Thunder isn't an all Fibre Channel architecture. It's already 200M Byte/sec FC capable, which is just coming out of HBA vendors now. It can negotiate down to 100M Bytes/sec and SCSI - that's something that EMC's Clariion can't do."
The Thunder 9200 scales in a single configuration from 72G Bytes to 7.2T Bytes of capacity, packaged in rackmount or deskside configurations.
Pricing of the Thunder 9200 will range from $15,000 to $300,000. The product will be generally available February 13.
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For more information:
Hitachi Data Systems' homepage
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