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640 Gig HD in 1U Of Rack Space

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the oh-yeah-baby dept.

I'm running for prez writes "Network Engines just announced two products that ruin Maxtors previous record of stashing 320 GB in 1U. They are called StorageEngine (4 drives) and StorageArray (8 drives), that both run Ultra160 SCSI (hot swappable). Check out the specs." 640 gigs would be about 192 hours at the top quality tivo record. I could store all my DVDs, all my MP3s, and still have enough room for every episode of South Park and the Simpsons!

11 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. ... by Evangelion · · Score: 4


    Bah. 640 Gigs should be enough for anybody.


    --

  2. And how are you going to back it up?? by Bazman · · Score: 3

    Okay, so you've got your 640G of space, better get a DLT drive to back it up. Ooh, an 80GB drive costs 3000 pounds. And then you need eight tapes at 50 pounds a go to do one backup. Might as well get a robot arm to do tape handling. Lets get ten sets of backup tapes and budget for a quarterly archive copy...

    You do backup your hard disk dont you?

  3. All that space.... by BRock97 · · Score: 5

    ...and you still couldn't do a full install of Mandrake 7.2.

    Bryan R.

    --

    Bryan R.
    The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
  4. I work with people who could use it... by Raleel · · Score: 3

    It was really a scary experience for me when I started my job at the national lab. It was like a whole other world of computing. I came from a small school where we cleaned off 10 megabytes of cache to preserve disk space. Here, I had a guy look me in the eye and say, quite honestly, that he needed 10 TB (terabytes) of storage to get his work done "adequately" and he could really use 70 TB. I just could not believe that. We recently purchased a 2TB array, and it's not even remotely enough. Those damn scientists and all their data ;)

    --
    -- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
  5. That's nothing by levendis · · Score: 3

    Here's a nifty product - 1.8 Tb (thats 1843 gigs, kiddies) in 3U. And its got dual Fibre Channel ports (as opposed to Network Engine's single U160 SCSI), for a max throughtput of about 200MB/s. I don't thinks its released yet, but I've seen some beta units and this thing rocks.
    ----

    --
    ---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
  6. It must glow in the dark by selectspec · · Score: 5
    on the side the label reads:

    Warning: Do not stand within 6 feet of StorageArray. Keep StorageArray away from small children or pregnant mothers. Handle StorageArray with extreme caution. Always were saftey goggles when working with StorageArray. Do not taunt Storage Array.

    --

    Someone you trust is one of us.

  7. url for ordering the deluxe version? by drfireman · · Score: 3

    I wanted to order the CmdrTaco version, with all those DVD's, MP3's, Simpsons and South Park episodes pre-loaded, but I couldn't find the ordering page on CmdrTaco.net. Please advise.

  8. I find it Interesting... by Ron+Harwood · · Score: 3

    ...how some people relate storage space to their lives.

    Some people think about it in number of CD's (or even floppies) it is worth... Others think about the database it could hold.

    Rob thinks about how much music he could fill it with.

    --
    BlackNova Traders
  9. Re:Record-breaking? Nope... by DrWiggy · · Score: 5
    Funnily enough, I was about to mention that. Nowhere on their website that I can see does it mention the figure 640Gb. Anywhere. What's more, I can't even see it in the original submitted article. Is CmdrTaco on crack or something? Here is the spec sheet. If you can see where it says 640Gb, please point it out to me. I had considered that /. is using a new numbering convention whereby 640Gb == 432Gb but I don't remember seeing the announcement. If somebody could just find the article and let me know. It doesn't even work if you convert into octal or anything, even if you do it really badly. :-)

    Configuration
    • Intel processor
    • 512 MB DRAM
    • Solid state RAM boot device
    • Four hot-swap SCSI 10,000 RPM hard disks, 18GB or 36 GB
    • Maximum storage capacity of 432 GB with 36 GB disks
    • Single-channel Ultra160 RAID controller with 32 MB DRAM and battery back-up
    • Dual 10/100BT auto-configuring Ethernet ports
    • Redundant hot-swap fans
    • System Maintenance Bus for out-of-band management, Cluster Maintenance
    • Bus external connection for easy integration with a Network Engines management cluster
    • Sliding rails for both Telco and cabinet racks
    So, the only thing I can consider is that somebody has worked out that this thing will take 4 SCSI hard drives, and that if they could lay their hands on some disks in the 160Gb region, they could them in here and they would have 640Gb of storage. Mmmm'kay? So, in actual fact there is no commercial product on the market from these people on sale right now, ready to go, with that storage. What's more, even if I do buy this hunk of crap, and I do manage to lay my hands on disks that size (and my bank manager allows me to pay for them), I'm going to have to invalidate any support/warranty agreements with them. Fantastic.

    There are times, when I really want to give up on /. when stories like this appear. This isn't news (it hasn't been researched), it's not even cool (because it's not true), it's not even lame (because it might lead to a conversation about cheap storage arrays), it's just.... just... so *slashdot*...
  10. null data by neuneu · · Score: 4

    640 gigs would be about 39321600 hours of unused space. I could store all my blank files, and still have enough room for every empty directories!

  11. Torque that thing by SanLouBlues · · Score: 3

    I'm still waiting for a raid unit full of hard drives that develop enough torque to lift the entire unit off of the ground. Just think, density will matter less because none of your storage takes up floorspace!