Thunder 9580V Changes the Modular Storage Market withDoubled Capacity and Connectivity, IncreasedPerformance
New Tools for Data Protection, and EnhancedInteroperability with Lightning 9900 V Series
SANTA CLARA, California 8October, 2003 - HitachiData Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT), today introduced a major shift in the modular storage marketwith its announcement of the Hitachi Thunder 9580V™, an ultrahigh-end modular storage system that outperforms all competitiveproducts. The Thunder 9580V extends the application capabilities ofmodular storage and allows customers to cost-effectively do more,including multi-tiered storage deployment in combination with theHitachi Lightning 9900™ V Series, and large-scaleconsolidation of mid-range JBOD or older, enterprise-classstorage.
Built on many of the same technologies as Hitachi Data Systems'other leading storage systems, the Thunder 9580V addresses the realneeds of the growing networked storage market:
· Capacity — 64TB of raw capacity, twice that of itsnearest competitor
· Performance — 7.4 GigaBytes per second of cachedbandwidth, nearly six times that of its nearest competitor
· Connectivity — 1,024 Virtual Storage Ports withsecure multi-tenancy, a technology available only from Hitachi;and, 2,048 LUNs, four times that of its nearest competitor
· Data Protection & Business Continuity — HitachiQuickShadow™ copy-on-write snapshot software reduces storagerequirements for data protection while Hitachi HiCopy cross-systemreplication facilitates data movement between Thunder 9500 V Seriesand Lightning 9900 V Series storage tiers
Combined, these strengths make the Thunder 9580V the idealsystem for: departmental or SME storage consolidation; enhancingthe ability to perform concurrent operations such as businesscontinuity and parallel applications; and effective datareplication strategies across the enterprise.
"Hitachi Data Systems has taken a close look at its customer'sneeds," said Ron Johnson, a Sr. Partner and Analyst at theEvaluator Group, "and has addressed many of them with the Thunder9580V. This is a product that other vendors will be forced toaddress. By providing dramatic increases in capacity, performance,and connectivity, especially the increase in LUNs to 2,048, theThunder 9580V brings aggressive storage consolidation to the Smallto Medium Enterprise segment."
"As one of Hitachi Data Systems' top resellers, we are excitedabout the 9580V because it's a product we can really sell," saidKarin Napier, Vice President, Sales, Integrated Archive Systems,Inc. "With its feature mix — high capacity, high performance,high availability and real data protection tools, along with itssmooth integration with the Lightning series — the 9580V isideally suited to address the challenges my customers face."
"Customers have three major areas of concern," said Hu Yoshida,Chief Technology Officer, Hitachi Data Systems. "The growth ofdistributed services and applications, which require greaterstorage capacity and throughput to perform as needed; theaccelerating move from DAS to networked storage (NAS and SAN) atall levels of the enterprise, which calls for greater performanceand connectivity; and the ever present concern around disasterrecovery and business continuity, which requires the ability toreplicate and restore data quickly and efficiently. The Thunder9580V is the only modular storage system to fully address theseconcerns and will change the way storage is used in theenterprise."
Capacity
The Thunder 9580V delivers truly scalable capacity — up to64TB in SAN, NAS, DAS or Cluster configurations. Customers canrefine their systems by selecting the drive size and speed bestsuited to their applications. Drive options include 36GB (15K RPM),73 GB (10K/15K RPM) and 146GB (10K RPM). The Thunder 9580V providesthis capacity in a small, modular footprint which enables customersto scale capacity and performance by simply adding diskmodules.
Performance
Each Thunder 9580V includes two Hi-PER controllers that managethe information flow throughout the system; 8GB of mirrored cachememory, which improves performance by eliminating mechanicaldelays, and protection by maintaining non-volatile copies of databefore it is written to disk; and eight front-end and eightback-end ports — twice the number previously available— that ensure controllers always operate at peakefficiency.
Connectivity
The Thunder 9500 V Series is the only family of modular storagesystems to offer Virtual Storage Ports. With the Thunder 9580V,Hitachi Data Systems has doubled the number of Virtual StoragePorts to 1,024. Multiple open systems hosts, regardless of theirplatform or operating system, are able to access their own virtualprivate storage housed on a Thunder 9580V storage system with nothreat of exposure to other hosts. This secure multi-tenantcapability allows customers to reduce their network infrastructurecosts and extend the benefits of Thunder-class storage to a widerrange of applications.
Data Protection and Business Continuity
Hitachi QuickShadow copy-on-write snapshot software offerspoint-in-time copies without requiring a full volume backup.QuickShadow copies only changed data, allowing more frequentrestore points for faster resumption of service with minimalstorage requirements. With QuickShadow, customers can maintaincopies of their data at multiple points-in-time for recovery to anypreviously saved version.
Hitachi HiCopy cross-system replication software facilitatesdata movement between Lightning 9900 V Series and Thunder 9500 VSeries storage systems. With HiCopy, customers benefit fromconsolidated backup capabilities and the ability to move databetween tiers, either within a data center or across remotelocations. This enables an enterprise-wide, tiered storage strategymanageable through a single interface, the HiCommand® DeviceManager.
Investment Protection
The Thunder 9500 V Series and Lightning 9900 V Series share manyof the same storage applications, under the common HiCommandmanagement umbrella. This provides important benefits to storageadministrators, as any investments made in training are equallyapplicable to both platforms. Any scripts or business rulesdeveloped for one platform are portable between these twosystems.
Hitachi has also taken steps to protect customers' investmentsin existing Thunder 9500 V Series drives and disk modules byallowing them to be used with the new Thunder 9580V. The use ofexisting drives and disk modules does not require any specialpreparation or data migration steps so transitional downtime isminimized.
The Hitachi Thunder 9580V is available in November, 2003. Pricesrange from $110,000 to $1.6 million, depending on configuration.HiCopy and QuickShadow software will be available within the next90 days.
Hitachi Data Systems leverages global R&D resources todevelop storage solutions built on industry-leading technology withthe performance, availability and scalability to maximizecustomers' ROI and minimize their risk. By focusing on thecustomer's perspective as we apply the best hardware, software, andservices from Hitachi and our partners, we uniquely satisfy ourcustomers' business needs.
With 2,700 employees, Hitachi Data Systems conducts businessthrough direct and indirect channels in the public, government andprivate sectors in over 170 countries and regions. Its customersinclude more than 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies. For moreinformation, please visit our Web site at www.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leadingglobal electronics company, with approximately 320,000 employeesworldwide. Fiscal 2001 (ended March 31, 2002) consolidated salestotaled 7,994 billion yen ($60.1 billion*). The company offers awide range of systems, products and services in market sectors,including information systems, electronic devices, power andindustrial systems, consumer products, materials and financialservices. For more information on Hitachi, please visit thecompany's Web site at http://global.hitachi.com.
Contacts: PR
Jodi Reinman, Hitachi Data Systems, (408) 970-1050, jodi.reinman@hds.com
Freedom Storage, Lightning 9900, andThunder 9200 are trademarks of Hitachi Data Systems.
© 2003, Hitachi Data SystemsCorporation. Hitachi Data Systems is registered with the U.S.Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark and service mark ofHitachi, Ltd. The Hitachi Data Systems logotype is a trademark andservice mark of Hitachi Ltd. HiCommand is registered with the U.S.Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Hitachi Data SystemsCorporation., QuickShadow, and Thunder 9580V are trademarks ofHitachi Data Systems Corporation. All other trade names,trademarks, and service marks used herein are the rightful propertyof their respective owners.
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