By adding an option for ATA drives to its SiliconServer array BlueArc says it has created a single NAS filer containing multiple tiers of storage, each with a different cost and performance but all linked by the device’s high-speed data moving engine. Other storage makers that have already adopted PC-style ATA drives include EMC Corp and Quantum Corp, as well as BlueArc’s high-end NAS rivals Spinnaker and NetApp.

The SiliconServer’s architecture involves disk bricks, which each comprise an array of disks and a pair of controllers. Until now the company has offered two types of Fibre Channel brick – one using 10,000 rpm 146GB drives to offer 2.3TB of capacity, and another using faster 15,000rpm 73GB drives to offer just 1TB capacity.

The new ATA bricks are logically identical to the Fibre Channel bricks, but offer either 3.5TB of capacity on slower and cheaper 7,200rpm 250GB ATA drives, or 12.6TB capacity on 5,400rpm 300GB drives.

You can effectively use this as tape. At 8TB or more, we cost a penny per megabyte, which is a dramatic shift in the market, said Geoff Barrall, CTO and executive vice president at BlueArc. That penny-per-megabyte price is exactly the same price quoted by Spinnaker Networks Inc, when it announced last week that it had integrated ATA drives into its large-scale NAS device.

In comparison, a typical 2TB tape library costs around one cent to half a cent per MB of capacity, although extra tape cartridges come in at around one hundredth of a cent per MB of capacity. A 10TB ATA configuration of EMC’s mid-range Clariion array carried a list price 1.7 cents per MB when it was launched last month.

The start-up says the SiliconServer uses FPGA chips rather than CPUs and buses to handle everything that has to do with moving data. FPGAs – Field Programmable Gate Arrays – are similar to ASICs, in that they are configured to perform specific tasks. According to BlueArc, the SiliconServer will scale to 228TB capacity.

According to a report issued by Gartner Dataquest last month and titled Network-Attached Storage Market Share 2002, BlueArc took a 1.4% share of worldwide NAS revenue last year, making it the 8th largest NAS supplier. In the category of high-end NAS devices costing $100,000 or more, BlueArc came in third place behind NetApp and EMC Corp, with just 1.9% of 2002 total revenue of $851m.

Last week BlueArc told ComputerWire that it has shipped 200 of its filers since the product was launched in June 2001 and that its revenue rose by 300% last year. The company, which was founded in 1998 and has raised $110m in funding, says that it will reach profitability around the end of this year.

Source: Computerwire