NetFrame Systems Inc, the Milpitas, California-based multiprocessor network server company, has moved into the storage business with a new family of storage subsystems for its Windows NT-based ClusterServer 8500 boxes.The ClusterStore 9000 is a rackmounted subsystem with storage capabilities of 378Gb on the 8500, with built-in disk mirroring or RAID 5 fault tolerance – with RAID 5 the maximum storage capability is 1.2 terabytes. By using its MultiProcessor Parallel Server Architecture, a single server can be made to support beyond 90 SCSI disk drives for 378Gb of disk storage – set to increase to 810Gb once 9Gb drives become available later this year. Aggregate disk I/O throughput is 800Mb/sec, with burst rates of up to 20Mb/sec and parallel, 32-bit memory transfers. Along with redundant power supplies and hot-swappable disk drives, NetFrame has included transaction rollback features that allow SCSI driver errors to be detected and resolved transparently, and it’s possible to repair, configure and expand a subsystem while it’s still on line using NetFrame’s Windows-based Maestro maintenance and configuration management software. It’s available immediately, with prices ranging from $14,628 for 21GB to $261,096 for 378GB. Hardware RAID 5 support for NetWare is immediately available, support for Windows NT will be available in the near future.
