Waltham, Massachusetts-based Cambex Corp has added the Centurion to its RAID disk array offerings for Unix systems; the array stores up to 700Gb. Cambex says that with the Centurion system it costs approximately $1 to store 1Mb in large configurations. The system starts at 22.5Gb, a small deskside unit, and can be expanded to 700Gb, a single- or dual-rackmount configuration, in 22.5GB increments, using deskside and rackmount cabinets. Cambex says that the 700Gb product occupies only nine square feet of floor space. A single drawer, with up to five disk drive canisters, stores up to 22.5Gb. The system uses Hyundai America Electronics Inc’s Symbios Logic Inc, formerly NCR Corp’s controllers with 4.5Gb 3.5 disk drives that rotate at 7,200 rpm. There are two controllers per 30 drives, with up to 128Mb of partionable Read and Non Volatile Storage Write cache memory; Cambex says that in an active-to-active controller mode this partionable cache, which enables mirroring of data, can improve data rates up to 1.7 times in some applications. Centurion supports RAID Levels 0, 1, 3, 5 or concurrent usage of more than one RAID level.
Motif-based
The Centurion has a Motif-based graphical Storage Manager for the scheduling of batch jobs, monitoring storage, fault indication, and initiate dual simultaneous controller paths, known as active-to-active controller mode. Cambex says the array has a greater than 1,500 input-output transactions per second rate, in some modes; so it can support on-line bulk storage applications, as well as data warehousing, datamining and on-line analytical processing functions. It is attachable to RS/6000, Solaris, DPX/20, Escala and Powerstack MP computers. In releases due out later this year, Centurion Arrays will also operate with HP 9000, Novell Inc NetWare networks and the Windows NT operating system. In addition, the product is designed to function with a variety of network management systems that include IBM’s NetView/6000, SunNet Manager, HP OpenView and CA-Unicenter. The product will be generally available by the end of the month.
