High performance, direct attached storage for high data availability
- Supports up to four PowerEdge™ servers
- Ideal for 2 node cluster configurations
- Up to 45 disk drives and 90TB of capacity
- Supports both Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA) drives
The PowerVault MD3000 direct attached modular disk storage array is expandable by simply adding up to two additional enclosures for a total of 45 drives and 90TB of capacity. The entire storage array subsystem is managed from a single software application — known as the Modular Disk Storage Manager — that streamlines the management and maintenance of storage as it scales. With the PowerVault MD3000, storage can be quickly and easily added as needed without disruption to operations.
Benefits of Clustering With the PowerVault MD3000
The Dell PowerVault MD3000 direct attached array is loaded with data protection features to help keep your application up and running. The storage array is architected to avoid single points of failure.
External RAID storage arrays are designed to increase cluster performance and functionality
- RAID controllers reside in the external storage array, enabling direct communication between them.
- Cache coherency is maintained through direct mirroring. Both controllers contain both sets of cached data.
- Having RAID conrollers in the storage array and cache coherency allows users to protect their data without having to sacrifice the performance benefits of caching.
Redundant components: Support redundant active/active RAID controllers, management ports and power/cooling to provide real security at the hardware level
Automated drive failure detection: Capable of automatically rebuilding a failed drive using an available hot-spare drive.
Intelligent battery monitoring: Intelligent software notifies you before the battery fails, helping to reduce unplanned downtime.
Hot-pluggable components: Remove and replace disk drives, storage controllers, power supplies, and cooling fan modules while the system remains running - without impacting operations.
RAID Levels: Supporting RAID levels 0, 1, 10, 5 and 6 offering flexibility in data protection and system performance characteristics.
Premium management functionality: Snapshot and virtual-disk copy capabilities that support hourly, real-time backups of your entire data environment.
Simple Yet Powerful Storage Management
The MD3000 direct attached storage array delivers a seamless suite of intuitive task-based management capabilities. The Modular Disk Storage Manager can help automatically configure the system for optimal performance and availability.
Multi-host management: Flexibility to manage the entire network from a single console
Recovery guru: A support tool to help diagnose system problems and help determine an appropriate recovery procedure
Enhanced data protection: Optional snapshot and virtual disk copy features
Advanced Data Management
For advanced availability, the PowerVault MD3000 direct attached storage array offers optional backup and data protection features: snapshot and virtual disk copy (VDC).
Snapshots are point-in-time copies of the data, so if a file is accidentally altered or deleted, it can be recovered easily by reverting to a previous state. Snapshots can be taken instantaneously, minimizing application downtime.
Virtual disk copy (VDC) is a full, replicated copy of a source data taken at a discrete point in time, enabling quick and seamless virtual disk relocation, and disk-based backup and recovery.
Excellent Drive Flexibility
The PowerVault™ MD family enables organizations to mix SAS and SATA drives delivering excellent flexibility to align data requirements with drive capabilities, speed, capacity and cost, to help optimize your storage environment.
SAS for Performance SAS can deliver the speed, performance and reliability to satisfy mainstream single server applications. SAS performance makes it ideal for demanding server applications such as email or database applications that store active and frequently changing information.
NEW Nearline SAS - Performance of SAS, Capacities of SATA The new 7.2K RPM SAS drives leverage the performance efficiencies of SAS making it ideal for customer who are looking for the low cost per GB but can't sacrifice performance. In everyday usage situations customers can see up to a 30% performance increase with the 7.2 RPM SAS drive over the 7.2 RPM SATA drives.
SATA for Capacity SATA disk drives deliver a compelling cost-per-Gigabyte alternative to SAS. SATA drives are ideal high capacity applications where data is accessed and modified less frequently, such as digital imaging, file archiving, audio/video storage, or back-up to disk applications.
NEW Energy Efficient SATA - Superior GB per Watt Solution: The new 5.4K RPM SATA drive offers customers a high capacity, energy efficient alternative to traditional SATA drives. Ideal for capacity intensive applications in a power constrained environments. This 5.4K RPM SATA drive can reduce power consumption up to 30% with less than a 10% degradation in random I/O performance over some 7.2K RPM SATA drives.
Active RAID Controllers
RAID controllers are the brains that govern everything that occurs within the PowerVault MD3000 disk storage enclosure, performing necessary calculations, controlling I/O performance operations, handling communication with management applications, and storing firmware. The PowerVault MD3000 direct attached storage array was designed to incorporate twin active/active RAID controllers with mirrored cache for high-availability. If one controller should fail, the surviving controller can handle the full processing load until its mate is brought back online.
Hot-Pluggable Technology
Dell's PowerVault MD3000 direct attached storage array allows you to remove and replace redundant components without disruption to operation. In the rare event of component failure, disk drives, storage controllers, power supplies, and cooling fan modules are all hot-pluggable - you can remove and replace them for easy repair while the system remains up and running. The PowerVault MD3000 disk storage array enclosure contains two integrated power supply and fan modules - if one is removed the other can handle the demand, virtually eliminating downtime to your storage array.
Hot-Spare Drives
If a physical disk should fail in the PowerVault MD3000 storage array, the lost data can be automatically reconstructed onto a hot-spare drive using redundant data found on the surviving disks. When the failed disk is removed, a new physical drive can be inserted in its place, which is used as a new hot spare for other disks that might fail.
