Imation’s Nexsan NST Unified Storage Platform Builds On NestOS

Chris Preimesberger,

Imation’s new scalable storage platform adds Fibre Channel support and can take on big data workloads

Imation, which has branched out far beyond its tape storage beginnings, on 19 August unveiled a Nexsan NST unified hybrid storage platform to go with NestOS 3.0, a scalable, flexible storage operating system.

The new NST6000 platform adds Fibre Channel support and can handle big data SAN and NAS workloads with improved performance, the company said.

Unified platform

Minnesota-based Imation acquired California-based Nexsan last January for about $120 million (£90m).

The NST6000 is a fully unified hybrid storage platform, providing simultaneous support of block (Fibre Channel, iSCSI) and file-level (NFS, CIFS, SMB and FTP) data traffic in a single system without additional software overhead or licences.

concept network fibre chip abstract network broadband © Toria ShutterstockThe NST6000 is designed for enterprises that need scalable and high-performance storage that supports SAN and NAS enterprise-class workloads at the same time, Imation said.

The NST6000 uses solid-state disks for its FASTier acceleration tier to go with hard disk storage. The NST6000 and FASTier acceleration technology are aimed at enterprises that are expanding their virtualised environments, expanding database applications and adding other applications that require adaptable, high-performance storage, the company said.

Availability

The first NST6000 model, the NST6530, features dedicated high performance controllers and a front-end FASTier caching engine connected to Nexsan E-Series storage for up to 5PB of capacity.

Nexsan NST6530, optimised for virtualised environments with high-capacity requirements, will be demonstrated for the first time at VMworld 2013, to be held from 25 to 29 August in San Francisco. The NST6530 system simultaneously supports large-scale I/O intensive workloads generated from multiple virtual machines, Imation said.

The Nexsan NST6000MC Metro Storage Cluster solution is available immediately through Nexsan channel partners. The NST6530 and NestOS 3.0 will be available this autumn, Imation said. Fibre Channel connectivity will only be available on NST6000 series systems.

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Originally published on eWeek.