Nexsan E-Series 18XV Expansion Unit
Reliable High Density Storage Arrays Turbocharged for High Performance
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Overview:
The Nexsan E-Series V expansion unit is an ultra-reliable, high-density, high performance, efficient storage system that enables organizations to lower their content storage costs, maximize storage uptime, and boost data storage ROI.
The E-Series V storage arrays and expansion units offer mid-size organizations affordable enterprise-level Fibre Channel, SAS and/or iSCSI SAN storage used for a variety of capacity-optimized and performance-driven applications. For larger organizations, E-Series V is a versatile SAN or DAS solution to stay ahead of the enormous data growth, demanding workloads, and high resiliency requirements in media & entertainment, government, healthcare, HPC, financial, surveillance and service provider sectors.
Key Benefits
- Reliability – featuring Anti-vibration design and Cool Drive Technology
- Availability – using Active Drawer Technology and redundant hot swappable active components
- Density – up to 60 drives in 4U
- High Performance – utilizes Nexsan's latest multi RAID engine controller technology
- Energy Efficient – delivering up to 87% reduction in power while lowering your cooling needs through the use of AutoMAID
- Encryption – AES 256 hardware based encryption
- Flexible Connectivity – connecting via SAS, Fibre Channel or iSCSI
- Easy to Manage – remotely managing one or many systems within a single, intuitive GUI.
Attach Expansion Unit to Main Storage Unit
The Nexsan E18V/E18XV requires another Nexsan unit to provide RAID functionality and host/network connectivity. Up to two expansion units can be connected to a single Nexsan RAID storage unit by “daisychaining” the two expansion units together. Expansion units should be mounted in the same rack as the unit to which they are to be connected or in an immediately adjacent rack.
Turbocharged Performance
E-Series V features an advanced active/active controller design, including use of a dedicated hardware engine, or “turbocharger”, which accelerates RAID parity generation and doubles the sequential write performance over the prior version of E-Series. The turbocharged E-Series V is ideal for back-up/recovery applications and continuous data streaming bulk storage applications.
High-Density, Power Efficient
Organizations deploying E-Series V systems are able to mix and match capacityoptimized HDDs, performance-optimized HDDs and SSDs to accommodate applications based on performance or capacity needs. E-Series V systems consume less than one-third of the power in one-third of the rack space of typical arrays, with up to 480 terabytes of capacity in just one 4U, and up to a total of 1.44 PB in a fully-scaled, 12U configuration. Users of E-Series V systems can engage Nexsan AutoMAID disk management capabilities to reduce power consumption by up to 87 percent, reducing operating expenses and extending the overall life of the system.
Ultra-Reliable
E-Series V systems exceed the most stringent reliability demands, leveraging an innovative mechanical design including Cool Drive Technology™ and antivibration design that significantly reduce heat and vibration in the unit while improving system reliability and performance. The reliability of E-Series V is qualified through extensive stress testing before shipment. Array-based snaps and asynchronous replication extend E-Series V data protection capabilities.
Encryption at Rest
E-Series encryption is configured to automatically encrypt data by using selfencryption drives (SED) with AES-256 encryption, so you know that data at rest is fully protected. The E-Series management interface allows the encryption/ decryption process to be transparent and does not compromise performance. To prevent unauthorized access to the data, the storage system must authenticate itself with the drive using an authentication key that is established upon the first time use of the drive. The encryption key is managed by the controller, so no key management is required by the user. With optional FIPS 140-2 level 2 certified self-encrypting drives, the E-Series FIPS SED allows you to meet regulatory and compliance needs for securing data at rest. E-Series SED provides the security you need without forgoing performance or usability. Re-purpose or retire your storage without compromising data by allowing E-series to cryptographically erase all encrypted data.
Highly Resilient, Continuously Available
The E-Series system features high-availability architecture, with multipathing support and dual redundant, hot-swappable active components. SNMP alerts or email notifications are sent to the administrator in the event of a component failure and upon a drive failure a spare drive is automatically rebuilt into the RAID set. With up to 16GB of battery-backed and flash-protected cache per controller, the E-Series solution mirrors cache between controllers in a dual controller configuration. Active Drawer Technology overcomes the challenges of competitive arrays by allowing a single drawer of drives to be pulled out and serviced easily while keeping your data available.
Features:
Active Drawer Technolgoy
- No system downtime - Allows for easy, hot-swappable drive management
- Drives remain active when drawer is open
- Increased reliability and reduced external wire management
Cool Drive Technology
- Optimizes air flow and component cooling
- Increases product reliability by reducing component temperatures
- System redundancy ensures adequate cooling even if a fan fails
- Variable speed fans with temperature sensors
Anti-Vibration Design
- Reduces vibration to improve system performance and reliability
- Drives mounted counter-rotating
- Thick plates in chassis eliminate vibrations
- Anti-vibration fan mounts
AutoMAID
- Up to 87% energy savings and lowers your cooling needs
- Ideal for backup to disk or bulk storage scenarios
- Configurable on a per-disk set basis
- Easy to set up and maintain via GUI
- Can improve drive reliability by reducing power-on-hours
Specifications:
| E-Series 18XV | E-Series 32XV | E-Series 48XV | E-Series 60XV | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Disk bays / Rack U | 18 / 2U | 32* / 2U | 48 / 4U | 60 / 4U |
| Number of Active Drawers | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Maximum Drives with Expansion | 54 | 96 | 144 | 180 |
| Maximum Capacity (chassis/total) | 144TB /432TB | 57.6TB/172.8TB | 384GB /1.15TB | 480TB / 1.44PB |
| Mix 7.2K, 10K, 15K and SSD | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| SSD (GB) | 200 / 400 / 800 | 200 / 400 / 800 | 200 / 400 / 800 | 200 / 400 / 800 |
| 2.5" 15K Drives (GB) | 600 | 600 | 600 | 600 |
| 2.5" 10K Drives (GB) | 600 / 900 / 1200 / 1800 | 600 / 900 / 1200 / 1800 | 600 / 900 / 1200 / 1800 | 600 / 900 / 1200 / 1800 |
| 3.5" 7.2K Drives (TB) | 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 6 / 8 | - | 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 6 / 8 | 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 6 / 8 |
| 2.5 “ 15K SED Drives** (GB) | 600 | 600 | 600 | 600 |
| 2.5” 10K SED Drives** (GB) | 1200 | 1200 | 1200 | 1200 |
| 3.5” 7.2K SED Drives** (TB) | 2 / 4 / 6 | 2 / 4 / 6 | 2 / 4 / 6 | 2 / 4 / 6 |
| 3.5” 7.2K SED FIPS Drives*** (TB) | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Max LUNs per System | 254 | 254 | 254 | 254 |
| Max Volumes per System | 254 | 254 | 254 | 254 |
| RAID Levels | 0, 1, 1+0, 4, 5, 6 | 0, 1, 1+0, 4, 5, 6 | 0, 1, 1+0, 4, 5, 6 | 0, 1, 1+0, 4, 5, 6 |
| Mounting Rails Included | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Max Cache per Controller | 4GB | 4GB | 16GB | 16GB |
| AutoMAID Power Management | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Multiple RAID Engines per Controller | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Dual Active/Active Controllers | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Simultaneous Fibre Channel and iSCSI | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| 1Gb iSCSI Ports per Controller | 2 or 4 | 2 or 4 | 2 or 4 | 2 or 4 |
| 10Gb iSCSI Ports per Controller (optional) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 8Gb FC Ports per Controller (optional) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 16Gb FC Ports per Controller (optional) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 6Gb/s SAS (x4) Ports per Controller (optional) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 10/100 MbE Management Port | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| LUN Security via CHAP | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| VMware, Xen, Hyper-V & Windows Compatible | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Stress test individual drives | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Test all drives in the system that will ship | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Array-based Snapshots and Replication | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Anti-vibration design | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Cool Drive Technology | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Active Drawer Technology | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Encryption at rest option | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| FIPS Certified SED encryption at rest option | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Standard 1000 mm Rack Recommended | Y | Y | Y | N (not if rear doors are used) |
| 1200 mm Rack Recommended | N | N | N | Y |
| Dimensions - Width | 19 in / 482.6 mm | 19 in / 482.6 mm | 19 in / 482.6 mm | 19 in / 482.6 mm |
| Dimensions - Height | 3.47 in / 88.1 mm | 3.47 in / 88.1 mm | 6.93 in / 176 mm | 6.93 in / 176 mm |
| Dimensions - Depth | 31.5 in / 800 mm | 31.5 in / 800 mm | 33.46 in / 850 mm | 37.99 in / 965 mm |
| Dimensions - Depth with required front bezels | 32.82 in / 834 mm | 32.82 in / 834 mm | 35.63 in / 905 mm | 40.16 in / 1020 mm |
| Dimensions - Depth with required front bezels and rear handles | 33.27 in / 845 mm | 33.27 in / 845 mm | 36.06 in / 916 mm | 40.59 in / 1031 mm |
| Maximum Installed Weight w/mounting rails, all drives and controllers | 108.2 lbs / 49.1 Kg | 90.2 lbs / 40.9 Kg | 201.1 lbs / 91.2 Kg | 235.5 lbs / 106.8 Kg |
| Standard Dual Power Supplies (redundant, load sharing, hot-pluggable, auto-sensing) | 2 x 1200 W 100-240 V |
2 x 1200 W 100-240 V |
2 x 1600 W 100-240 V |
2 x 1600 W 200-240 V |
| Peak Power Consumption (@240V) | 604 Watts / 2.66 A | 474 Watts / 2.13 A | 1509 Watts / 6.79 A | 1797 Watts / 7.83 A |
| Idle Mode Power (AutoMAID Level 4) | 184 Watts / .92 A | 186 Watts / .95 A | 236 Watts / 1.14 A | 239 Watts / 1.19 A |
| Operating Temperature Range | 5°C to 30°C (41°F to 86°F) | 5°C to 35°C (41°F to 95°F) | ||
| Operating Humidity Range | 20% to 80% non-condensing | |||
| Operating Altitude | 0 to 2,133m (0 to 7,000ft) | |||
| Non-operational Altitude | 0 to 12,192m (0 to 40,000ft) | |||
AutoMAID:
With ever-increasing volumes of data, IT departments are looking for storage systems that minimize both the rack space required and power and cooling expenses. Buildings with infrastructures designed 10 years ago are now reaching their limits on what they can support with power and cooling ranking among the top concerns of new datacenters.
Nexsan is the industry leader in both of these areas. AutoMAID power management technology, built in to the E-Series disk arrays, can save up to 87% on power and cooling bills, as explained in this paper.
Best Usage Scenarios
AutoMAID allows the administrator to define policies that place drives into progressively lower power states based on disk activity. In a typical disk array, there may be several RAID disk sets. The AutoMAID power management policy is per RAID set, not necessarily across all of the drives in the storage system. AutoMAID policies are based on the time of day, day of the week, and amount of time elapsed since the last access to the disk set. A true “set and forget” setting, AutoMAID allows the administrator to define the policies that will allow for the least disruption to productivity by users. If a Nexsan storage system is not idle, AutoMAID does not kick in; only when RAID sets hit policy limits on inactivity does AutoMAID begin to progressively transition to lower power usage.
One common use for AutoMAID is for backup to disk. At 10PM the backups start, and all drives are running at full speed to complete the nightly backup as quickly as possible. But at 7AM the backups are done, and that RAID disk set will not be accessed for another 15 hours. So a policy is set that says if none of the disks are accessed for 30 minutes, go into a power savings state. Then at 10PM the first write takes about 30 seconds longer than usual, then the entire disk set runs at full speed while backups are being performed.
Another common use is when large scientific projects are being stored. Perhaps the scientists are working on the Mars data, and the Moon data is sitting idle. This is the ideal time for AutoMAID to spin down the RAID disk set housing the Moon data until the Moon data is accessed again. The nice thing about AutoMAID is that the policies are easy to set up and change. Users and applications are unaware of the power efficiencies that are occurring. If a set of disks is being actively accessed, they will stay running at full speed for all users. It couldn’t be simpler or more effective.
Ideal for Backup-to-Disk and Bulk Storage Applications
Lastly in video surveillance, the storage system can be configured with 7 RAID disk sets, one for each day of the week. In this configuration only one RAID disk set needs to be powered up at any given time to accept that day’s data, resulting in startling power savings. Of course all drives are accessible as needed, should someone wish to view or process the video captured on prior days.
Technical Details
There are 5 levels of power savings that AutoMAID supports in the E-Series:
Heads parked/unloaded
Sub-second recovery time
About 15% to 20% savings
Heads unloaded (slows to 4000 RPM)
15 second recovery time
About 35% to 45% savings
Stops spinning (sleep mode; powered on)
30 to 45 second recovery time
About 60% to 65% savings
Stops drive electronics
30 to 45 second recovery time
About 70% savings
Turn off E60X expansion enclosure
30 to 46 second recovery time
About 87% savings with SATA
About 92% savings with 15K SAS
Management:
From Anywhere To Anywhere
That’s because–whether you’re across town or halfway around the world–you can manage all Nexsan storage products remotely. Our management capabilities are intuitive and easy to use. They require minimal training. And all of our interfaces provide different levels of security to ensure proper authentication and prevent unwanted users from gaining access.
You can configure Nexsan E-Series and Beast products through our unique, secure and intuitive Web-based GUI tool. The interface uses standard HTML and is compatible with all mainstream browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, etc.) that aren’t hardware-, software- or Java-runtime-specific. The embedded Web-browser GUI operates over the 10/100 Mb/s dedicated Ethernet management ports, and supports e-mail alerts and SNMP traps. We also provide a standard serial port for local and direct system configuration.
In addition to the GUI, Nexsan Storage Tools – a comprehensive set of storage management software tools for Windows Server families–make it easy to manage and configure multiple units from a single GUI. Nexsan Storage Tools provide support for Windows Virtual Disk Service (VDS) and Microsoft Management Console (MMC), and include MPIO support for Nexsan RAID storage systems.
Views:
Front View
Rear View
Pull-out Unit View
Main Storage Unit (above) and Expansion (bottom) Unit Connection Diagram
Compare:
Efficient, Versatile Modular Storage
Nexsan BEAST and E-Series are ultra-reliable, high performance block storage systems that enable organizations to boost their storage ROI by scaling capacity while controlling infrastructure and energy costs. BEAST is a hard working, capacity optimized storage array that offers enterprise level reliability at an affordable price point. BEAST helps organizations stay ahead of the enormous capacity growth that occurs in backup, archive, and digital video surveillance use cases.
E-Series storage arrays and expansion units can be deployed with mix and match HDDs and SSDs to optimize capacity, performance and cost. This versatile enterprise-class SAN or DAS solution helps handle the enormous data growth, demanding workloads, and high resiliency requirements in media & entertainment, government, healthcare, HPC, financial, surveillance and service provider sectors.
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| E-Series 18V | E-Series 32V | E-Series 48VT | E-Series 60VT | BEAST BT60 | |
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| Max. Storage Capacity / Unit | 144TB | 57.6TB | 384TB | 480TB | 480TB |
| Max. No. of Drives / Unit | 18 | 32 | 48 | 60 | 60 |
| Max. Capacity with Expansion | 432TB | 172.8TB | 1.15PB | 1.44PB | 1.44PB |
| Form Factor (Unit / Expansion) | 2U/6U | 2U/6U | 4U/12U | 4U/12U | 4U/12U |
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Support:
Warranty: Three Years Advance Replacement
Nexsan Technologies storage systems are warranted for three full years from the date of shipment. Upon verification of component failure and issuing of a Return Material Authorization (RMA), replacement equipment will be advance-shipped to the customer. An RMA can be obtained by phone, fax or email and will accompany all replacement equipment shipped. Warranties are non-transferable without prior consent from Nexsan. Extended Warranties are available for purchase.
Basic Support
Nexsan customers who prefer to perform simple hardware replacement themselves and do not need 24x7 care choose Basic support. As needed, replacement parts are advance-shipped within one business day of diagnosis of a hardware fault. Basic support includes Nexsan Technical Support by phone and email during standard Nexsan Business Hours. Software upgrades are available for an additional charge. Software/Firmware Updates are free. Nexsan E-Series and SATABeast RAID products include Basic Support with the Standard Warranty.
Enterprise Support
Nexsan Enterprise support offers an enhanced level of service to simplify maintenance and improve overall system availability. Enterprise support includes 24x7 phone and email support, as well as Next Business Day onsite hardware replacement for our customers who do not need the around the clock response of the Premium Support program. Under this coverage a trained field engineer will respond to your location on the next business day following diagnosis of a hardware issue.
Regulatory Approvals
CE, UL, CUL
Premium Support
Nexsan customers who require infrastructure operation 24x7x365 choose Premium support for fast, 24x7 response and onsite hardware replacement. Once a hardware issue is diagnosed by phone, a Nexsan Technical Engineer arrives onsite, within 4 hours, if needed. Premium support also offers enhanced response times to software support issues and an exclusive support hotline for around-the-clock access. Software/firmware updates and upgrades are included.
Onsite Spares
This program provides customers with on-location spares for maximum convenience and protection of critical storage devices. The Onsite Spares Program enables customers have all commonly used spare parts located in their facility for rapid replacement and restoration of operations. Along with optional 24x7 phone support, customers can be assured of rapid resolution to any problem. Replaced components can be advance-shipped for constant availability.
Documentation:
Download the Nexsan E-Series V Storage Platform Data Sheet (PDF)
Download the Nexsan E-Series V Storage Platform Spec Sheet (PDF)