There are many storage options for DataON solutions for Azure Stack HCI. But when it comes to high-capacity storage solutions, DataON chooses Western Digital hard disk drives (HDDs), JBODs, and hybrid server technologies for their reliability, performance, and technological innovation.
Here are five Western Digital technologies that power DataON solutions Azure Stack HCI.
1. WD delivers industry-leading Ultrastar® hard disk drives (HDDs)
WD doesn’t just manufacture hard drives, it leads the pack in innovation with a series of firsts. WD Ultrastar® storage employs the first commercial implementation of Energy-Assisted Magnetic Recording (EAMR) technology, allowing the storage to improve capacity across the board. New 18TB and 20TB drives include the industry’s first Triple Stage Actuator (TSA), the latest WD innovation which uses three pivot points to precisely control the position of the recording head and is an improvement from WD’s current dual stage actuator.
WD Ultrastar® storage utilizes helium-encased technology also known as HelioSeal®. WD was the first to keep helium sealed inside a mass-produced drive, resulting in reduced drive turbulence. Now in its sixth generation, the design enables WD to use thinner platters and increase from five disk platters to nine disk platters.
DataON uses WD Ultrastar® drives in its hybrid storage and JBOD high capacity solutions. Utilizing higher capacity hard drives reduces the overall storage footprint and total cost of ownership (TCO). WD also offers an unbeatable five-year warranty on all its WD Ultrastar® products, JBODs, just-a-bunch-of-flash (JBOFs), and hybrid servers.
2. WD provides high capacity JBOD platforms and hybrid storage servers
WD Ultrastar® Data60 (DataON DNS-4760) and Data102 (DataON DNS-4702) JBOD storage platforms serve as the backbone of DataON’s converged high-capacity storage solutions for Azure Stack HCI.
Designed for high-density and flexibility, the Ultrastar® Data60 JBOD storage platform supports up to 1.2 PB of raw capacity with 20TB drives in a 4U form factor. For ultra-dense storage, the Ultrastar® Data102 JBOD storage platform supports up to 2PB of raw capacity with 20TB drives in a 4U factor. Both JBOD storage platforms offer hybrid support for a data acceleration tier with SSDs (SAS or SATA) in up to 24 drive slots, dual-port SAS for high availability or single-port SATA for low cost, and enterprise-grade redundant and hot-swappable power supply units, I/O modules, and fans.
DataON HCI-468 high capacity sever solutions for Azure Stack HCI are powered by WD Ultrastar® Data60+8 hybrid-storage servers. Featuring 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors, WD Ultrastar® Data60+8 hybrid-storage servers accommodate 60 SAS/SATA HDDs with hybrid support for SSDs (SAS or SATA) in up to 24 drive slots. They can be deployed as hyper-converged or converged storage in an Azure Stack HCI environment and include eight additional drive bays for SAS/SATA SSDs to be used as a designated cache tier for increased performance. With up to 1.3 PB raw capacity in a 4U enclosure, WD Ultrastar® Data60+8 hybrid-storage servers help meet the needs of large enterprise customers, OEMs, cloud service providers, and system integrators.
3. WD Ultrastar® JBODs and hybrid storage servers employ WD ArcticFlow™ Thermal Zone cooling technology, reducing TCO
WD understands that customers can struggle with the challenges and the associated costs of cooling in dense and ultra-dense storage environments. Conventional enclosures rely on alternative cold and hot aisles in the data center to reduce heat. However, in many cases, the air becomes too hot before it’s ported out of the units, making it too difficult to maintain optimal operating temperatures.
WD ArcticFlow™ Thermal Zone cooling technology works by introducing cool air into the center of the chassis. Divided into front and rear zones, as the cool air warms through the front zone, it is ducted around the sides of the enclosure to the hot aisle, while the cool air tunnel brings fresh, cold air directly into the center of the enclosure, cooling the rear zone. Consequently, drives operate at lower and more consistent temperatures than conventional systems. This results in lower fan speeds, reduced vibration, lower power consumption, quieter operation, higher reliability, and ultimately lower TCO.
4. WD Ultrastar® JBODs and hybrid storage servers utilize IsoVibe™ Vibration Isolation technology to reduce lag and improve overall HDD performance
Despite sophisticated servo mechanisms in the drives, external shock and vibration can cause a drive head to take longer to settle onto the track and can even cause it to go off track. This can cause HDDs to quickly shutoff writing or reading, resulting in performance lag, while waiting for the head to realign.
IsoVibe™ Vibration Isolation technology works by making precise cuts in the baseboard, providing a suspension for the drives in the chassis and isolating them from transmitted vibration. Vibration-isolated fans also minimize acoustic vibration, suppress noise transmission, and reduce the amount of transmitted interference. As a result, there is an overall consistent drive performance without the lag associated from a conventional chassis.
5. WD continues to innovate with low latency, all-NVMe flash JBOF storage platforms
WD’s OpenFlex™ Data24 NVMe-oFTM storage platform extends the high performance of NVMe flash to shared storage. It provides low latency sharing of NVMe SSDS over a high-performance Ethernet fabric to deliver similar performance to locally attached NVMe SSDs. With up to 368 TB raw storage in a 24 drive, 2U enclosure, WD’s OpenFlex™ Data24 delivers a projected up to 13.2M IOPS, 70.7GB/s bandwidth with 42µs write latency. WD JBOFs are Ideal for high performance SQL workloads, scale-out/up configs, AI and machine learning, and more. If you’re looking to deploy high-capacity solutions in your data center, DataON can help you with an Azure Stack HCI solution.
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