Winchester Systems Introduces FlashDisk RAID for Flexible Hosting

BILLERICA, MA--(Marketwired - Sep 22, 2014) - Winchester Systems Inc., a leading data storage solutions provider, today announced that FlashDisk FX Series RAID disk arrays are now available with modular ports that allow the data storage to be easily and inexpensively be transferred from SAN to LAN to direct attach at any time. The system uses small, modular an inexpensive removable host port "personality cards" that offer Fibre Channel, SAS or iSCSI connectivity for maximum flexibility.

The FlashDisk FX Series RAID disk arrays offer single or dual redundant controllers. Each controller includes eight built-in 1-Gigabit Ethernet (1GbE) iSCSI ports, with additional 1GbE or 10GbE iSCSI, 8Gb or 16Gb Fibre Channel, or 6Gb SAS host ports provided via a hardware module that plugs onto the controller motherboard. This modular design makes it easy to tailor each system to suit specific application requirements. It also enables easy field upgrades: a FlashDisk FX Series system initially deployed with 1GbE ports, for example, can later be upgraded in the field to 10GbE or 16Gb Fibre Channel (FC) when faster connectivity is needed.

New FlashDisk FX models include:

FlashDisk FX-2U12: a 2U rack-mount base unit that holds up to twelve 3.5-inch HDDs or SSDs, delivering up to 5,000 MB/second and over 1 million IOPS.

FlashDisk FX-3U16: a 3U rack-mount base unit that holds up to sixteen 3.5-inch HDDs or SSDs, delivering up to 5,500 MB/second and over 1.2 million IOPS.

FlashDisk FX-2U24: a 2U rack-mount base unit that holds up to twenty-four 2.5-inch HDDs or SSDs, delivering up to 5,200 MB/second and over 1.4 million IOPS.

FlashDisk FX-4U60: a 4U rack-mount base unit that holds up to sixty 3.5-inch HDDs or SSDs that scales to 2.1 PB per system and 3.6 PB per 40U data center rack.

"Flexible hosting of high performance RAID systems provides configuration flexibility prior to installation and especially after installation should the IT environment change," according to Mr. Mark Jedraszek, a Storage Architect at the company. "This provides investment protection -- a data storage system can be moved from 8Gb Fibre Channel to 10GbE iSCSI with the simple change on an inexpensive personality card that can be swapped out in two minutes," he elaborated.

Storage services including snapshots, mirroring and volume copy plus centralized web-based GUI are all standard. Replication and thin provisioning services are optional.

The disk arrays are easily configured to meet the demands of SMB data centers and departmental requirements. They can be configured with high speed SSDs plus 15K or 10K rpm HDDs for database and transaction applications and with high capacity 4 TB or 6 TB HDDs for disk-to-disk backup, disaster recovery and archiving.

Prices for FlashDisk FX Series RAID disk arrays including all standard data services start at under $8,000 and include a three-year factory warranty. Products are available now and delivery is 2-3 weeks.

About Winchester Systems Inc.

Winchester Systems provides superior and dependable, high-performance data storage and server systems -- and expertise -- for commercial and military applications. Winchester Systems experts collaborate with each client's integration team to tailor a complete and single-vendor supported solution to best meet critical requirements. Storage offerings include FlashDisk RAID for Direct Attached Storage (DAS) and Storage Area Network (SAN) configurations and FlashNAS unified Network Attached Storage (NAS) systems. FlashServer Intel-based servers include standard and high availability configurations. For more information visit: www.winsys.com.