One Solution For Almost Any Storage-Related Problem
Aberdeen AberSAN Z-Series
& Its Web-Based GUI
Offer Simplified Hard Drive Management
Offer Simplified Hard Drive Management
In
most cases, it’s safe to say that the more parts something has, the more complicated it is.
This sentiment fits the world of mass storage solutions perfectly. It’s
relatively easy to locate and manage one hard drive in a single desktop
computer or even as many as eight hard drives in a larger storage platform, but
the difficulty increases to new highs when dozens or hundreds of drives are
involved. While current ZFS-based offerings allow you to alphabetize hard
drives according to unique identifiers, there is no simple or intuitive way to
know exactly where that drive is in the array.
“Adding, removing, or replacing a hard drive
typically rearranges the list,” says Yuval Bymel, R&D engineer at Aberdeen.
“These hard drive changes make it impossible to have a label on the system
showing the correct order of the drives at any given time. Under ideal
conditions, this may be an adequate solution. But when a drive fails, or if it
completely disappears from that list, there is no easy way to identify the slot
in which that drive resides.”
To help data center and IT managers overcome
this hard drive hassle, Aberdeen built its Z-Series line of scalable storage
products with its proprietary Web-based GUI that makes it easy to not only
identify the hard drive, but also pinpoint its exact location in the array.
This GUI goes above and beyond the traditional ZFS system to make hard drive
swaps or fixes quicker and easier.
Scalable Storage Products
Aberdeen’s Z-Series is a line of scalable
storage products designed to be customized to your needs. Whether you need to
store a few terabytes of data or as much as a petabyte or more, the Z-Series
platform can handle it. Aberdeen also made sure these solutions would be ready
for future use and offers 10Gb Ethernet or 8Gb Fibre connectivity to the storage
solutions as an optional add-on.
The GUI built into Aber-deen’s Z-Series line
of solutions creates an accurate graphical representation of your entire array,
letting you see the physical location of a server’s hard drives without
manually searching through the array. When you click an individual drive, the
GUI shows you its location on the server itself as well as its physical
location within the array. And the GUI will also take any changes you’ve made
into account. “You can rest assured the GUI matches the server’s hard drive
slot label and retains that order no matter which drives you use, how many you
have, or even if you have to replace a failed drive,” Bymel says.
The Z-Series GUI also lets you select which
drive you want to replace while keeping all of your hard drives in the correct
order. You can even rearrange the order at any given time or move your drives
to another enclosure. Regardless of how you choose to arrange or manage your
drives, the Z-Series GUI will keep up with you and provide the same
identification and location information based on the new configuration.
Easier To Use
Aberdeen’s addition of the Web-based GUI serves to make the
Z-Series even easier to use in the data center. The platform is scalable enough
to support a wide range of storage needs and can scale to as much as a petabyte
of storage or more because the GUI makes it easier to locate, swap out, or move
hard drives. Regardless of how large or
small your storage needs, Aberdeen can help with a solution that will relieve
your hard drive headaches.
"Aberdeen’s Z-Series line of scalable storage solutions are
built with a ZFS-based file management system as well as a helpful, Web-based
GUI that makes it easy to identify and locate specific hard drives in an array."
