#Technology: Winchester Systems(R) Brings Auto-Tiering Hybrid Flash to COTS-Rugged Storage Arrays

BILLERICA, MA–(Marketwired – Jul 17, 2014) –  Winchester Systems Inc., a leading data-storage infrastructure provider to Military Prime Contractors and Commercial SI’s, today announced it has upgraded its entire line of FlashDisk RF-Series COTS-Rugged storage systems. Winchester Systems COTS-Rugged products are designed to store and protect data in harsh C⁵ISR operating environments; tolerating levels of dust, moisture, shock and vibration not possible with standard commercial units — for much less than ultra-ruggedized systems. Numerous major U.S. Federal/Military programs currently depend on Winchester Systems COTS-Rugged products to be easy to deploy, manage and provide high fault tolerance in theater and data centers alike.

Available immediately, the new FlashDisk RF models add “Hybrid” Flash capability — seamlessly combining Flash-based SSD performance with the economical capacity of magnetic disk drives — and support up to 16 host ports, the most in its class, and over 2 Petabytes of capacity using 360 six-terabyte disk drives. FlashDisk RF enables Hybrid Flash using Automated Tiered-Storage Pools, grouping SSD and HDD drive types into two tiers within a virtualized storage pool. FlashDisk RF controllers send write transactions to blocks in the higher-performing tier, and monitor the access frequency and age of each data block, automatically migrating “hot” or “cold” data to the appropriate tier. Storage tiers can also be defined based on other drive types or on different RAID levels.

Each FlashDisk RF 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 mission requirements. It also enables easy field upgrades: a FlashDisk RF system initially deployed with 1GbE ports, for example, can later be upgraded in-theater to 10GbE or 16Gb Fibre Channel (FC) when faster connectivity is needed.

New FlashDisk RF models include:

• FlashDisk RF-2U12: a 2U ruggedized rack-mount base unit that holds up to twelve 3.5-inch magnetic disk drives or SSDs, delivering up to 5,000 MB/second and over 1 million IOPS.
• FlashDisk RF-3U16: a 3U ruggedized rack-mount base unit that holds up to sixteen 3.5-inch magnetic disk drives or SSDs, delivering up to 5,500 MB/second and over 1.2 million IOPS.
• FlashDisk RF-2U24: a 2U ruggedized rack-mount base unit that holds up to twenty-four 2.5-inch magnetic disk drives or SSDs, delivering up to 5,200 MB/second and over 1.4 million IOPS.

Sporting controllers, power supplies and fans that are modular, redundant and hot swappable, FlashDisk RF hardware is purpose-built for continuous availability and long-term robust durability. The front door is crafted of 3/4-inch milled aluminum to provide rigidity, structural integrity and prevent flying-object hazards. It also contains a dust/raindrop seal and a heavy-duty filter to trap dust particles and provide a moisture shield to protect internal components. An optional 1U mounting tray enables front access to normally rear-accessed components/connectors, saving three feet behind the storage unit and increasing structural integrity.

COTS-Rugged FlashDisk RF-Series systems are ideal for deployable video surveillance and playback, mobile ground stations, and multi-application mission-planning and analysis systems. Other ruggedized products from Winchester Systems include FlashNAS ZFS RZ-Series COTS-Rugged NAS; COTS-Rugged servers; and Ultra-Ruggedized removable-canister RAID and Ultra-Ruggedized portable server systems that comply with MIL-STD-810G, MIL-STD-901D, MIL-STD-461E, etc. Custom design and integration services are available to meet challenging program-level requirements where standard COTS products just will not suffice.

Winchester Systems also offers storage-infrastructure consulting, on-site installation and service spares, and 24×7 product service and support worldwide.

For more information about FlashDisk RF storage, see the FlashDisk RF-2U12, FlashDisk RF-3U16 and FlashDisk RF-2U24 data sheets. To start designing a purpose-built infrastructure for your workload challenge, contact a Winchester Systems storage expert.

About Winchester Systems Inc.
Founded in 1981, Winchester Systems provides purpose-built, dependable, high-performance server and storage systems — and expertise — to Commercial, Federal-government and military clients. Winchester Systems I/O-performance and ruggedized-system experts collaborate with each client’s integration team to tailor an IT infrastructure, including storage and servers, to best fit their customer’s environmental and workload requirements. Storage offerings include FlashDisk^® RAID Disk Arrays in 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.