Features - Storage Innovations:

APPLE UPDATES Xserve RAID STORAGE SYSTEM

Apple updated its Xserve RAID storage system, a 3U high-availability, rack storage system to deliver a massive 5.6TB of storage capacity at the industry's most aggressive price for storage of just over $2 per GB. Apple has also expanded support for heterogeneous environments with certification from Cisco and SUSE Linux and optimized the system to work with its Xsan Storage Area Network file system.

"Xserve RAID features a breakthrough, high-performance storage architecture that is the perfect complement to any Xserve G5 system," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing. "We're now offering more capacity at an even lower price per gigabyte in a system that has been optimized and certified to run with leading enterprise applications and systems."

The unique architecture of Xserve RAID delivers massive storage density and incredible performance. Fourteen independent 400GB Ultra ATA drive channels provide up to 5.6TB of storage capacity with pricing as low as $2.32 per GB while the dual independent RAID controllers with 512MB cache per controller offer sustained throughput of over 380MBps-high enough to support two streams of uncompressed 10-bit HD video editing using protected RAID level 5.

"Apple's Xserve RAID systems deliver enterprise-class storage at a dramatically lower cost compared to competitive offerings," said Chris Hanson, director of Web Technologies at Seitel, a provider of seismic data to the oil and gas industry. "We're planning to add 30TB of the updated Xserve RAID storage over the next six months, bringing our total capacity to 100TB."