Palo Alto, Calif.-based Gridstore, a provider of network sttached storage (NAS) grid solutions, has launched a beta version of its new NASg storage platform designed to eliminate the risk, cost and complexity of traditional siloed storage solutions. Gridstore NASg aggregates the processing power of client systems and performs parallel storage processes on existing NAS resources.
“Today’s small to midsize IT organizations and managed service providers (MSP) are facing storage sprawl that is at critical levels,” says Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst, Taneja Group. “This siloed data is complex and costly to manage with a high risk of data loss.” The Gridstore NASg, says Taneja, is innovative and cost-effective at solving storage issues while optimizing efficiency.
Key features of the Gridstore NASg include:
- Storage Capacity – NASg virtualizes any number of existing NAS or NASg storage nodes into a single pool of storage, eliminating the cost and risk of storage sprawl while optimizing existing NAS resources. Capacity can grow incrementally using lower-cost NASg storage nodes like building blocks.
- Network Bandwidth – NASg uses parallel IO to the storage nodes to help alleviate network bottlenecks. Each storage node adds 1 Gb/s of parallel network bandwidth. As the number of storage nodes increases, each storage node performs less work and the parallel data path to the Gridstore NASg increases.
- Processing Capacity – NASg harnesses the processing power across a grid of client machines to reduce server-based processing bottlenecks. As more clients are added to the NASg, more parallel processing power is also added.
- Reliability – By harnessing the parallel processing and IO of a grid, NASg stripes data across many storage nodes so that there is no single point of failure. Any preconfigured number of storage nodes can fail without data loss or downtime. Failed storage nodes are simply replaced with another NASg storage node by attaching one to the network.
The cornerstone of Gridstore NASg is the Gridstore NASg Storage Block, an Intel/Microsoft-based storage node with embedded Windows XP, an Intel Atom core, 1GB of RAM, and up to 2TB of SATA hard disk drives. Pricing for the Gridstore NASg storage platform begins at $800 with individual expansion nodes starting at $300.
