Saving space and power in the RAID EUROstor announces first RAID systems with 2.5” disks Filderstadt, 09.11.2007 Until now small hard disks with 2.5“ platters have been uses more ore less exclusively in notebooks. Today they start to be interesting also for external RAID systems. One of the reasons ist he smaller form factor itself: As the performance of a RAID system mostly depends on the number of spindles – which is the number of disks in the system – the use of 2.5” disks can increase performance by up to 100% within the same rackmount space used. But not only if it comes to small space saving RAID systems, the smaller disks offer big advantage: because of the smaller size of their platters the power consumption per capacity is up to 30% lower. Especially in big IT centres power consumption and the additional costs for cooling systems is an important cost factor. First 1 U RAID systems of the new ES-8300 series contain 12 SAS disks. There are connected to the hosts with two 4 Gbit Fibre Channel or SAS ports. With a SAS expansion port JBODs with additional 12 disks (SAS or SATA) can be connected. So up to 48 disks with single controller systems or 60 disks with dual controller systems can be addressed. 2.5“ SAS disks already come with 15.000 rpm (72 GB) – the same speed as their 3.5” counterparts. Maximum capacity today is 147 GB (with 10K rpm). “SAS RAID applications a opposed to SATA archives normally don’t require huge capacity, , says Franz Bochtler, President of EUROstor. “Especially with database systems the real need is for high i/o rates. In these cases our new RAID systems with 2.5” disks offer a fine alternative. Even if the disks are still quite expensive: the savings from the reduced power consumption are enormous.” EUROstor ES-8300 SAS RAID will be available in December. . About EUROstor: European IT Storage Ltd. (EUROstor) is manufacturer of storage systems, located in Dublin, Ireland and with German Office in Filderstadt near Stuttgart. Main products are EUROstor RAID systems sold to professional end users all over Europe. Contact: Franz Bochtler European IT Storage Ltd. Hornbergstr. 39 D-70794 Filderstadt Tel.: +49711/707091-70 Fax.: +49711/707091-60 mailto:Franz.Bochtler@EUROstor.com www.EUROstor.com