Exagrid... heave: Storage troops push out range-topping dedupe box

Bigger and faster

There is a new range-topper for Exagrid's deduplicating backup to disk arrays, the EX21000E.

Backup data keeps on growing so backup to disk systems have to grow their capacity and speed so as to able to deal with the amount of backup data in the time window available.

Exagrid arrays can be pooled in a grid of 10 machines with global post-process deduplication, central management, and load balancing. Grids can be combined to reach a grand total backup capacity of 4PB.

Exagrid product naming is simple, it being EXn000 for the 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 5TB and 7TB models, as in EX7000, which has a nominal 7TB of full backup capacity, 16TB of raw capacity and 13TB of usable capacity.

There are three "E" modes layered above them:

• EX10000E with 26TB raw capacity and 20TB of usable capacity and 2.4TB/hour throughput.
• EX13000E with 32TB raw capacity and 26TB of usable capacity and 2.4TB/hour throughput.
• EX21000E with 48TB raw capacity and 42TB of usable capacity and 4.32TB/hour throughput.

There are also four encrypting backup products – versions of the EX7000, 10000E. 13000E and 21000E.

There is an Exagrid product comparison doc. Here's a table from it listing the products' raw and usable capacities and more:

Exagrid product table

The EX21000 is 82 per cent faster than the EX13000E, has 62 per cent more capacity, 10 per cent more throughput per terabyte and has a lower price point. The EX13000E was released in 2011.

Exagrid also offers 10 GRID configurations which range between 64TB and 480TB of raw capacity, 52TB - 420TB usable. The EX210-GRID is built from ten EX21000E nodes, with 210TB of full backup capacity and 43.2TB/hour ingest capacity.

The company says: "ExaGrid Systems, Inc. was named 'Best-in-Class' and earned seven of the top 10 positions in the DCIG 2013 Midrange Deduplication Backup Appliance Under $50k Buyer's Guide and DCIG 2013 Midrange Deduplication Backup Appliance Under $100k Buyer's Guide reports."

You can get copies of these reports from here (PDF) with registration required.

The EX21000E is available now and can be added to existing grids, mixing and matching with other Exagrid models. ®

Bootnote:

In the table above we've noted that the EX7000 is rated by Exagrid as being able to store 16 weekly full backups with 104TB of total backup data, each of 7TB capacity, using its 16TB of raw capacity and 13TB of usable capacity.

All the other models have their total full backup capacity be a straight 16X multiple of their full backup capacity, as with the EX2000 with its 2TB full backup capacity and 32TB total backup capacity (2 x 16 = 32), and the EX5000 with 5TB full capacity and 80TB total backup capacity (5 x 16 = 80).

There could be a mistake in the table and the EX7000's total full backup capacity is really 112TB (16 x 7 = 112) and not 104TB. We've asked Exagrid about this and will update if we're wrong.