Supermicro's super Nexenta HGST superduper AFA

NexentaStor flies with flash wings from HGST and fuselage from Supermicro

NexentaStor has come round the all-flash array block a second time with a Supermicro flash server box slotting underneath the SanDisk-powered 512GB InfiniFlash box.

The product is based on Supermicro's 2U Ultra SuperServer hardware, fitted with HGST Ultrastar SSDs in 800GB or 1.6TB capacities.

The Ultra SuperServer – will the next one be called the Extreme Ultra SuperServer or the SuperExtreme UltraServer? – has dual Intel E5-2643 v3 (3.4GHz, 6-core) processors, 256GB of RAM, 12Gbt/s SAS HBAs and is locked and loaded with NexentaStor v4.0 software.

There are four storage JBOD enclosures fitted with hot-swap SSDS:

• 19TB with 24 x 800GB; 2U we think
• 38TB with 24 x 1.6TB
• 76TB with 48 x 1.6TB; 4U we think
• 115TB with 72 x 1.6TB

Supermicro's 2U Ultra SuperServer

These are raw capacities and there could be higher effective capacities depending on the data reduction effectiveness. They look like straightforward systems and affordable ones, with data access latency at the sub-millisecond level. Compared to the equivalent boxes filled with disk drives, these are sprinters versus marathon runners.

We're entering the era of the commoditization of all-flash arrays and the pricing underscores that. As does the OEM'ing of NexentaStor by SanDisk and Supermicro for their all-flash arrays.

We're told to expect up to 200,000 (32K) IOPS and 6GB/sec throughput. List prices range from $2/GB raw to $3.5/GB raw. So a 19TB system at $3.5/GB would be $66,500. Dell has cheaper boxes on a $/GB basis. ®