EqualLogic Expands High-Performance Serial Attached SCSI Product Line for Demanding Enterprise Applications with Higher Capacity Array.

New PS3900XV Advances EqualLogic's Leadership in Delivering High-Performance iSCSI Solutions

NASHUA, N.H. -- EqualLogic[R], the leading provider of enterprise-class iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solutions, today announced the third product in its series of high-performance Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) storage arrays. The PS3900XV extends EqualLogic's leadership in delivering high-performance SAS-based solutions that reduce the time and money businesses spend on managing storage.

"We added the new SAS-based arrays to our existing EqualLogic SANs to handle our most critical and demanding random I/O and database applications," said Alan J. Hunt, manager of operations at Detroit, Michigan-based law firm Dickinson Wright. "In about 20 minutes, we added the new arrays and started to dynamically move booted volumes and databases to them. The tiered SAN environment we set up integrates three pools of storage, allowing us to strategically place information on the right storage tier based on the performance and capacity needs of each application."

EqualLogic introduced its PS3000 Series SAS storage arrays last September. The PS3900XV strengthens that line with a high-capacity 15,000 rpm storage array delivering 4.8 terabytes of high-speed storage for demanding enterprise applications, such as VMware Infrastructure 3 environments, large Microsoft Exchange installations, Microsoft SQL Servers and Oracle databases. The PS3000 Series uses Seagate Technology's CHEETAH high-speed SAS disk drives and LSI Logic's SAS 1068 chipset to deliver the highest performing iSCSI storage arrays available today.

"EqualLogic continues to break new ground in delivering the latest high-performance, SAS-based storage solutions to customers requiring relentless data delivery and bulletproof reliability for mission-critical operations," said Sherman Black, general manager and senior vice president of Seagate's Enterprise Compute Business. "Seagate's robust enterprise CHEETAH 15K.5 hard drives serve as the backbone to support the intense application loads of EqualLogic's PS3000 Series systems."

"Our research shows that end users want the support of different drive types within their storage systems," said Tony Asaro, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "We believe that EqualLogic is an innovator and implementer, and their continued support of SAS is another proof point of this. They were one of the first storage system vendors that supported SATA drives and designed their architecture to support SAS when the time was right--and they wasted no time getting it into their products. SAS and SATA complement one another providing an excellent balance of price and performance. EqualLogic challenges the status quo via its iSCSI focus and using SAS drives, offering lower cost alternatives to legacy Fibre Channel."

The award-winning and data-center-proven PS Series offers a comprehensive and fully integrated standard feature set at no additional cost. All three of EqualLogic's SAS arrays are fully compatible with all existing Serial ATA (SATA) models of the EqualLogic PS Series family. Every EqualLogic array comes with fully redundant, fault-tolerant hardware and includes automatic storage-management and tiering software. Multiple arrays combine to form a scalable storage grid that expands in capacity as needed without disruption.

Pricing and Availability

The PS3900XV ships in March with a U.S. list price of $67,000.

About SAS

Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is the logical evolution of the SCSI computer protocol, including its long-established software advantage and the SATA electrical and physical connection interface. With enterprise storage requirements escalating and becoming more complex, factors such as larger capacity, greater density, security, scalability and accessibility are more critical than ever. Enterprise data centers must be online all the time, fulfill requests from numerous users simultaneously, allow for constant growth and expansion, and be maintained while in operation. SAS meets all these demands while providing the highest performance. The results of aligning SAS and SATA technologies to serve storage users who need large capacity at a lower cost will provide even greater choice to the storage industry. For more information, visit the SCSI Trade Association Web site: http://www.scsita.org/.

About EqualLogic

EqualLogic makes data storage systems that radically simplify the way mid-size and large businesses store and protect information. EqualLogic's award-winning PS Series storage area network (SAN) solution provides sophisticated management capabilities that reduce the time and money IT staff spend on storage. EqualLogic serves thousands of customers in 35 countries from its headquarters in Nashua, New Hampshire, and offices throughout Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit http://www.equallogic.com.

EqualLogic is a registered trademark of EqualLogic, Inc. Other marks belong to their respective owners.