D-Link’s DSN-5110-10 iSCSI SAN array is an H.A. capable, data center-class network storage solution in a 2U rackmount form factor, ideal for small to medium enterprises.D-Link’s DSN-5110-10 iSCSI SAN array is a highly available, data center-class network storage solution in a 2U rackmount form factor, ideal for small to medium enterprises. The heart of the DSN-5110-10 is a powerful 10Gbit iSCSI System-on-a-Chip (SoC) capable of handling over 80,000 I/Os per second. The DSN-5110-10 currently supports 24TB of raw capacity using 2TB drives (and even greater capacity as larger disk drives become available) and overall scalability to 96TB. The DSN-5110-10 can be easily implemented as nearline or primary storage.
Host Interface
The DSN-5110-10 supports Multi-path I/O (MPIO), Multiple Connections per Session (MCS), and Link Aggregation Groups (LAG) for unmatched network flexibility, performance and resiliency, allowing their 1GbE data ports to be grouped together for up to 425MB/s bandwidth.
High Availability (HA)
The DSN-5110-10 primary array, based on a single controller, provides an ideal platform for nearline storage requirements such as disk-to-disk backup, data archiving and video surveillance.
With the addition of a secondary controller (DSN-510) the DSN-5110-10 can provide the failover and redundancy capabilities required for mission critical scenarios such as Virtual Machine (VM) shares, database applications, Online Transactional Processing (OLTP), email applications, storage consolidation and your other primary storage needs.
Expansion Options
The DSN-5110-10 primary array supports 12 internal SAS/SATA* hard drives and with the addition of up to three DSN-5000-10 expansion arrays, can scale to a total of 96TB raw storage capacity (and even higher capacity as larger hard drives are introduced). For high availability operation, a secondary I/O board, DSN-500, is installed in the DSN-5000-10 expansion array.
iSCSI for IP Networks
Storage Area Networks (SANs) have traditionally been reserved for complex Fibre Channel networks. The recent introduction of iSCSI has extended the powerful centralized storage capabilities of SAN technology to IP networks. By utilizing existing Ethernet technology, the costs associated with Fibre Channel switching, separate host bus adapters, expensive storage subsystems and administration is significantly reduced. iSCSI SANs leverage the Ethernet infrastructure and standards that are already familiar to most IT personnel.
System-on-a-Chip (SoC) Implementation
By utilizing a SoC design, the DSN-5110-10 combines both networking and storage functions into a single specialized Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). This SoC combines 10Gbps iSCSI, TCP & IP offload, embedded processors and storage virtualization firmware onto a single chip. The tight integration of these functions eliminates interoperability, timing and support issues found in competitive products that offer a “discrete implementation” wherein various components are selected separately, then assembled.
RAID support
The DSN-5110-10 primary array features twelve hot swappable SAS or Serial ATA* (SATA) disk drive bays and is capable of supporting 24TB of raw capacity using 2TB drives (and even greater capacity as larger disk drives become available) and overall scalability to 96TB. D-Link’s xStack iSCSI SAN arrays support RAID levels 0, 1, 1+0 and 5 configurations (striped sets, mirrored sets, striped mirrored sets and parity sets) for data protection and performance.
Embedded Centralized Storage Management
All of the D-Link xStack Storage products share a common easy-to-use configuration and management GUI console that allows you to manage multiple units from a single screen. The intuitive wizards ensure you will have your SAN out of the box and ready to go in a few minutes.
The embedded, user-friendly IP-SAN Device Manager (IDM) provides a comprehensive console for system management. Boasting a rich set of management features, this suite of utilities allows monitoring and control of the SAN array via the Storage Management Initiative-Specification (SMI-S) command set. With a secure server, users can remotely configure and monitor their SAN arrays over the internet.
Advanced Management Features
The DSN-5110-10 also provides an advanced set of features for efficient management and optimal storage performance.
For the fastest RAID performance offered in the industry, D-Link’s adaptive cache management provides write coalescing and multi-stream read-ahead on a volume basis, optimizing cache utilization and performance in an application-dependant manner. Volatile cache data protection is afforded via an on-board battery supporting 2GB of cache memory for a minimum of 72 hours. A write-back or write-through cache memory policy can be selected manually or automatically, depending on the status of the battery’s charge.
The DSN-5110-10 supports jumbo frames and VLAN tagging to segregate traffic into isolated zones for secure access, improving network throughput and reducing CPU overhead.
D-Link’s volume virtualization technology utilizes the concept of storage extents, which are the fundamental building blocks used to enable features such as RAID, online capacity expansion, volume reconfiguration and migration. Each disk drive can contain multiple and divergent RAID configurations instead of requiring dedication to a single RAID set. This technology allows for the support of mixed disk drive capacities for volume creation. Volume capacity expansion and RAID level migration are performed online with minimal impact to users. Additionally, volume growth can occur without volume migration or reconstruction. Users can quickly deploy a SAN and simply add more drives as needed.
Micro rebuilds provide protection against unresponsive SATA commands by forcing a response within a preset time limit.
An iSCSI SAN array can prove to be a valuable tool to supplement a network storage foundation. Whether providing a low-cost block-based solution for data backup and recovery, replacement of Direct Attached Storage (DAS) or providing a primary storage solution, the DSN-5110-10 will provide the performance and functionality needed.
* SATA Drive support for single controller configuration only.
