Dell AX4-5

Simple, Scalable and Affordable

The Dell AX4-5 arrays combine low cost, easy to use features with the scalability and functionality of advanced storage arrays. Dual controller models offer the excellent availability and performance that business-critical applications require. The AX4-5 can support up to four expansion enclosures spanning up to 60 hard drives. With the ability to provide consolidated storage for up to 64 hosts, the AX4-5 can provide the headroom that will keep up with your data and application growth. With both 1Gb/s iSCSI and 4Gb/s Fibre Channel models, the AX4-5 enables organisations to choose a network interconnect that is right for their environment and needs.

New Software Capabilities
•RAID 6 support offers an extra layer of data protection for customers who want to further reduce the risk of losing data based on multiple drive faults.
•Extended SAS drive support through elimination of the Expansion pack requirement for SAS drive support for configurations with up to 12 drives.
•Enhanced integration with VMware solutions through added capabilities for a operating system on a VMware Virtual Machine, including: Console-less VMware, Navisphere host Agent (Windows only), and Navisphere Server Utility (Windows only).

Tiered Storage Options to Match Your Needs

The AX4-5 supports the simple, yet powerful concept of tiered storage by having the option to easily mix SAS drives geared for performance, as required by I/O-intensive applications, with SATA drives that deliver cost-effective capacity for backup and archiving. Also, users can migrate data between different classes of drives and RAID types, dynamically and seamlessly, helping to avoid application disruption.

Storage Capacity
Up to 27TB of raw storage capacity with SAS drives or 120TB with SATA II drives

Scalability
Support for up to 64 highly available servers attached to a single AX4-5 array in either a Fibre Channel or an iSCSI SAN
Directly connect up to 4 servers via Fibre Channel (AX4-5F) or iSCSI (AX4-5I)
Four front-end 4 Gbps Fibre Channel optical (AX4-5F) or Gigabit Ethernet copper (AX4-5I) ports per array. With the use of PowerPath® failover and load balancing software for multipath I/O, users can operate all four ports simultaneously

Cache
Up to 2GB of cache (1GB per storage processor)
UPS-backed mirrored cache for the dual storage processor system
Cache-destaging to disk

RAID Levels
RAID 3, 5, 6 and 1/0

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Supported Servers
All dual and quad socket Dell PowerEdgeTM servers
Variety of Compaq® , HP® , IBM® and SUN® servers as validated by EMC