Nexsan SATABeast Xi

Overview:

• 42-drive SATA RAID system
• Configured for rich media storage
• 84TB with 42 drives in only 4U
• Scales up to 204TB with add-on expansion chassis
• AutoMAID® level 3 technology saves up to 60% in energy costs
• Includes both FC and iSCSI interfaces
• Combines SAS, SATA and SSD disks in the same system
• Single or dual redundant controllers
• Anti-vibration design maximizes drive reliability
• Horizontal mid-plane maximizes airflow

Nexsan's SATABeast Xi®, a member of the Flexible Storage Platform™, is a high-capacity storage system ideal for applications requiring very high capacity and storage density provided in a minimal amount of rack space. SATABeast Xi is identical to SATABeast, except that the Xi has been optimized specifically for storage applications that run predominantly in Apple Xserve and Mac Pro systems. This optimization includes a configuration targeted at rich media applications, as well as a cosmetic beveled appearance that fits right in with the look and feel of other Apple products.

With its storage density of 84TB offered through 42 drive bays, SATABeast Xi's small 4U footprint is targeted at Apple storage applications where ultra-high capacity is paramount. And, when using the new 8Gbit fiber channel controller, SATABeast can scale to 102 disks by attaching the Nexsan E60X 60 drive expansion chassis. By employing the latest SATA Drives, SATABeast Xi delivers the industry's best price/performance value in a scalable disk solution, making it the smart choice for medium-sized businesses and mid-tier deployments in large organizations.

As with all Nexsan solutions, SATABeast Xi is built for enterprise-class applications, providing tier-1 full redundancy and high performance at tier-2 prices. It's very easy to install and use. And SATABeast Xi includes technologies that provide a combination of cost-effective high density, space efficiency and Nexsan's AutoMAID® (Massive Array of Idle Disks) level 3 energy-saving technology, which enables SATABeast Xi to save up to 60% in energy costs.

SATABeast Xi Elevated Closed

About SATABeast Xi

SATABeast Xi complements Xserve and Mac Pro environments in physical look and feel including a GUI that is visually compatible with Leopard. While optimized for Apple environments, SATABeast Xi can be used as a storage solution in mixed environments with equal ease. SATABeast Xi is flexible, scalable and completely OS independent to easily support a broad range of computing infrastructures.

Based on the proven technology of Nexsan's award-winning SATABeast®, the SATABeast Xi provides the Apple market with a high density, plug and play solution that is complementary to Xserve's existing storage options. SATABeast Xi delivers high end performance at the same exceptional price point as current SATABeast solutions including the energy efficiency features and software licenses to allow SATABeast Xi to operate out of the box without expensive add-ons.

Unprecedented Energy Saving

Nexsan delivers high performance, high capacity RAID storage system with the energy saving benefits of AutoMAID® (Massive Array of Idle Disks) technology. AutoMAID allows SATABeast Xi to place its disk drives in an idle state to conserve energy yet provide near-instantaneous access to data. AutoMAID is granular to the individual drive level and enables users to determine the level of energy savings desired. This breaks new ground in the Xserve market where no other energy efficient storage solution of

Unleash the Beast

For all your storage requirements including:

Primary Storage. SATABeast Xi is designed for primary storage of large data set applications like uncompressed, real-time HDTV as well as multi-stream and analog TV signals and high quality video editing with no frame drops. SATABeast Xi excels in cluster computing and enterprise environments where reliability and performance are an absolute. With blazing wire-speed read/write throughput and high IOPS performance, the SATABeast Xi is a perfect choice for computeintensive applications.

Secondary Storage and Disk-to-Disk (D2D) Backup. SATABeast Xi is ideal for addressing secondary storage applications and disk-to-disk backup in which online access to data delivers superior business continuity and data protection as well as instant access to large volumes of data.

High Performance Across Both Fibre Channel and ISCSI

The SATABeast Xi has active/active RAID controllers each delivering dual function Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity at wire speed performance. SATABeast Xi has Fibre Channel interface ports for connecting directly to your Xserve or Mac Pro systems, and is optimized to be compatible with Apple's Xsan storage network software. With fully featured LUN mapping and LUN masking, the SATABeast Xi can be shared with apple and non-Apple servers, and allows users to easily

Enterprise-Class Reliability Management

SATABeast Xi offers a richer set of features with redundant controllers, mirrored cache, RAID 6. All individual SATABeast Xi components are fully redundant and hot swappable.

SATABeast Xi’s advanced mechanical design provides superior cooling for optimal thermal operation, and reduced drive vibration for improved drive reliability. SATABeast Xi has a full cache coherency design to ensure data integrity even with power loss.

SATABeast Xi's NexScan® management interface is built into the controller, alleviating the need to have a separate server or application manage the storage array. Included are Tele-Guard®, a phone-home feature for user notification. Additional management software is also available to allow multiple Nexsan systems to be managed through a single interface.

Features & Benefits:

Features	Benefits
42 Drive Capacity	Populate with 14 to 42 500GB/1TB/2TB SATA drives or combine with 300/450/600GB SAS drives
42 2TB SATA Disks in 4U for 84TB	84TB in 4U and over 20TB per U delivers exceptional density
MAC Optimized	Optimized for Xserve and Mac Pro with full Xsan compatibility and Final Cut Pro designed cache
E60X - 60 Bay Expansion Chassis	When using the new 8Gbit FC RAID controller with dual SASx4 expansion ports you can add an additional 60 disks to the SATABeast or SASBeast for a total of 102 disks in a single system
Warm-pluggable Capacity Expansion	Attach the E60X expansion chassis with minimal downtime
Hot-pluggable Disk Expansion	Install new disks into empty bays and create a new RAID set for added capacity without any downtime
Single or Dual Controllers	Use a single controller or use dual active/active RAID controllers for high availability
Multiple HA Access Modes	Features APPA, 4PAA, APAL (also DCNR) connection and controller failover modes with full LUN access security
Hardware RAID	RAID levels, including RAID6, are implemented in hardware, not software for optimized performance
2 RAID Engines per Controller	Two RAID engines per controller and four engines in a dual controller configuration ensures maximum throughput across all drives.
Fully Redundant	All active components (RAID controllers, modules, fans, power supplies and drives) are redundant and individually hot-swappable.
Global Disk Spare	Automatically starts rebuilding a RAID set by using a designated spare drive without requiring user intervention
Dual FC and iSCSI Support	Dual FC and iSCSI ports and connectivity are a standard feature for flexible system deployment
Supports Multiple RAID sets and LUNs	Support diverse servers and applications with multiple RAID sets and multiple volumes per RAID set for a total of 254 LUNs
2GB Battery Backed Cache	Increased performance with up to 2GB cache per controller with 72hr of data retention
Mix SATA and SSD Disk Types	Combine SATA and SSD drives in the same storage system to address diverse applications
Redundant Power Supplies	Two redundant power supplies with tachometer-monitored blowers are standard to provide maximum power, cooling and high availability
No Special Software Needed	Completely OS independent and standards based - no special software drivers required
Embedded GUI	Simple management using the embedded browser based web GUI over the 10/100/1000 IP port, supports email alerts and SNMP traps
Nexsan Storage Tools	Manage and configure multiple Nexsan RAID storage systems from a single interface
AutoMAID - 67% Savings	Reduced energy consumption and costs by 67% through AutoMAID® technology.
Horizontal Drive Plane	Disks are installed into a horizontal disk plane to promote superior airflow
Anti-vibration Design	Anti-accumulative rotational vibration design and technology maximizes drive reliability

Key Benefits

• With SATABeast, Nexsan engineers have architected the industry's most complete and cost-effective high capacity storage system. SATABeast's advanced mechanical design provides superior cooling for optimal thermal operation, reduces drive vibration and delivers outstanding energy efficiency in an extreme density (42 drives in 4U high) form factor. SATABeast's unique design extends individual drive life and provides TCO savings year over year.
• SATABeast employs Nexsan's revolutionary AutoMAID™ energy saving technology. AutoMAID transparently places SATABeast disk drives in an idle state reducing power consumption and operational costs. AutoMAID delivers the cost-saving benefits of MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) without the limitations of slow access times and special host software. Nexsan's AutoMAID is granular to an individual drive or RAID set and enables users to determine the level of access speed and energy savings desired. AutoMAID is the first MAID architecture that supports VTL (Virtual Tape Libraries), full file format D2D and standard RAID implementations.
• SATABeast Xi performs continuous background integrity scans to ensure drive health and data accessibility. Each controller features full cache coherency to maintain data integrity even in the event of a power loss.
• Nexsan's award-winning high performance SATA RAID controller architecture utilizes dual RAID engines on each SATABeast Xi controller to provide extremely high throughput performance across 42 spindles. SATABeast Xi's 42 high capacity drives can be segmented into multiple RAID sets or a single large storage pool. LUN Mapping allows users to easily configure the massive disk capacity for dozens of servers or one.
• All individual SATABeast Xi components are fully redundant and hot swappable. This advanced design provides increased ROI by eliminating the need to replace an entire multi-drive blade should a single drive fail.
• SATABeast's Xi management interface is built into the SATABeast Xi controller, alleviating the need to have a separate server or application manage the storage array. This sophisticated management utility monitors and reports the status of all subsystems over a 10/100/1000-network port. Included in NexScan are Tele-GuardT, Nexsan's phone-home feature for user notification of errors or prediction of error, and WorldView, our multi-box management feature.

AutoMAID™ Energy Saving Technology:

Nexsan's evolutionary AutoMAID (Automatic Massive Array of Idle Disks) energy saving technology transparently places disk drives into an idle state to vastly reduce power and cooling costs. AutoMAID delivers the cost-effecdtive benefits of MAID 2.0 without the limitations of slow access times and special host software.

AutoMAID is granular to an individual drive or RAID set and offers multiple levels of energy savings. AutoMAID is user selectable enabling users to determine the right level of response time performance to energy savings. AutoMAID is the first MAID 2.0 architecture that supports VTL, full file format D2D and standard high performance RAID implementations.

Key Points

• AutoMAID reduces power and cooling costs
• Nexsan’s AutoMAID delivers the benefits of MAID without the limitations
• Available on Nexsan Assureon, SATABoy, SATABeast, and SATABeast Xi

AutoMAID Defined

• AutoMAID automatically reduces power consumption and heat generation on idle drives
• Trade-off between response times and power savings are user configurable
• AutoMAID behavior happens automatically and transparently to host – no software changes required
• Typical configuration settings:
  • Level 1: Heads Unloaded
    • 15% to 20% savings
    • Sub-second recovery time
  • Level 2: Heads Unloaded, slows to 4000 RPM
    • 35% to 45% savings
    • 15 second recovery time
  • Level 3: Stops spinning (sleep mode; powered on)
    • 60% to 70% savings
    • 30 to 45 second recovery time

AutoMAID Safety Features

• In maximum power saving mode, drive spin up is sequenced to reduce power surges
• Drives automatically wake up for periodic surface scan to ensure data integrity (user configurable)
• AutoMAID has no impact on performance if left on in data-intensive server applications
• Only two simple configuration settings – "timeout" and "power savings desired"

    

Technical Specifications:

Front View

Rear View

SATABeast Xi Specifications
Disk Bays	42
Rack U	4U
Controllers	One Standard, Dual Optional
Dual Optional Controllers	Active/Active fault-tolerance and increased performance with optional second controller
Supports E60X Expansion	Yes
Battery Protected Cache per Controller	1GB or 2GB
Host Ports	2 FC 8Gbit and 2 iSCSI 1Gbit Ports per Controller
Storage Expansion Ports for NXS-E60X	N/A
Sustained Data Rates (with Dual Controllers)	1100+ MB/s Reads
Hardware RAID 6	Included
RAID Levels	0, 1, 1+0, 4, 5, 6
Volumes and LUNs	256 volumes per system / 254 LUNs per port
Power
Standard Dual Redundant Power Supplies	2 Redundant Standard 1100 watt 110/240 Auto-sensing
Dimensions and Weight
Height	7 inches / 17.78 cm. (4U)
Width	19 inches / 48.26 cm.
Depth	29.5 inches / 74.93 cm.
Maximum Installed Weight w/ mounting rails, all drives and controllers	approx - 81 Kg / 179 lbs
Rack Mount	Fits into a standard 19 inch rack
Environmental
Operating Temperature Range	5ºC to 35ºC (41ºF to 95ºF)
Operating Humidity Range	20% to 80% non-condensing
Operating Altitude	0 to 2,133m (0 to 7,000ft)
Non-operational Altitude	0 to 12,192m (0 to 40,000ft)

Management:

From Anywhere to Anywhere.

That's because–whether you're across town or halfway around the world–you can manage all Nexsan storage products remotely. Our management capabilities are intuitive and easy to use. They require minimal training. And all of our interfaces provide different levels of security to ensure proper authentication and prevent unwanted users from gaining access.

You can configure Nexsan E-Series, Beast and Boy products through our unique, secure and intuitive Web-based GUI tool. The interface uses standard HTML and is compatible with all mainstream browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, etc.) that aren't hardware-, software- or Java™-runtime-specific. The embedded Web-browser GUI operates over the 10/100/1000 port, and supports e-mail alerts and SNMP traps. We also provide a standard serial port for local and direct system configuration.

In addition to the GUI, Nexsan Storage Tools – a comprehensive set of storage management software tools for Windows Server families–make it easy to manage and configure multiple units from a single GUI. Nexsan Storage Tools provide support for Windows Virtual Disk Service (VDS) and Microsoft Management Console (MMC), and include MPIO support for Nexsan RAID storage systems.

Nexsan Storage Tools:

All Nexsan disk arrays, including the SATABoy, SASBoy, SATABeast, SASBeast, and the B-Series come with Nexsan Storage Tools – a comprehensive suite of software, which was purpose-built for mid-sized organizations. Nexsan Storage Tools are available for Windows, Apple OS X, AIX and popular versions of Linux.

Nexsan Storage Tools for Windows

Storage Manager provides a single console from which multiple local and remote Nexsan storage products can be easily and securely managed and monitored. Key features include.

• Management for one or more disk arrays on the LAN or WAN
• Easy to use GUI to configure advanced disk array features
• Red-green-yellow status display of all disk arrays being monitored
• Create and expand volumes
• Use as a stand-alone application or from within Microsoft Management Console (MMC)

Nexsan Data Migration Manager makes it easy to move data onto your new Nexsan disk array or to migrate it from one RAID Disk Set to another – for load balancing, increased storage capacity or any number of other common goals.

Windows VDS Integration and Shell Extensions allow administration of Windows volumes and multiple Nexsan disk arrays directly from Windows management tools. Key features include:

• Seamless integration with Microsoft management tools including: Microsoft Storage Manager for SANs, DISKRAID and DISKPART command-line tools, Microsoft Server Manager and Computer Management, Microsoft Device Manager, Microsoft Disk Management and Windows Explorer
• Create, delete, expand and migrate volumes
• Map LUNs to Windows servers
• Supports both Fibre Channel or iSCSI
• Drill down on all of the Nexsan configuration data from within Microsoft Disk Management

IP Configuration Tool is used to configure Nexsan disk arrays. Features include:

• Automatically detects any Nexsan disk array on the local subnet
• Display status of each disk array (red-green-yellow)
• View and change IP settings
• View and change disk array details such as System name, unique ID and firmware version

Host Identification Tool displays the identifiers of local storage adapters such as Fibre Channel WWPNs and iSCSI IQNs.

MultiSan IO (MSIO) Manager and Drivers provides Multi-path I/O (MPIO) drivers and management software for Windows servers to deliver greater aggregate bandwidth and fault resilience. Features include:

• See detailed information about what paths, target disks and connections the Nexsan DSM (device specific module) has discovered
• Configure the path load balancing policy, path failover strategy and path priorities
• Monitor the health of multipathing, troubleshoot issues and view logs
• Configure alerts, email alerts and other options
• Manage MultiSan IO from a GUI or from a command line

Supports popular versions of Windows including:

• Windows XP (all 32-bit versions)
• Windows Server 2003 (all 32-bit and x64 versions)
• Windows Vista (all 32-bit and x64 versions)
• Windows Server 2008 (all 32-bit and x64 versions)
• Windows 7 (all 32-bit and x64 versions)
• Windows Server 2008 R2 (all x64 versions)

See the Nexsan Support site for details

For Linux Nexsan Storage Tools for Linux provides an IP configuration tool to set up the disk array from a Linux system. Nexsan does not need to ship any specific software to enable interoperability and compatibility with Linux. Key features include: IP Configuration Tool is used to configure Nexsan disk arrays Multi-path I/O capabilities built in to Linux delivers greater aggregate bandwidth and fault resilience. No special software is needed Supports popular versions of Linux including Redhat, Centos, SUSE, Fedora, Mandriva, Unbuntu, KNOPPIX, Debian, Linux Mint and Slackware. See the Nexsan Support site for details

For OS X Nexsan Storage Tools for OS X provide an IP configuration tool to set up the disk array from an OS X system. Nexsan does not need to ship any specific software to enable interoperability and compatibility with OS X. Key features include: IP Configuration Tool is used to configure Nexsan disk arrays Multi-path I/O capabilities built in to OS X delivers greater aggregate bandwidth and fault resilience. No special software is needed

For VMware Although Nexsan disk arrays are qualified with VMware, Nexsan does not ship any specific software to enable interoperability and compatibility with VMware ESX. Key features include: Multi-path I/O capabilities built into ESX 4.1 and ESXi 4.1 deliver greater aggregate bandwidth and fault resilience. No special software is needed Map LUNS to Hosts with built-in VMware ESX administration tools

For AIX For AIX, Nexsan provides a Multi-path I/O driver. Key features include: Multi-path I/O drivers leverage the advanced Multi-path I/O capabilities of AIX to deliver greater aggregate bandwidth and fault resilience

Boy and Beast Product Family:

Feature	SASBoy (SAS drives)	SASBeast (SAS drives)	SASBoy (SAS+SATA drives)	SASBeast (SAS+SATA drives)	SATABoy	SATABeast
Drive Types	SAS 300GB, 450GB, 600GB - 15000 RPM	SAS 300GB, 450GB, 600GB - 15000 RPM	SAS 300GB, 450GB, 600GB 15000 RPM and SATA 1TB 7200RPM	SAS 300GB, 450GB, 600GB - 15000 RPM and SATA 2TB and 1TB	SATA 1TB, 750GB, 500GB	SATA 2TB, 1TB, 750GB, 500GB
Drive Bays / Rack U	14 Drive Bays / 3U	42 Drive Bays / 4U	14 Drive Bays/ 3U ( 4SAS w/10 SATA or 7SAS w/ 7SATA)	42 Drive Bays / 4U (SAS or SATA in groups of 14)	14 Drive Bays / 3U	42 Drive Bays / 4U
Controllers	1 Standard Dual Optional Dual RAID Engines per Controller	1 Standard Dual Optional Dual RAID Engines per Controller	1 Standard Dual Optional Dual RAID Engines per Controller	1 Standard Dual Optional Dual RAID Engines per Controller	1 Standard Dual Optional	1 Standard Dual Optional
Battery Protected Cache per Controller	2GB Standard	2GB Standard	2GB Standard	2GB Standard	512MB, 1GB or 2GB	512MB, 1GB or 2GB
Host Ports	2 FC or 2 SAS and 2 iSCSI Ports per Controller	2 FC and 2 iSCSI Ports per Controller	2 FC or 2 SAS and 2 iSCSI Ports per Controller	2 FC and 2 iSCSI Ports per Controller	2 FC or 2 SAS and 2 iSCSI Ports per Controller	2 FC and 2 iSCSI Ports per Controller
Sustained Data Rates (with Dual Controllers)	820 MB/s Reads	1100+ MB/s Reads	820 MB/s Reads	1100+ MB/s Reads	540 + MB/s Reads (with single controller)	1100 MB/s Reads
Hardware RAID 6	Included	Included	Included	Included	Included	Included
RAID Levels	0, 1, 1+0, 4, 5, 6	0, 1, 1+0, 4, 5, 6	0, 1, 1+0, 4, 5, 6	0, 1, 1+0, 4, 5, 6	0, 1, 1+0, 4, 5, 6	0, 1, 1+0, 4, 5, 6
LUNs	254 per Controller	254 per Controller	254 per Controller	254 per Controller	254 per Controller	254 per Controller
Redundant Power Supplies	2 Redundant Standard 500 watt	2 Redundant Standard	2 Redundant Standard	2 Redundant Standard	2 Redundant Standard 400 watt	2 Redundant Standard 760 watt
Global "Hot Drive Spares"
Hot-pluggable Controllers, Drives, Power Supplies
Multiple RAID sets and LUNs per RAID set
254 LUNs per Controller
LUN Masking, ACL, Read Only Access
Nexsan WorldView Multi-unit Manager
Nexsan NexScan Onboard Browser Based GUI
Nexsan Tele-Guard Phone Home Manager
3 yr. Warranty, Advanced Exchange, 24x7 Support

Support:

Three Years Advance Replacement Warranty
Nexsan Technologies storage systems are warranted for three full years from the date of shipment. Upon verification of failure, replacement equipment will be shipped out to our customers. Return material authorizations will accompany all equipment shipped and can be issued either by our phone, fax, or email. (warranties are non-transferable without prior consent from Nexsan) Several levels of service upgrades are available for purchase.

Onsite spares Program
For maximum convenience and protection of critical storage devices, this program provides customers with on location spares. This program enables our customers to have in their facility all commonly used spare parts to facilitate rapid restoration of operations. . Along with our optional 24x7 telephone support, customers can now be assured of rapid resolution to any problem. Defective components can then be advance replaced for constant availability.

Next Business Day Onsite
Next Business Day support provides Monday through Friday, 8:00AM – 5:00PM (your local time excluding Nexsan holidays) on-site service with "Next Business Day�? response. Replacement parts are shipped via overnight service and if requested, a service representative will be onsite between 8:00AM - 5:00PM the following business day. Software related issues are generally managed remotely from our support center.

24 x 7 x 4hr Onsite
Gain the fastest and most comprehensive level of support, which delivers 24x7 with 4 hour response. Replacement parts are hand delivered with a service representative that will be onsite within 4 hours following diagnosis of hardware failure. Software related issues are generally managed remotely from our support center.

24 x 7 Telephone Support
For your convenience 24 x7 access to the Nexsan technical support team is also available as an upgrade to either the standard warranty or Next Business Day onsite upgrade.

Regulatory Approvals
CE, UL, CUL

Documentation:

Nexsan SATBeast Xi Datasheet (.PDF)

Nexsan Beast and Boy Specification Datasheet (.PDF)