New Features with Infortrend's 3.64.XX Firmware

     Infortrend has added two(2) Enhanced power-saving features for its EonStor subsystems. This will enable them to deliver high performance along with energy efficiency through a system power requirement reduction of as much as 65%. This will allow users to flexibly configure power-saving levels for individual logical drives, the enhanced feature promises to maintain applications' service levels when implementing power-management mechanism.

    Spinning hard drives (HDD's) and their enclosures account for up to 75% of the power usage in commonly deployed storage solutions. This explains why drive spin-down is one of the main technologies that can enable lower power consumption in storage devices. However this technology can impact on system performance as traditionally, a spun-down HDD takes between 30 and 45 seconds to spin up again. As a result, the risk of performance drop presents users with a dilemma about whether to apply drive spin-down to certain applications which may not always be active but which require fast response when accessed, such as CRM.

    Infortrend's enhance power-saving feature with level flexibility addresses this issue; depending on applications' access frequency and ideal performance levels, users can configure the power-saving mode of their respective logical drives as level 1, level 2, or the combination of the two. Set with level 1 mode, HDD's will enter idle state if they have not received I/O for a user-configured period of time. In this state, disk drives take only one second to respond when accessed. Set with level 2 mode, the drives enter spin-down state. According to Infortrend's internal tests, although spun-down drives takes longer to respond when accessed, they require less than 20% of power consumption and contribute to overall system energy savings of approximately 50% and up to 65%. The two levels can be further combined into a two-stage procedure. Receiving no I/O for a pre-set period of time, the HDD's would first become idle then, if the no I/O status continues the disk drives will spin-down. The enhanced power- saving feature gives users the freedom to find their own balance between storage performance and energy efficiency.

    The new technology ships with all EonStor subsystems using Firmware ver.3.64J and 3.64P or later, but users have to make them accommodate drives supporting power- saving/spin-down features.

          AUDIO/VIDEO APPLICATIONS WITH NEW A/V OPTIMIZATION MODE

     Infortrend announced another premium "A/V(Audio/Video) Optimization" feature to its EonStor® storage subsystems at CeBIT 2009. The new enhancement allows users to select the best A/V Optimization Mode with a single click, reducing the response time whenever there is any drive latency to ensure no frame lost and enable fluid streaming. The sustained transfer rate and enhanced capabilities further reinforce EonStor's position as an ideal storage platform for throughput-intensive A/V applications, including broadcasting and A/V editing.
     In today's multimedia world, the usage of A/V applications is no longer the privilege of television and movie companies. Surveillance, imaging, broadcasting - all these applications require storage solutions that support high-quality A/V requirements. With Terabytes of files and sequential I/Os, A/V applications demand storage solutions with high and stable throughput, as occasional performance highs and lows will lead to the risk of dropping frames, which is an intolerable issue for video viewers and editors.
     Based on its global expertise in the design and manufacturing of storage arrays, Infortrend developed the new "A/V Optimization Mode" feature for its EonStor subsystems to meet the increasing market demand for A/V applications. Whether it is used for broadcasting or editing, users will have effective control over how EonStor arrays handle data flow management. With Infortrend's EonStor, efficiency in A/V editing and the pleasure of viewing are as simple as one single click.