WELCOME TO RAID STORAGE EVOLVED
The ActiveRAID is the evolution of high performance, high-availability RAID storage for media professionals.
The ActiveRAID is designed for Enterprise class 24/7, 365 day deployments and the severe-duty cycles of Post-Product and Broadcast environments. It is highly optimized for Apple Xsan, Quantum StorNext® and Mac OS X Server applications delivering the highest throughput and reliability under severe use conditions.
The Active Storage ActiveRAID provides the highest level of performance, reliability and scalability in its class.
OVERVIEW
The ActiveRAID delivers high-performance, high-availability, massive capacity, and the first native Mac OS X storage management suite.
Developed with one goal in mind, to deliver the best overall experience for media professionals—performance, reliability, capacity, and out of the box ease of use. The ActiveRAID represents an evolution in storage for media professionals.
From the highly redundant architecture to the artfully designed enclosure, the ActiveRAID is a truly differentiated RAID system with the styling and performance that media professionals and Apple users demand. Whether deployed in a direct-attached server environment or a complex Media SAN configuration, the Active Storage ActiveRAID is the ideal solution to your storage needs.
The system is fully configured and ready to use out of the box. Simply install it into your equipment rack, attach power, Ethernet, and Fibre Channel cables. Power it on and walk to your Mac or PC. Insert the Active Admin CD and discover the newly installed RAID through Bonjour on your Mac or select the ID on your Windows PC. Select your environment, name the system, and you are ready to go!†
† Additional information is not required but recommended in order to get optimum performance from your ActiveRAID system.
FEATURES CHECKLIST
| Optimized Performance | Stellar Apple Xsan, Quantum StorNext® and Mac OS X Performance |
| High Availability Design | Active/active controllers, redundant cooling and power |
| 4 x 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel | Dual 4 Gb/s Fibre host ports per RAID controller |
| Drive Technology | 'Hot Swappable' Enterprise-Class SATA hard drive modules |
| Low Cost Expansion | 16 drive 4x SAS Smart expansion system |
| Native Mac OS X Management | Industry leading ease of deployment and management |
| Modern System Design | Linux RAID Kernel, media-enhanced performance |
DOWNLOADS
DESIGN
Modern RAID Kernel and System Design
ACTIVERAID HARDWARE AND RAID KERNEL DESIGN
The ActiveRAID is not your average low-cost RAID system. Active Storage designed it with ease-of-use and simple deployment in Apple infrastructures in mind. Despite its low price, the ActiveRAID is based on a modern design with sophisticated features found on systems costing significantly more, and a number features not found anywhere else.
Active Storage started with a proven Intel storage processor design and enterprise hardened RAID stack. The dual redundant active/active RAID controllers utilize the latest storage processor technology and run a Linux based operating system to provide ultra-fast data transfer and maximum reliability.
LIGHTWEIGHT RAID KERNEL
The Linux operating system provides a stable environment for our RAID kernel and allows Active Storage to finely tune our system’s performance while taking advantage of a world-class TCP/IP networking stack and 128-bit SSL security. The lightweight RAID kernel maintains a small memory footprint for fast execution, and is enhanced with hardware accelerated X-OR calculation. This hardware/software combination gives the ActiveRAID stellar storage performance in all parity RAID levels.
The Active Storage RAID kernel has been specifically tuned to deliver maximum RAID 5 and RAID 6 performance. When combined with large synchronized cache streams, the system delivers excellent performance while guarding against any data loss. Dual 4Gb Fibre Channel ports on each RAID controller deliver unprecedented performance and provide balanced throughput and instantaneous fail-over to improve the system’s fault tolerance.
HIGH AVAILABILITY
The Ethernet management port on each RAID controller works independently, but offers fully redundant fail-over if an external Ethernet switch port or RAID controller port should fail. The SAS expansion port on each RAID controller offers a dual, bi-directional 3GB/s throughput speed allowing the secondary expansion system to provide full-speed operation when connected to a primary RAID system. The Primary and Secondary expansion systems work together seamlessly to provide optimal performance and low-cost expansion, all with simplified user interaction.
The active cooling system employed in the ActiveRAID utilizes triple independent hot swappable blowers with forward curved fan blades that have been specifically tuned to deliver maximum airflow with reduced noise levels. This highly efficient and redundant system provides optimal controlled temperatures within the enclosure to minimize uneven thermal expansion in the system, offering better performance, longer life and maximum reliability.
Industry standard dual redundant fully load-sharing, hot swappable power supplies provide system power. A power distribution network built into the ActiveRAID controls the power supplies. The design is far more sophisticated than other systems in this price range. This design also allows a soft power system, which provides cache flush and proper shutdown at the power switch, preventing back-up battery drain and providing the best insurance against data loss due to improper shutdown. This also guards against unintended operator error.
The battery backed RAID controller cache system is redundant and truly modern in design. The sophisticated charging circuit was designed specifically for the needs of this RAID system and not an off-the shelf design as deployed by many of Active Storage’s competitors. The charging circuit maintains the highest level of charge while constantly conditioning the batteries. This prevents the common and often less than adequate number of hours of protection seen in some other systems, especially after months or years of operation. The ActiveRAID will maintain your data in cache for a minimum of 72 hours. A claim some other storage providers cannot make after just a few months of use. The ActiveRAID constantly monitors the batteries condition and state providing early warning, and will even suggest replacement when necessary.
Active Storage knows your data and deadlines are critical, which is why the ActiveRAID supports all popular UPS systems.
EASY SERVICEABILITY
The ActiveRAID modern design takes advantage of recent industry advances in component design and packaging allowing field serviceability by the average user. The design provides the user a quick reference visual indication of failed or questionable components from both the front and rear of the enclosure with user selectable audible warning. Additionally, using the included native Mac OS X management suite, users receive notification by email and SMS to the user of a failed component or a warning event.
Detecting problems is important, but that’s not the complete story. Serviceability without complex scripts or even hand tools will keep you up and running - which is the goal of Active Storage. The ability to exchange active components with no interruption of service and without having to execute complex and cumbersome scripts puts serviceability in your hands. Simply identify the bad component visually, remove it, replace with a good component and that’s it. No downtime, no hassle. The ActiveRAID utilizes the finest components and enterprise quality connectors to ensure long life and predictable results.
The ActiveRAID delivers fast access to storage with superior reliability and throughput in the most demanding applications. Active Storage has thoroughly tested it with Apple Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server Leopard, Xsan and Quantum StorNext® environments, and to provide cross platform compatibility with Windows XP, Vista, Server 2000 and Linux.
TECHNOLOGY PARTNERSHIPS
Active Storage maintains relationships with all popular Fibre Channel infrastructure vendors to ensure interoperability and top performance. We currently partner with QLogic, Brocade, Cisco, ATTO Technology, LSI Logic, and Emulex. Active Storage continually tests and monitor conformance and compatibility with critical infrastructure partners.*
Our low cost per gigabyte not only makes the ActiveRAID an exceptional value as primary storage; It is also ideal for tiered storage environment where it can be utilized to provide high-capacity, low cost storage in tertiary tiers behind larger enterprise storage systems, or other ActiveRAID systems. Active Storage works closely with BakBone and Atempo and popular tape library manufactures to ensure compatibility with their software backup and archive software solutions.*
* Final Certification Test Results Pending
ADVANCED MANAGEMENT
Enterprise performance and reliability without the Enterprise complexityMODERN STORAGE MANAGEMENT MADE EASY
Active Storage set the standard for ease-of-deployment and monitoring of self-contained RAID systems for Media and Apple users by developing the world's first Native Mac OS X storage management suite.
In our quest to deliver the best experience possible, we introduced the first iPhone Storage Monitoring App.
Once again we are re-inventing the ease of management by bringing our ActiveRAID storage managements suite to Windows. Same familiar look and feel, same ease of use.
The Apple XserveRAID® set the high-water mark for storage management on Mac OS X. Other RAID systems with clunky Windows Explorer-like browser based interfaces, difficult to use command line interfaces and even cryptic LCD displays seemed antiquated and out of place, and more importantly not particularly Apple-friendly. At Active Storage, we knew we could do better—and only Active Storage has it.
Active Storage asked a number of Apple users what would be the best storage management approach for them—the answer was unanimous “a Cocoa management application”. We got the message loud and clear and began developing a native application suite for Mac OS X, and we are happy to say it’s here now—setup, management, and monitoring. It’s a perfect compliment to the performance, redundancy, and features of the ActiveRAID. We feel it’s absolutely the best way to manage external storage on Mac OS X.
We started out by breaking up the common grouping of administrative and monitoring functions in a single tool. User studies told us that the grouping of admin and monitoring was easier for the programmers, but was highly limiting in ease of use as RAID systems became more complex with features such as active/active redundancy and secondary expansion systems.
Most admin tasks are done in initial setup, or when updating or changing configurations which is infrequent. Where as, the monitoring is often daily.
The complexity of displaying the “heavy lifting” management tasks alongside the “light-weight” daily monitoring views overly complicated the application. In a number of cases needing joint management and monitoring—even with separate passwords—opened up the user to making a catastrophic mistake such as deleting all their data. Let's face it, you are not likely to “Admin” your storage daily if you have chosen a reliable well performing product.
Active Storage found that by separating setup and admin functions, we could make the Admin process more automated and guided, making the task much less laborious than other systems. We felt this was a much better approach for tasks that are so infrequent.
ACTIVE ADMIN
The Active Admin features a guided Setup making setting up your first or fiftieth ActiveRAID easy.
Because Active Admin is Mac OS X native, you won’t have to deal with browser based application limitations and non Apple-like interfaces. To make setup even easier, Active Storage added Bonjour discovery. The guided setup gets you up and running in minutes, and allows changes to be made on the fly without memorization of difficult commands or referring to long manuals.
Active Admin is not only easy to use—it’s easy to get started with. Management is performed “out-of-band” over Ethernet. And because Active Storage built in Bonjour technology, you won’t have to memorize IP addresses or use serial ports to discover your RAID on your network. If your Mac is on the network, you are ready to manage your ActiveRAID. Choosing the best-optimized configuration for your application is automatic, as are software updates and non-disruptive Firmware updates. Active Admin is as powerful as it is easy.
Management of the ActiveRAID is further simplified by the modern design of the RAID controller and the RAID Kernel. Many of the tasks required to setup and maintain earlier systems are just not required.
ACTIVE VIEWER
By breaking out the daily monitoring tasks from the Admin functions, Active Storage was able to develop a fast “light-weight” Native Mac OS X viewer providing an at-a-glance view of one or dozens of ActiveRAID systems. With a simple intuitive interface, there is no learning curve to deal with. And because it’s a viewer only, you can’t make a mistake and damage your configuration or destroy your data inadvertently.
Active Viewer, like Active Admin, utilizes the power of Bonjour to make discovery and monitoring of ActiveRAID systems easy. The intuitive interface lets you navigate quickly and drill-down into the ActiveRAID. The viewer’s remote capabilities let you monitor systems anywhere in the world as easily as you can monitor in the same room.
Active Viewer is available for Mac OS X and Windows platforms.
ACTIVERAID WIDGET
Many current Apple storage users we spoke with wanted an even simpler way to monitor their storage on a daily basis, and with the help of Mac OS X Leopard ® Active Storage was able to deliver it. Active Storage developed a simple yet highly effective Dashboard Widget. The ActiveRAID widget provides an at-a-glance view of your system and utilizes the Growl™ notification system to keep you informed of warnings or failures in real-time. Clicking on a warning or failure opens the Active Viewer automatically allowing you a finer grain view of the event.
ACTIVE VIEWER IPHONE APP
With the native management suite complete, Active Storage wanted to do even more. Apple provided us the greatest application platform since Mac OS X, the incredible iPhone®. The iPhone is the perfect canvas to reinvent storage management; we call it “Storage Remote Control.” Monitoring your storage remotely was never more convenient or powerful.
PERFORMANCE
Unmatched application performance—Designed for modern Mac OS X and Windows systems
ACTIVERAID PERFORMANCE
The ActiveRAID was designed to deliver best in class performance in high-demand media and Apple applications. Whether deployed direct attached to the Apple Xserve, supporting a large server network, or in a complex Xsan or StorNext® environment, the ActiveRAID gets the job done.
Active Storage understands how important consistent and repeatable performance is, and that is what we deliver. Our Xsan and Mac OS X Server certified technicians are constantly testing and optimizing performance. We strive for the highest throughput with maximum reliability with the quickest and easiest deployment.
Performance optimization is not a one-time task—for us it’s an on-going quest. Active Storage engineers are putting their many years of Mac operating system and driver development knowledge and experience to work constantly evolving our products to meet changing user and application requirements.
Active Storage spends considerable time tuning our products in the Xsan environment to ensure reliable high-throughput and low latency storage performance. This is a key requirement in delivering consistent, repeatable results—helping you meet your production deadlines.
Active Storage see its users as partners, and value user input on testing, configurations, and interoperability. We want to hear from you on what works and what doesn’t. We will answer your requests, and provide feedback and enhancements, as they are available.
Please direct your suggestions to: performancefeedback@getactivestorage.com
ACTIVERAID TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Unmatched Application Performance
- RAID kernel and open controller design provide an unmatched level of fine-grain tuning and minimum overhead
- Designed specifically for modern OS systems
- Redundant pathing, multiple Fibre Channel ports and large caches guarantee maximum bandwidth
- Controllers automatically balance load to provide highest throughput as user needs grow
Modern, High Availability
- All components are redundant - controllers, drives, and power supplies
- Failover and failback are truly seamless
- Native support for Mac OS X Multi-pathing
- Complete support for all popular UPS systems
- SNMP and CLI support for Enterprise environments
- Automatic parity rebuild and data integrity check
- Battery-backed cache - guaranteed 72-hour support
Management for Today and Tomorrow
- Apple-friendly native Mac OS X management suite
- Dashboard monitoring widget
- iPhone monitoring App
- Email notification engine
- Bonjour discoverable out of the box
- Set up one or many systems with no scripting
- Non-disruptive software and firmware updates
RAID Support
- RAID Levels - JBOD, 0, 1, 5, 6 10, 50, 51, 60
- LUN Support - Auto-configuring for performance up to 512 LUNs
- Drive Roaming - Full support between primary and secondary Expansion Systems
- Redundant - True active/active operation with seamless failover and failback
- On-Line data scrubbing with on-line parity regeneration
- Bad Array recognition and repair
- Sparing - Global Hot Sparing
- Full SMART reporting
Configurations
- 16 Drive SATA II per primary or expansion system
- Multi-IO design RAID controller, 2GB cache per controller mirrored across bi-directional 3GB/s path
- Primary System Features; active/active dual channel 4Gb Fibre to SAS RAID controllers 4x 4Gb/s ports, dual SAS IO, independent management/ enclosure monitoring
Statistics
- Full per port statistics package
- Controller CPU load (percentage of idle time free)
- Fibre Channel activity reporting
- Fibre Bit error rate
- Fibre average throughput (MB/s)
- Fibre IOPS
- Cache hit ratio statistics per LUN (Volumes)
- Average throughput per LUN (Volumes)
- IOPS per LUN (Volumes)
- Average throughput per LUN (MB/s)
- Number of stripes remapped by the controller per disk
Management and Monitoring
- Out-of-the-box support on Mac OS X v10.5.x and v10.6.x
- Guided Setup assistance can be used to optimize configuration of a single system in a single location, or multiple systems in single or multiple locations
- 128-Bit SSL security on Active Admin management tool
- Support for all popular Enterprise-class SNMP Applications
- Support for all popular UPS systems and controls
- Automated software update service
- On-line portal support for analysis of event log transactions
- Non-disruptive firmware upgrades
- Remote diagnostics and service center monitoring and analysis tool
- Drag-and-drop Configuration Tool for sophisticated and complex environments
- Proprietary Performance Profiling for determining future requirements
System Based Monitoring
- Front Panel - Fibre Channel activity and link per controller, drive activity and system status-RAID controller, cooling modules, system temperature, power supplies
- Rear Panel - All modules have health and status indicators
PRICING AND CONFIGURATIONS
| 48TB SATA II | 48TB SATA II Expansion | 32TB SATA II | 32TB SATA II Expansion | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall Capacity‡ | 48TB expands to 96TB by adding secondary enclosure | 48TB secondary enclosure used for expansion | 32TB expands to 64TB by adding secondary enclosure | 32TB secondary enclosure used for expansion |
| Hard Drive Modules | Hot swap 3TB 32 MB Cache | Hot swap 3TB 32 MB Cache | Hot swap 2TB 32 MB Cache | Hot swap 2TB 32 MB Cache |
|
Controller Type & Specification |
Active Storage Design, Dual 4Gb/s FC, 2GB Cache | Active Storage Design, I/O Module 12Gb/s SAS | Active Storage Design, Dual 4Gb/s FC, 2GB Cache | Active Storage Design, I/O Module 12Gb/s SAS |
| Power & Cooling | Redundant hot swap power & cooling modules | Redundant hot swap power & cooling modules | Redundant hot swap power & cooling modules | Redundant hot swap power & cooling modules |
| Battery Back Up | Optional - 72hr Support | Optional - 72hr Support | Optional - 72hr Support | Optional - 72hr Support |
| Rack Mounting Kit | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Suggested US Retail* | $25,999* | $21,499* | $19,999* | $16,999* |
‡ Usable capacity will vary depending on drive configuration and RAID level
* Suggested MSRP in U.S. Dollars for North America - pricing in other currencies and locales may differ to reflect local exchange rate and shipping. Please contact your reseller or Active Storage for more information for your region.
All trademarks, trade names and copyrights are property of their respective holders. StorNext® is a registered trademark of Quantum Corporation. Apple Macintosh, Xserve, Mac OS X Server and Xsan are property of Apple, Inc.