eStorage Joins the VTL Party with the Maxback 4576

by Alex Woodie

eStorage, the only provider of internal disk for the iSeries line besides IBM, is now in external iSeries disk business, too. The company is now shipping its first virtual tape library (VTL) offering, the Maxback 4576, a disk appliance that, with up to 2TB of storage, will provide a good amount of RAID-protected headroom for small and midsized OS/400 shops looking to augment their current tape backups with faster disk-to-disk technologies.

VTLs are the most exciting thing to happen to iSeries backups since the advent of the independent ASP (auxiliary storage pool). By emulating a standard IBM tape drive or IBM tape library, a VTL user can take advantage of the tremendous gains in the price/performance of cheap SCSI and Serial ATA disk, while making minimal sacrifices.

eStorage's new Maxback 4576 VTL, like most VTLs that support the OS/400 server, emulates an IBM 3580 (an LTO Ultrium drive) or an IBM 3590 (an LTO Ultrium library). To the AS/400, iSeries, or i5 being backed up, the connection to the Maxback 4576 is no different than a regular tape drive, or tape library.

The Maxback 4576 is available in two models, both of which use 7,200 RPM SATA disks, sourced from either Western Digital or Maxtor. The four-drive model supports RAID-0 data striping (and can be operated without RAID), offers 1GB of capacity, and costs $16,000.

The eight-drive Maxback 4576 model costs $17,500 and employs RAID-3, which enables hot-swapping of the drives and is the most efficient data striping technique for VTLs, according to eStorage. (RAID-5 also supports hot-swapping drives, but it is less effective for emulating tape backups because it's optimized for smaller random data transfers, eStorage says). The eight-drive model offers 2GB of capacity, 1.4GB of which is usable.

Both the 1TB and 2TB models have two 160 MB/sec SCSI ports, one for input from the server, and one for output to the tape device. The Maxback 4576 supports OS/400, as well as Unix, Linux, and Windows operating systems, but not simultaneously. Users can either back up their iSeries machines with the device, or back up their Unix, Linux, and Windows servers.

Although eStorage never made a formal announcement of the Maxback 4576, the Irvine, California, company has been selling them for a few months. The Maxback 4576 is the first of a line of VTL devices that eStorage will be introducing, and users can expect larger VTLs that simultaneously support multiple platforms in the future, says Jon Asahina, chief technology officer for eStorage, which was acquired last year by Zzyzx Peripherals of San Diego.

Sales of the Maxback 4576 have been pretty good in the OS/400 market, Asahina says. "It's a pretty warm reception," he says. "iSeries customers, like everybody else, have the same issues with tape: slow restores, and [questionable] reliability. Virtual tape is a nice way to go."

eStorage is by no means the first storage device vendor to recognize the disk-based opportunity that exists in the iSeries market. Since mid-2004, a half dozen or so vendors have unveiled their own VTL offerings, including FalconStor, Fujitsu-Siemens, LXI, and Neartek. IBM and GST also support OS/400 with their disk-to-disk backup appliances.

The eStorage Maxback 4576 is available now. For more information, go to www.estorageinc.com.