STORServer Beefs Up its Backup Servers

October 2, 2012 Alex Woodie

As backup volumes grow, so too must the servers that drive the backups. To that end, backup appliance vendor STORServer last week announced upgrades to three of its product lines that will bring bigger, beefier hardware to bear on customers’ backup workloads.

STORServer sells integrated appliances that include all the hardware and software needed to successfully back up one’s data. The Colorado Springs, Colorado, company’s offerings have a decidedly blue tint to them, in that it builds its appliances on IBM X64 servers and powers them with IBM’s Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) software. It also includes a nice management GUI on top of TSM and streamlines the TSM implementation to create a backup combination that STORServer says is second to none in the industry, but this story is all about new hardware.

To that end, the company has enhanced its offerings across three product areas, including its entry-level Backup Appliance (BA) offerings, its Enterprise Backup Appliance (EBA) line, and its Instant Restore (IR) appliance.

STORServer has launched two new entry-level appliances, including the BA601 and the BA701, to complement the BA851 that it launched earlier this year. The BA601 ships with 1.5 TB of internal storage, which can be increased by 6 TB or 9 TB, and can handle backup environments that see up to 1 TB of changed data per day. The BA701 includes 4 TB of storage built in (which can be increased by 10TB or 15 TB) and can handle 2 TB of daily changes. By comparison, the BA851 came with up to 15 TB of SAS disk-based storage, and could handle 1.2 TB of daily changed data.

STORServer also bolstered its EBA line, which is based on the IBM System x M4 server line. The new EBA802 replaces the EBA801 and EBA851 models, and can handle up to 3 TB of changed data daily. The new EBA1202 replaces the old EBA1102 models, and can handle up to 5 TB of changed data daily. The EBA2202 replaces the EBA2102 and EBA2502 models, and is deal for backing up as much as 7 TB daily.

The new monster EBA3202 replaces the EBA3102 and EBA3501 models. It features two 16-core processors and a base storage duo that includes 2.8 TB of internal SSD storage, 2.7 TB of regular disk. This 5.5 TB pair provides very high backup performance, and can handle up to 10 TB worth of daily backups.

All of STORServer’s new BA and EBA appliances can be bolstered with additional disk shelves and tape outputs on the backside. All of them provide built-in de-duplication, and support replication to other appliances or to the STORServer cloud.

STORServer also announced the new IR501, the latest iteration of its Instant Restore appliance for backing up Windows and Linux servers in branch locations and remote offices. The IR501 features up to 11 TB of raw storage, which is effective for storing up to 3 TB of data. Total storage capacity can be increased to 40 TB with the optional expansion shelf, or data can be replicated to a second IR appliance, or even a BA or EBA appliance.

STORServer also included pricing with its latest announcement, which shows the company is growing more confident in its solutions. (The fact that STORServer did so well in a recent appliance roundup by storage industry analyst DCIG also didn’t hurt the company’s confidence.)

The BA601 starts at $9,898, which is the first sub-$10,000 offering by STORServer. Pricing for the BA701 starts at $14,499. In the enterprise space, the EBA802 starts at $18,999, the EBA1202 starts at $29,919, the EBA2202 starts at $53,919, and the EBA3202 starts at $110,180.