Acer Introduces Flagship AS2040 and AMS 2000 Storage Systems with Hitachi Data Systems and Qlogic

By DE Editors

Acer America Corporation has extended its line of server and storage solutions for the US market to include a family of storage systems for small- and medium-sized business (SMB) and midmarket applications. The storage systems are integrated with Acer’s server solutions, and are designed to help customers manage escalating storage growth while optimizing data security and availability for Microsoft Exchange Server, VMware, databases and other strategic business applications.

Acer’s expanded storage offering is the result of the company’s partnership with Hitachi Data Systems, and includes the AS2040 storage system and the Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 (AMS 2000) family of scalable storage systems. The storage systems are supported by networking connectivity solutions from QLogic.

“Together, Acer and Hitachi Data Systems provide a unique value proposition for end-users who need to solve difficult storage challenges as cost-effectively as possible,” says Gianluca Degliesposti, vice president of worldwide business development for Acer Servers and Storage.  “Thanks to this partnership, we are able to offer one of the industry’s best SMB storage arrays, delivering enterprise-level technology and features at SMB market price points.”

The Acer Hitachi AS2040 storage arrays support up to 180 terabytes (TB) of data using multiple RAID levels. Acers says the AS2040 provides enterprise-class performance and data availability through a symmetric active-active architecture. Load balancing logic monitors controller workloads. Users can configure systems with mixed tiers of SAS and SATA drives. The SAS backend design provides switch point-to-point connectivity to disk drives, and support for more than 2,000 logical volumes. Data availability is further maximized through on-line microcode updates and redundant, hot-swappable spares.

The Acer Hitachi AMS 2000 family includes the AMS 2100 and AMS 2300 systems. The AMS 2100 system supports up to 512 virtual server ports and scalable capacity up to 236TB, while the AMS 2300 supports up to 2048 virtual server ports and 472TB of capacity. The Hi-Track Remote Monitoring system provides round-the-clock system diagnostics, and Hitachi TrueCopy Remote Replication software provides a continuous, non-disruptive, host-independent remote data replication solution for disaster recovery, data retention or data migration.

All three storage systems also offer Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning software (thin provisioning), which delivers “virtual storage capacity.”

Acer’s storage offering is supported by converged network adapters (CNAs), host bus adapters (HBAs) and Fibre Channel switches from QLogic.

Pricing depends on configuration and base configurations (five hard drives), and begins at $11,699 for the Acer Hitachi AS2040 storage array, $18,499 for the Acer Hitachi AMS 2100 storage array, and $31,499 for the Acer Hitachi AMS 2300 storage array. 

For more information, visit Acer.

Sources:  Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.