IBM Unveils New All-Hard-Disk Data Storage System
IBM just launched its latest data storage system, the Elastic Storage System 5000, for customers who require hard disk-based systems. The ESS5000 comes nine months after the company unveiled its ESS3000 all-flash storage systems.
The ESS5000 includes IBM Spectrum Scale software and is faster and boasts more density than the company’s previous all-disk model. A top ESS5000 feature is that customers can now run it with all-flash systems using the same software.
Eric Herzog, chief marketing officer for IBM Storage, told Channel Futures that the company built ESS5000 for data lake use. The new arrays are great for big data, AI and analytics workloads, he said.
The ESS5000 ships with the same software as the ESS3000, which allows customers to run the systems together, he said.
“Some people need the performance of all-flash and some people need the capacity of hard drives,” said Herzog. “We mixed the all-flash variant and the all-hard-drive variant in the same name space. Customers can use the all-flash and hard drive systems together.”
A huge benefit of this capability is that it helps customers keep data together, he said. It also provides faster performance and better storage densities for opex and capex reduction, he added.
“Data silos are bad for AI and other demanding workloads because we’re talking about a lot of data,” said Herzog. “It’s easier to have a single name space, keeping it all in one repository, and avoiding data silos.”
The ESS5000 is faster and less expensive than the model it replaces. It has a density of 13.5 PB in 36 rack units. The previous array had a density of 8PB in 55 rack units. That means the ESS5000 requires less rack space, floor space, cooling and management, said Herzog.
The ESS5000 features bandwidth capabilities up to 55GBps, compared to 36GBps for the previous model.
IBM also announced a new Spectrum Scale software release for the fourth quarter. The company built Spectrum Scale Data Acceleration for AI specifically to help with demanding AI workloads.
The upcoming software will allow file systems to see objects as well as files at the same time, said Herzog. That will eliminate another reason that data gets siloed in data storage, he said.
“Some customers only use object storage, while some use file storage,” said Herzog. “This will allow the file system to actually see the objects. This allows consolidation of both for AI, big data or analytics applications from file stores or object stores.”
Channel partners and customers asked for the features in the ESS5000, he said.
“Partners and users said last time they needed an all-flash unit,” so IBM built it, said Herzog. “Here they said they needed an improved hard drive array. So we made the ESS5000 and improved it over the last model.”
Partners Optimistic About the ESS5000
Tom Bingham, sales director of U.K.-based MSP and channel partner CSI Limited, said the systems will offer additional customer capabilities.
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