IBM TotalStorage EXP810

IBM TotalStorage EXP810 Expansion Shelves

As the latest disk drive enclosure in the DS4000 Storage Area Network (SAN) family, the IBM TotalStorage Expansion 810 is pretty freakin’ amazing. Not going to lie, I kind of want to be one when I grow up. But what’s so impressive you ask? Well, the new features and benefits that the IBM EXP810 brings to the table versus previous generations of DS4000 expansion shelves includes future-ready 4 Gigabits per second (Gbps) capabilities as well as the capacity to hold up to 16 disk drives in a 3U disk enclosure. The 4 Gbps capabilities of the TotalStorage EXP810 can only be taken advantage of in the event that the controller, i.e. the DS4000 SAN, also features 4 Gbps capabilities. If not, the IBM EXP810 is also designed to accommodate 2 Gbps fibre channel (FC) enhanced disk drive modules (E-DMM), and top of its 4 Gbps FC E-DMM and 4 Gbps Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) E-DMM capabilities. So while the EXP8100 comes standard with 2 4Gbps shortwave, small form factor pluggable (SFP) fiber optic transceivers, don’t be afraid to order one and take advantage of the other capabilities if you have a 2 Gbps DS4000.

 Designed to supplement the storage capacity of the DS4000 SAN family, the IBM EXP810 storage expansion units are able to provide up to an additional 4.8 Terabytes (TB) of physical storage capacity within its 16 bays – which is nothing to joke about!  Any since the IBM TotalStorage EXP 810 is able to accommodate 36, 72, 146, 300 or 400 Gigabytes (GB) of FC drives or 500GB, 750GB or 1TB of SATA drives, it is able to offer a high level of flexibility on top of all its other impressive characteristics. As a result, the EXP 810 isn’t tied down to tackling just a few different types of storage requirements, but a wide variety so that your enterprise IT environment is ready and able to handle any and all storage requirements that might be thrown your way.