Acer America Corporation today announced it has extended its line of server and storage solutions for the U.S. market to include a family of storage systems for small- and medium-sized business (SMB) and midmarket applications that deliver enterprise-class features and functionality at SMB and midmarket price points. The storage systems are tightly 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 strategic 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 two companies are leveraging their success in Europe and Asia, and bringing that expertise to the U.S. market. The partnership delivers best-of-breed application solutions with flexible configurations and seasoned sales support, allowing customers to maximize application performance, scalability and uptime. All three storage systems are supported by best-in-class storage 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,” said 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, and comprehensive data security capabilities. They also reduce complexity through easy-to-use management software. The AS2040 provides enterprise-class performance and data availability through a symmetric active-active architecture that allows for effortless data management. Load balancing logic monitors controller workloads, ensuring optimum performance with minimum effort. 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 236 terabytes, while the AMS 2300 supports up to 2048 virtual server ports and 472 terabytes 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 over any distance.

All three storage systems also offer Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning software (thin provisioning), which delivers "virtual storage capacity," eliminating application service interruptions, reducing costs and simplifying administration. 

“These tailored storage solutions meet customer demand for cost-effective storage performance, simplified storage management and return on storage investment over time,” said Bruce Chumley, vice president, Americas Strategic Alliances, Hitachi Data Systems. “Hitachi and Acer are committed to providing U.S. customers with solutions that enable them to simultaneously manage explosive data growth, IT costs, complex applications, legal compliance and security.”

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

“By expanding into the U.S. market, Acer is positioning itself as a global supplier of SMB server and storage solutions. The selection of QLogic as Acer’s go-to-market partner for Fibre Channel and 10GbE converged networking technology broadens QLogic’s reach into the SMB space,” said Satish Lakshmanan, senior director of product marketing, Host Solutions Group, QLogic Corp. “With unique technologies such as QLogic ConvergeFlex, which enables convergence of storage and data networking through concurrent multiprotocol support on the same hardware, and QLogic VMflex, which virtualizes physical ports into virtual ports for lower latencies and increased performance in virtualized environments, QLogic provides Acer SMB customers with networking solutions that are designed for today’s virtualized world, delivering superior performance and features while consuming minimal power.”

Acer’s latest U.S. storage systems join its recently introduced Acer Network Attached Storage (NAS) line, which meets the need for standards-based storage systems with key features like RAID, redundant hot-plug power, redundant hot-plug cooling, and data de-duplication and snapshot capabilities.   

Configurations, Pricing and Availability

MSRP 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. Like Acer’s companion server line, all Acer and jointly-branded Acer Hitachi storage products are available exclusively through indirect sales channels.