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SATABeast Selected for Major Project Handling Huge Quantities of Scientific Research Data: Nexsan Technologies, the leader in innovative and secure storage solutions, today announced that its SATABeast disk-based storage arrays have been selected by the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics (WTCHG). The Nexsan systems will provide secure storage for huge quantities of scientific research data on the genetic causes of diabetes, obesity and other common ailments as part of a major collaboration project with leading research bodies around the world. Scientific analysis of genetic material generates large output files. These files are approximately 50 megabytes each in size and have to be kept online so they can be accessed by researchers worldwide. As a result of this activity, the WTCHG’s data yield has soared from 20GB a day a couple of years ago to a daily level of 200-300GB. “Scientific research-focused organizations like ours are faced with extremely complex storage management tasks,” states Dr. Tim Bardsley, IT manager for WTCHG. “We selected the SATABeast for its advanced design, which not only provides excellent cooling, reduced drive vibration and high levels of energy efficiency, but also makes it extremely reliable. “We have research programs that have been running for three years or more,” he adds, “and you cannot put a price on how valuable that data is. Nexsan has the industry-leading storage density which makes it ideal to handle our data.” With a 120-node Linux cluster and 25 core servers, the WTCHG’s IT department is responsible for ensuring end user data processing needs are sustained. The new collaboration project required storage consolidation so that researchers could access DAS (Direct Attached Storage) online. The Nexsan arrays are directly attached to a server which feeds into a Fibre Channel switch for distribution to other servers. Overall data capacity has been increased to 42TB – 30 TB of which have already been consumed by the collaboration project. “We are delighted to have been selected by a world leader in scientific research like WTCHG,” said Brendan Kinkade, vice president of marketing at Nexsan. “Because our SATABeast is an extreme density, energy efficient storage array designed for reliability and the most demanding storage environments, it is ideal for installations like this one.” Featuring both Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity, SATABeast provides unmatched flexibility along with enterprise-class features, performance and proven reliability. SATABeast employs Nexsan's revolutionary AutoMAID energy-saving technology, which transparently places SATABeast disk drives in an idle state, reducing power consumption and operational costs. AutoMAID delivers the cost-saving benefits of MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks), without the limitations of slow access times and special host software. AutoMAID is the first power saving technology that supports standard high performance RAID implementations as well as backup, VTL (Virtual Tape Library) and archiving applications.