D-Link DSN-6110

Overview
D-Link’s DSN-6000 Series (DSN-6110 & DSN-6410) iSCSI SAN array is a highly available, data center-class network storage solution in a 2U rack mount form factor that is simple to deploy and manage, ideal for small to medium enterprises seeking nearline or primary storage. It uses an intuitive management GUI to ensure the system can be up and online in little time, even with limited IT knowledge. The DSN-6000 Series supports 36TB of raw capacity using 3TB1 drives and overall scalability to 180TB using additional DSN-6020 expansion JBODs.

All DSN-6000 storage solutions are supplied complete with snapshot, volume cloning and remote replication capabilities, without the need for costly software licenses. Also, each RAID controller is equipped with 4GB cache to ensure maximum read and write performance right out of the box.

iSCSI for IP Networks
Storage Area Networks (SANs) have traditionally been reserved for complex Fibre Channel networks. The introduction of iSCSI has extended the powerful centralized storage capabilities of SAN technology to IP networks. By utilizing existing Ethernet technology, the costs associated with Fibre Channel switching, separate host bus adapters, expensive storage subsystems and administration is significantly reduced. iSCSI SANs leverage the Ethernet infrastructure and standards that are already familiar to most IT personnel.

A Choice of Host Interfaces – Four 1GbE or Two 10GbE
Both the DSN-6110 and DSN-6410 each support Link Aggregation Groups (LAG), Multi-Path I/O (MPIO) and Multiple Connections per Session (MCS) for flexibility, performance and resiliency.

The DSN-6110 can have its four 1GbE ports grouped together for up to 450 MB/s bandwidth. With the addition of a secondary controller (DSN-610) the available throughput increases up to 900 MB/s bandwidth.

The DSN-6410 utilizes two built-in fully integrated 10GbE interfaces as a high performance alternative to 4Gbps Fibre Channel, for up to 650 MB/s. With the addition of a secondary controller (DSN-640) the available throughput increases up to 1,300 MB/s bandwidth. Each DSN-6410 array and DSN-640 controller comes standard with one 10GbE SFP+ transceiver and one optical cable providing industry standard LC-connectors.

High Availability
The DSN-6110 & DSN-6410 primary arrays, based on a single controller, each provides an ideal platform for nearline storage requirements such as disk-to-disk backup, data archiving and video surveillance.

With the addition of a secondary controller (DSN-610 for the DSN-6110 and
DSN-640 for the DSN-6410) the DSN-6000 Series can provide the failover, redundancy and performance required for mission critical scenarios such as Virtual Machine (VM) shares, databases, Online Transactional Processing (OLTP), email applications, storage consolidation and your other primary storage needs. When deployed with redundant controllers, the DSN-6000 series is equipped with fully redundant components for all major functions including RAID controllers, host connectivity, power supplies, fan modules, battery backup modules, and SAS JBOD expansion ports. The hot-pluggable design allows for uninterrupted services, even while replacing failed components. Additionally, the active-active controller design allows for online firmware upgrades,
eliminating the need for a system reboot or additional downtime when updating the system to the latest software code.

Remote Replication, Cloning and Snapshots
Remote replication provides continuous data protection ensuring your valuable data is safe in the event of a catastrophic system failure in your primary site or data center. One source target can be set up with multiple destination targets, allowing administrators to replicate data to different locations. These replication jobs can be set up for manual or automated scheduling allowing hourly or daily configuration.

Volume cloning can be used to backup data from a source volume to a target volume, set up a backup schedule, and deploy rules for creating these backups. Snapshot technology ensures data can be restored quickly and easily from a point-in-time copy and easily without the need for lengthy restore from a backup. Up to a total of 512 writable or read-only snapshots are supported and compliant to Microsoft Windows Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS). These snapshots can be implemented manually or through automated scheduling which allows hourly or daily configuration. In addition, the snapshot technology follows the block-level copy-on-write technology which provides fast recovery of
data in case of a disk failure, file corruption or program malfunction.

Remote replication, cloning and snapshot technology are supplied as standard features in all DSN-6000 Series storage solutions, at no additional cost.

Additional Features
The DSN-6000 Series incorporates advanced high availability features such as RAID 6 and RAID 60, writable snapshots, Microsoft Windows VSS support, and volume configuration restoration. These advanced features help to reduce or eliminate any system downtime. Unlike other vendors, D-Link’s DSN-6000 Series (with a secondary controller installed) is able to upgrade its onboard firmware without the need for a system reboot or any system downtime. Firmware images and volume handling are protected by the redundant controllers, when one RAID controller is down or has lost its connection, the other RAID controller takes over the tasks immediately. This ensures that volumes and services are transferred seamlessly and simultaneously.

Applications
The optimized IOPS and throughput are capable of providing the necessary performance for critical online services such as cloud storage, SQL, Microsoft Exchange, video editing and video streaming applications. Furthermore, with its iSCSI interface, D-Link’s DSN-6000 Series is ideal for virtualization environments like VMware, Hyper-V and Citrix.

The DSN-6000 Series appears in the VMware Hardware Compatibility Guide, Citrix XenServer Hardware Compatibility List and the Microsoft Windows Server Catalog.

Expansion Options
The DSN-6110 & DSN-6410 primary arrays each support 12 internal SAS/SATA1 hard drives and with the addition of up to four DSN-6020 expansion arrays, can scale to a total of 180TB of raw storage capacity using 3TB1 drives.

Green Energy Savings
The DSN-6000 Series is equipped with D-Link Green features for saving power. When properly configured, the power consumption of hard drives can be reduced to a minimum using the auto disk spin down feature. The DSN-6000 Series array monitors environmental temperatures to optimize the cooling mechanism. The fan modules respond only when needed. The power supply modules are all 80 PLUS power efficient, providing a more favorable power conversion rate. These power-saving features help to greatly reduce energy consumption and increase the product’s lifespan, which is critical in a data center environment.

RAID Support
The DSN-6000 Series iSCSI SAN arrays support RAID levels 0, 1 (N-way mirror), 0+1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60 and JBOD for data protection and performance.
The maximum number of drive members on a volume is the following:
For any RAID type: 32 HDDs

SATA Bridge Board (DSN-654)
The DSN-654 SAS to SATA bridge board is designed to enable single-ported SATA drives to connect seamlessly like native dual-ported SAS drives. The DSN-654 is required for each drive, for SATA deployments in a dual controller configuration or with SATA hard drives having capacities of 3TB or greater, as described in the diagram below. Also, these same rules will apply to SATA drives installed in any additional DSN-6020 expansion enclosures.