Dell EMC announced the midrange unified storage system called Unity XT in May of 2016. The Dell EMC Unity XT system is derived from the Dell EMC VNX/VNXe series of storage systems with a new operating environment and new hardware configuration. Unity XT systems have both all flash and hybrid models and are scale-up systems with dual active controllers. The unified systems support block and file with the file software originally released in the VNXe3200.
There are 8 models, 380/380F, 480/480F, 680/680F, 880/880F.
Many of the software functions of the Dell EMC Unity XT systems were extracted from VNX software. The Unity XT systems use a SuSE Linux kernel and support Docker containers. The filesystem software supports multiple NAS Servers, which were previously called virtual data movers. Unisphere is the element manager as a web GUI, implemented with HTLM5.
The dual controllers are packaged in a 2U enclosure along with either 25 2.5” devices or 12 3.5” devices that are SAS attached. Additional devices can be added with Device Array Enclosures of either 15 3.5” devices in a 3U enclosure or 80 2.5” devices in a 3U enclosure. Software features are included in the base price and include snapshots, synchronous and asynchronous remote replication, VVOLs and VASA support. Telemetry data is collected and analyzed with a SaaS product called CloudIQ. Health checks are done and proactive maintenance is scheduled based on the analytics.
The SSDs in the Dell EMC Unity XT have a lifetime warranty as long as a maintenance contract is in place. In addition, the maintenance price is guaranteed not to be increased from the initial purchase.
The Unity XT systems provide a wide set of connectivity options for block access and for file access as a NAS system.
EMC Unity XT Product Analysis Includes:
- Highlights
- Overview
- Model Comparison
- Product Architecture
- Hardware
- Software Architecture
- Advanced Features
- Included Software
- Unity NAS
- Data Protection
- Virtual Storage Appliance
- Reliability, Availability and Serviceability
- Redundant Write Cache
- Evaluator Group Comments
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