Cambex enters mainframe DASD market with low-cost disk array; Company's first Cascade array DASD offers fully mirrored storage systems for price of non-mirrored products

Business Wire, April 11, 1995

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 11, 1995--Cambex Corporation announced today a disk array storage system that it claims offers the best cost/performance and highest availability at the lowest price in the mainframe direct access storage market.

The company's new Cascade Array DASD is Cambex's first entry into the $5-billion-a-year mainframe DASD market and is intended to compete with the latest products from IBM, EMC Corporation, Hitachi Data Systems, Storage Technology and Amdahl Corporation. It plans to introduce a RAID-5 product later this year.

"As a well-established supplier of mainframe memory, we felt it was important to set new performance and value standards with our first offering, in a DASD market that is changing rapidly," Joseph F. Kruy, chairman and chief executive officer of Cambex, stated.

"The most important considerations in large-scale DASD disk array purchasing today are high availability, extended functionality and affordable cost-per-megabyte," Kruy said. "The Cascade Array DASD addresses those issues directly, during its initial introductory period, by being offered exclusively in a RAID-1 "fully mirrored" mode at a price of under $3 per megabyte for a fully configured array," he stated.

"We believe this solution will expand the size of the mainframe DASD market by making large capacity, risk-free storage more affordable -- without compromising DASD performance -- for emerging datawarehousing, imaging and analytical processing applications, and for applications currently relegated to tape or optical storage in which large capacity and fast access is desirable," Kruy commented.

The Cascade Array DASD system is fully compatible with IBM DASD and can be run behind the same IBM 3990 Storage Control units as IBM RAMAC Array DASD or 3390 DASD units. In addition, the Cascade storage system makes use of all of the standard and extended functions that IBM provides through its storage controllers, thereby extending the useful life of the 3990 controllers.

The Cascade Array DASD is faster, more compact, more energy efficient and has up to three times the capacity of the IBM DASD products, at a fraction of the price. In an unmirrored mode, the Cascade Array DASD can store up to 544 gigabytes of data, which is equal to 272 gigabytes when in a RAID-1, or fully mirrored, mode.

Mirroring is the process of writing data separately and simultaneously to two independent sets of disks to assure a high level of data protection, or availability. Mirroring, while normally more costly than other RAID protection schemes, is considered a high performance and safe method of data storage.

The total compatibility of Cascade Array DASD with IBM 3990 Storage Control function adds important operating advantages not available on other non-IBM DASD products. These advantages include full access to ESCON or parallel channels, and to such advanced functions as DASD fast-write, dual copy, dynamic cache management, transient dual copy and concurrent dual copy. The product's operational transparency enables users to obtain error and performance reporting identical to IBM DASD systems.

Two versions of the Cascade Array DASD are available, the Model 3 which offers up to 90 gigabytes per unit, and the Model 3X which offers an extended capacity of 272 gigabytes per unit. The Cascade products are in beta test at this time, with initial shipments of the Model 3 scheduled for June, and the Model 3X scheduled for August.

Matched to Three IBM Products

Because Cascade arrays are the only non-IBM arrays to operate transparently as an attachment to IBM 3990 Storage Control units, they offer attractive alternatives to IBM RAMAC Array DASD in many applications, as well as to IBM 3390 Models 3 and 9 data storage units. Cascade arrays also substantially extend the life of IBM 3990 Storage Control units because they attach, alone or combined with IBM DASD strings, to those storage controllers.

The Cascade mirrored (RAID-1) Model 3X array, with usable capacity up to 272 GB, is an effective alternative to RAMAC Array DASD, especially in applications in which speed, capacity, cost and simplicity are preferred over RAID-5 type protection. The Cascade Model 3X array utilizes 9-gigabyte disk drives with a 5-1/4-inch form factor. This drive provides a variety of operating advantages over the IBM Model 3390-9 DASD as well: rotational latency four times faster, and seek time twice as fast, yielding a total access time less than half that of IBM's Model 9 DASD -- in a footprint one-third the size.

The Cascade Model 3 array has 90GB capacity and the same or higher performance than IBM's 3390 Model 3 DASD for most applications. It utilizes 3-1/2 inch disk drives. The Model 3 is also fully mirrored, and has better cost/performance because of the more advanced technology utilized by Cambex. A Cascade array's footprint, heat and power consumption are approximately one-third those of a 3390-3. Thus, the Cascade Model 3 is well suited for use in a demanding real-time, mission-critical applications. Because of the mirrored design used in the Model 3, Cambex enables users to mirror a full 180GB behind a 3990 controller.