The ideal nearline disc drive combines economical capacity, seamless compatibility with existing network infrastructures, and nearline-class reliability. A growing number of businesses have turned to high-capacity, low-cost Serial ATA (SATA) drives for nearline duty in their FC SANs. However, such devices require a separate SATA infrastructure or FC-to-SATA bridge (eliminating advanced capabilities of the FC protocol), and are not always designed for rigorous nearline workloads.
The solution is high-capacity, low-cost disc drives purpose-built for Fibre Channel networks. As one would expect, these nearline-ready drives deliver the exceptional reliability (1.0 million hours MTBF) that nearline duty demands. But more importantly, native FC nearline drives make full use of the FC protocol, enabling tighter integration of online, nearline and offline storage tiers.