Dell PowerScale A300 Archive NAS Storage
The lowest cost way to support both, active and cold archives

Overview:

PowerScale A300 is an ideal active archive storage solution that combines high performance, near-primary accessibility, value, and ease of use. The A300 provides between 120 TB to 1.2 PB per chassis and scales to 75 PB in a single cluster. The A300 includes inline compression and deduplication capabilities.

Scale-out storage that is ready for any workload

As your business changes, your infrastructure needs to change with it. Be ready for what's coming next:

Dell EMC PowerScale All-Flash Platforms

The PowerScale family comprises of PowerScale and Isilon scale-out file storage platforms configured with the PowerScale OneFS operating system. PowerScale OneFS provides the intelligence behind the highly scalable, high–performance modular storage solution that can grow with your business. A OneFS powered cluster can be built with a flexible choice of storage platforms including all-flash, hybrid and archive nodes. These solutions provide the performance, choice, efficiency, flexibility, scalability, security, and protection for you to store massive amounts of unstructured data within a cluster.

PowerScale archive platforms use a modular architecture while dramatically reducing cost and complexity by utilizing a dense hardware design that provides four nodes within a single 4U chassis. The PowerScale all-flash and hybrid platforms can co-exist seamlessly in the same cluster with your existing PowerScale or Isilon nodes to drive your traditional and modern applications.

Embedded, integrated, or attached OEM versions are available for PowerScale hybrid nodes as either de-branded or re-branded solutions.

It’s not just data, it’s your business

A large portion of your data is unstructured data and that dataset is growing exponentially – not just in the datacenter but at the enterprise edge and in the cloud. PowerScale OneFS powered scale-out storage solutions are designed for organizations that want to manage all their data, not their storage. Our storage systems are powerful yet simple to install, manage and scale to virtually any size. The storage includes a choice of PowerScale and Isilon all-flash, hybrid or archive nodes to meet the most demanding business needs. And, unlike traditional enterprise storage, these solutions stay simple no matter how much storage capacity is added, how much performance is required or how business needs change in the future.

In a world where unstructured data is growing rapidly and taking over the data center, organizations are looking for ways to get more out of their data. Whether it is driving innovation, getting to market faster or creating differentiation, they want the data to start creating value. Instead of thinking of destinations for your data, you think about what the data is going to be used for, who will be using it and how the data will help you solve for their business needs. When you have a data first mindset, the goal is to get any data to where it needs to be for business needs. Whether it is all-flash Edge offerings or the cloud to take advantage of the tools and access, data must be located where it needs to be for the business

With OneFS powered clusters consisting of PowerScale or Isilon nodes, you can eliminate storage silos, consolidate all your unstructured data, store petabytes of file data and analyze them in a data first world. With up to 252 nodes in a cluster, you can scale both capacity and performance in a few minutes to meet your specific business needs—all without any additional IT burden. With the performance of all-flash node that are configured with NVMe, you can drive demanding workloads like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning.

Features:

OneFS Operating System Powers Scale-Out Storage Solutions

The OneFS operating system provides the intelligence behind the highly scalable, high–performance modular PowerScale storage solution that can grow with your business. With support for various flash technologies offered in NVMe SSD, OneFS can help you accelerate the most demanding processes and workflows like Generative AI, with flexible scaling to handle massive growth and the highest levels of data protection. You can drive workloads like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning with the performance of our all-flash nodes configured with NVMe.

Orchestrated by OneFS, all components in a cluster work to create a unified pool of highly efficient storage – with a storage utilization rate of up to 80 percent. With SmartDedupe data deduplication, you can further reduce your data storage requirements. The PowerScale F910, F900, F710, F600, F210, and F200 all-flash platforms, H700 and H7000 hybrid platforms and A300 and A3000 archive platforms deliver improved data reduction with features like inline compression and deduplication to dramatically increase the effective storage capacity and density of your storage solution. The unmatched efficiency of the storage systems means that less physical storage and space is required to house the same amount of data – reducing both initial capital outlay and ongoing costs, such as those related to power and cooling. With the OneFS AutoBalance function, you can quickly and easily add nodes without downtime, manual data migration, or application logic reconfiguration, saving precious IT resources. Since PowerScale storage is so easy to manage, it requires fewer IT resources for storage administration than traditional storage systems, which further reduces overall operating costs. Further streamline your storage infrastructure by consolidating large-scale unstructured data assets and eliminating silos of storage.

Drive Human Progress with PowerScale Storage Appliances

AI - Unleashed
PowerScale is the foundation for building an integrated and optimized IT infrastructure for AI initiatives, from POC to production. The integration and optimization showcased includes PowerScale, PowerEdge, PowerSwitch and Dell Precision Data Science Workstations.

Imagination - Unlimited
Ideal for companies of any size from small VFX houses to multi-national broadcasters, Dell EMC PowerScale storage provides a foundation for storytelling offering secure collaboration, modular expansion, flexible consumption models and easy cloud integration, all with management tools spanning multiple platforms.

Sequencing - Unbounded
Dell EMC Unstructured Data Solutions portfolio is a key aspect of a next-generation sequencing environment by delivering performance, being easy to manage, and accelerating whole-genome sequencing.

Enterprise Data Protection and Management Software

Massive stores of data present unique management challenges including disaster recovery, quota management and offsite replication. Isilon data protection and management software provides you with powerful tools that help you protect your data assets, control costs and optimize the storage resources and system performance of your big data environment.

Software	Feature	Description
SmartDedupe	Data management	Increase efficiency and reduce storage capacity requirements with deduplication of redundant data across multiple sources
CloudIQ	Data management	Simplify the storage management tasks of PowerScale, Isilon and other Dell hardware with predictive analytics capabilities from a single console
DataIQ	Data management	Locate, access and manage data and gain a holistic view across heterogeneous storage systems with a single pane of glass
SmartQuotas	Data management	Assign and manage quotas at the cluster, directory, user, and group levels
InsightIQ	Performance management	Performance monitoring and reporting
SnapshotIQ	Data protection	Protect data efficiently and speed the recovery of critical data with ondemand snapshot restores
SYNCIQ	Data replication	Securely replicate data sets to multiple sites for reliable disaster recovery and use push-button failover and failback
SmartLock	Data retention	Protect your critical data against accidental, premature, or malicious alteration or deletion and meet compliance and governance needs
SmartConnect	Data access	Enable client connection load balancing and the dynamic failover and failback of client connections
CloudPools	Resource management	Seamless tiering of cold or frozen data to public or private cloud providers
SmartPools	Resource management	Tiered storage strategy to optimize storage performance and efficiency

Technical Specifications:

Dell EMC PowerScale A300 Archive Specifications
	2 TB HDD	4 TB HDD	8 TB HDD	12 TB HDD	16 TB HDD	20 TB HDD
Chassis capacity	120 TB	240 TB	480 TB	720 TB	960 TB	1.2 PB
HDD drives (3.5") per chassis	60	60	60	60	60	60
Self-encrypting drive (SED HDD) FIPS 140-2 compliant option	Yes, except 20 TB drives
Operating system	PowerScale OneFS 9.2.1 or later
Number of nodes per chassis	4	4	4	4	4	4
ECC memory (per node)	96 GB	96 GB	96 GB	96 GB	96 GB	96 GB
Cache (per node) solid state drives (800GB, 1.6TB, 3.2TB)	1 or 2 Capacity and number of SSDs determined by HDD size and count2
Front-end networking (per node)	2 x 100 GbE (QSFP28) or 2 x 25GbE (SFP28)
Infrastructure networking (per node)	2 InfiniBand connections with QDR links or 2 X 100 GbE (QSFP28) or 2 X 25GbE (SFP28)
Max Power Consumption @ 200~240V (per node)1	1070 Watts (@25°C)
Typical thermal rating	3651 BTU/hr
Product Attributes
Scale-Out Architecture	Distributed fully symmetric clustered architecture that combines modular storage with OneFS operating system in a single volume, single namespace and single filesystem
Modular Design	Four self-contained Isilon nodes include server, software, HDDs and SSDs in a 4U rack-mountable chassis. 1U or 2U Rack-mountable PowerScale node that integrates into existing PowerScale and Isilon clusters with backend Ethernet or InfiniBand connectivity
Operating System	PowerScale OneFS distributed file system creates a cluster with a single file system and single global namespace. It is fully journaled, fully distributed, and has a globally coherent write/read cache
High Availability	No-single-point-of-failure. Self-healing design protects against disk or node failure; includes back-end intra-cluster failover
Scalability	A cluster can scale up to 252 nodes. Minimum number of Isilon nodes per cluster is four. Minimum number of PowerScale all-flash nodes per cluster is three. Add nodes to scale performance and capacity
Data Protection	FlexProtect file-level striping with support for N+1 through N+4 and mirroring data protection schemes
2-way NDMP	Supports two ports of Fibre Channel (8G) that allows for two-way NDMP connections and two ports of standard 10GbE connectivity
Data Retention	SmartLock policy-based retention and protection against accidental deletion
Security	File system audit capability to improve security and control of your storage infrastructure and address regulatory compliance requirements
Efficiency	SmartDedupe data deduplication option, which can reduce storage requirements by up to 35 percent. Inline data reduction and compression available on F200, F600, F900, F810 and H5600
Automated Storage Tiering	Policy-based automated tiering options including SmartPools and CloudPools software to optimize storage resources and lower costs
Network Protocol Support	NFSv3, NFSv4, NFS Kerberized sessions (UDP or TCP), SMB1 (CIFS), SMB2, SMB3, SMB3-CA, Multichannel, HTTP, FTP, NDMP, SNMP, LDAP, HDFS, S3, ADS, NIS reads/writes
Data Replication	SyncIQ fast and flexible one-to-many file-based asynchronous replication between clusters
Environmental Specification - Power
Power	Dual-redundant, hot-swappable 1050W (low line) 1100W (high line) power supplies with power factor correction (PFC)
Voltage	90 - 130 VAC (low line) and 180-264 VAC (high line)
CFM – Volume of airflow; cubic feet/minute	Each Node 70CFM, total chassis 280CFM (max)
Operating Environment	Compliant with ASHRAE A3 data center environment guidelines
Dimensions	Height: 7” (17.8 cm); Width: 17.6” (44.8 cm) Depth: (front NEMA rail to rear 2.5” SSD cover ejector): 35.8” (91.0 cm) Depth: (front of bezel to rear 2.5” SSD cover ejector): 37.6” (95.5 cm)
Weight	252.2 lbs (114.4 kg)
Minimum Service Clearances	Front: 40” (88.9 cm), rear: 42” (106.7 cm)

Cluster Attributes	PowerScale A300	PowerScale A3000
Number of chassis	1 to 63	1 to 63
Number of nodes	4 to 252	4 to 252
Raw node capacity	120 TB to 75 PB	960 TB to 100 PB
Rack units	4 to 252	4 to 252

Safety and EMI Compliance

This Information Technology Equipment is compliant with the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and product safety regulations/standards required by the countries in which the product is sold. EMC compliance is based on FCC part 15, CISPR22/CISPR24 and EN55022/EN55024 standards, including applicable international variations. EMC compliant Class A products are marketed for use in business, industrial, and commercial environments. Product Safety compliance is based on IEC 60950-1 and EN 60951-1 standards, including applicable national deviations.

This Information Technology Equipment is in compliance with EU RoHS Directive 2011/65/EU.

¹ Values at <25° C are reflective of more steady state maximum values during normal operation
² Some versions of A300 default with just one 800GB and will only support L3 cache configuration

Solutions & Services:

Dell EMC offers complete end-to-end services

Optimizing the IT lifecycle is vital. Dell EMC has expert services* for all lifecycle phases that save you time and resources, reduce effort, and improve your IT experience.

Documentation:

Dell EMC PowerScale Datasheet (.PDF)

Dell EMC PowerScale Archive Nodes Spec Sheet (.PDF)