SGI emerges from bankruptcy with two NAS appliances

08.11.2006
Silicon Graphics Inc. has emerged from five months of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with two product families of network-attached storage (NAS) appliances designed for both the high- and low-end markets.

The InfiniteStorage NAS 4550 is intended for high-performance, data-intensive applications and comes in two models -- the Streaming version for applications that use continuous data, such as media production, data mining and seismic data for oil and gas research, and the Ultra, for batch data such as databases, said Jeff Shen, product manager for NAS and SAN at the Mountain View, Calif.-based company. The difference between the two models, which share the same hardware, is the amount of cache and the types of disk drives they use, he said.

The InfiniteStorage NAS 4050 is a low-end model intended for less expensive second-tier storage, Shen said. It comes in two models: a Serial ATA server version and a Maximum Capacity version.

The NAS 4550 has eight cores, 48GB of RAM, 12 Gigabit Ethernet ports and four 4Gbit/sec. Fibre Channel ports, according to the company. The NAS 4050 has four cores, from eight to 24GB of RAM, four or eight Gigabit Ethernet ports, and two or eight 4Gbit/sec. Fibre Channel ports.

SGI's Plan of Reorganization was approved by the court on Sept. 19, and the company said it formally emerged from Chapter 11 on Oct. 17, after entering it on .

Pricing for the InfiniteStorage NAS 4550 starts at US$200,342 for the Streaming model and $238,655 for the Ultra model, including 48GB of RAM, 12 Gigabit Ethernet ports, a 4GB Fibre Channel controller pair and two disk enclosures. Pricing for the NAS 4050 starts at $92,000 for the SATA server with one 4GB Fibre Channel storage controller pair and one disk expansion tray, and at $400,000 for the Maximum Capacity version with two storage controller pairs and 80TB of unformatted capacity. The products are expected to ship in December.