The new MDS 9513 contains 13 slots, each with 48 ports, said Rajeev Bhardwaj, product management manager of Cisco's Data Center and Storage Technology Group.

Cisco announced the new model Monday during the Storage Networking World conference in San Diego.

The earlier models MDS 9506 and MDS 9509, which Cisco continues to sell, offer six and nine slots, respectively. 'Our analysis suggested that a 13-port Director would hit the 'sweet spot'' of user needs, he said.

The new device uses the same footprint as the MDS 9509 model, which Bhardwaj said will let users consolidate storage systems while managing fewer switches.

'SAN switches need to be denser,' said Richard Villars, vice president of storage systems at IDC in Framingham, Mass. 'You need to connect devices without making the SAN itself too complex and without having to put in five layers of aggregation.'