The CX3-40, which scales to 119TB, starts around $90,000. Asthana said Dell will configure the midrange Clariion arrays and accompanying servers at its factories storage components such as backup software, host bus adapters or storage resource management software. The arrays and servers can then also be configured along with Dell PowerConnect 10Gb Ethernet switches, which with 24 or 48 ports will be about half the per-port cost of other competitive switches, Asthana said. "When it gets to the customer it will be ready to go," he said.

The PowerConnect switches will include features such as the ability to prioritize iSCSI traffic and VLAN capabilities so that both a LAN and SAN network can be deployed simultaneously. Seth Bobroff, director of marketing at Intel, said his company is focused on developing on storage-specific silicon chips based on its x86 architecture and standard Xeon chip for commodity deployment of direct-attached storage, network-attached storage and storage area networks. Intel has also been building white box storage arrays that include a 2TB array with RAID 5 capability based on its x86 architecture sold through about 180,000 channel partner vendors around the world.

Bobroff said Intel will be developing chips with a focus in three areas: data protection, performance and manageability. For example, in September, Intel introduced the IOP34x series of chips that offer RAID 6, which is the ability have two disks fail in a storage array without loss of data. The IOP34x series also offers support for high-speed serial-attached SCSI (SAS) and serial ATA (SATA) connectivity.

"There's a lot we can do to make the systems less costly ... and easier to use," Bobroff said. Intel is also working through the Storage Bridge Bay Working Group, which recently released a specification that uses a common array chassis that accepts a variety of controllers. "It's a first step in trying to modularize the chassis and controller form factor," Bobroff said, adding that users should begin seeing commoditized products based on Storage Bridge Bay in the next six months or so.

"This effort here will address some of the cost issues," he said. Users at the conference in Orlando said they are considering deploying storage architectures based on commoditized storage, but they are also concerned that manageability will become increasingly more difficult.