Corona-Norco District Overhauls Storage System To Consolidate Data

A 53,000-student district in Southern California has beefed up its storage systems with gear from Nexsan. The Corona-Norco Unified School District has deployed a newly released Nexsan E60 disk subsystem with 40 SAS and 20 SATA drives. The small footprint storage array has a maximum capacity of 120 TB and takes up a modest 4U of rack space. It has two fibre channel ports and two iSCSI ports per controller and supports one or two RAID controllers.

Two years ago the district switched from fibre channel storage to iSCSI from Nexsan. "We were never fully satisfied with fibre channel SANs because of the high costs and lack of flexibility, which is why we shifted to iSCSI," said Network Manager Brian Troudy. But, he added, "The real driving factors for us were the cost per terabyte, as well as the ability to achieve power savings on arrays and maximize disk capacity on a rack."

The latest upgrade allowed the school system to consolidate its VMware-based application data and enhance its data protection strategy. The district now uses the pricier SAS drives to perform primary storage for its Exchange, database, and other critical application data; it uses the less costly SATA drives for disk-based backup of data.

Nexsan also features AutoMAID, a proprietary function that allows the storage administrator to work through a Web browser to assign power savings to individual disks or groups of disks. For example, drives dedicated to backup can be powered down when backup isn't taking place to reduce energy usage.

"We begin to archive at midnight, and during the day most of the disks on the system are spun down," said Troudy. "We now use AutoMAID on the tiered E60 with AutoMAID active on the SATA drives to save considerable power."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • teacher and children working with a LEGO Education Science kit

    LEGO Education Debuts Science Kits for Hands-on Learning

    LEGO Education has announced a new learning solution to engage students in hands-on science learning. Available in three kits by grade band, LEGO Education Science provides 120-plus standards-aligned science lessons, teacher materials, and select LEGO bricks and hardware.

  • school building split in half, with one side collapsing into a dark hole

    Office of Educational Technology, National Center for Education Statistics Fall Victim to ED Cuts

    The U.S. Department of Education has announced cuts of nearly half of its staff, numbering more than 1,300 workers, according to AP reporting. While official details on the cuts are not available, early commentary on LinkedIn has revealed drastic cuts in the areas of educational technology and data.

  • Two digital hands made of interconnected lines and nodes shaking hands firmly against a minimal technological background

    IBM to Acquire AI and Data Solutions Provider DataStax

    IBM has announced the planned acquisition AI and data solutions provider DataStax, in a move aimed at enhancing its watsonx portfolio and advancing generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for enterprises.

  • zSpace Imagine Learning Solution

    zSpace Debuts Headset-Free AR/VR System

    Immersive learning company zSpace has announced the zSpace Imagine Learning Solution, a headset-free AR/VR laptop system designed for elementary education. The all-in-one platform integrates hardware, software, and hands-on lessons to create dynamic learning experiences for young students.