Hitachi Injects High Performance Boost into Storage

The 20 percent performance boost to the AMS1000 adds to the storage systems’ unique business enabling capabilities first unveiled in April, 2006 such as 32 logical cache partitions, non-disruptive “on-the-fly” data movement across multiple tiers of storage, enterprise-class RAID-6 data protection, and a key industry-first: sophisticated multi-protocol support for iSCSI, NAS, and Fibre Channel SAN, embedded in a single system. The AMS1000 also offers 4 Gigabit per Second Fibre Channel SAN Connectivity, enhancing the performance of applications such as video-on-demand and medical imaging. No other storage vendor can provide such an integrated solution within a midrange storage system without the aid of external appliances and/or host software.  Simply put, the AMS1000 is the most flexible midrange storage systems on the market today.

"Performance is one of the fundamental core aspects of a storage system," said Tony Asaro, senior analyst Enterprise Strategy Group. "The processing power of a storage system is one of the key elements that impact performance.  Customers should plan for performance requirements today and for the future and they need a storage system that can meet their requirements as they grow."

Built from the ground-up to deliver extreme flexibility to clients, the AMS1000 enables clients to mix and match multiple tiers of storage in a single rack (including 73GB, 146GB and 300GB Fibre Channel and 500GB SATA drives), consolidate Fibre Channel SAN, NAS or iSCSI attached storage within a single rack—with the ability to isolate resources for consistent quality-of-service, secure multi-level access and deliver non-disruptive volume migration.  As an example, data volumes can be migrated from economical SATA drives to Fibre Channel from RAID 5 to RAID 6 or from one RAID profile to another—dynamically empowering clients to adjust their storage infrastructure to their changing business needs or data requirements.

“Driven by escalating costs, not only in terms of yearly outlays for storage, but also in energy and support costs, users are looking to consolidate and maximise the efficiency of storage assets,” said John Webster , Principal IT Advisor of Illuminata, Inc. “By giving customers the ability to dynamically move application data between different classes of storage within the system, now coupled with a performance enhancement and multi-protocol interfaces, the AMS1000 is worthy of consideration as a flexible, long-term data consolidation platform.”

The AMS1000 is the cornerstone of Hitachi ’s highly versatile and highly scalable channel-optimised advanced midrange storage systems—the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage and Workgroup Modular Storage lines.  Hitachi’s lineup of advanced midrange storage systems are powered by attractively priced dual controller high-speed bus technology and offer the benefits of Logical Cache Partitioning, Virtual Ports, and Host Storage Domains within a single system, or complement the Network Storage Controller or Universal Storage Platform as tiered or archive storage, especially when configured with SATA drives for lower costs. Hitachi also announced today that it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the “Leaders” quadrant in the, ““Magic Quadrant for Midrange Enterprise Disk Arrays, 2H06” (1) report. (See press release announced today:  “Hitachi Positioned in “Leaders” Quadrant for Midrange Enterprise Disk Arrays.)

About Hitachi Data Systems

Hitachi Data Systems leverages global R&D resources to develop storage solutions built on industry-leading technology with the performance, availability and scalability to maximise customers' ROI and minimise their risk. By focusing on the customer's perspective as we apply the best hardware, software, and services from Hitachi and our partners, we uniquely satisfy our customers' business needs. With approximately 3,200 employees, Hitachi Data Systems conducts business through direct and indirect channels in the public, government and private sectors in over 170 countries and regions. Its customers include more than 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies. For more information, please visit our Web site at http://www.hds.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, , is a leading global electronics company with approximately 356,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2005 (ended March 31, 2006) consolidated sales totaled 9,464 billion yen ($80.9 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials and financial services. For more information on Hitachi , please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.