Vortex Express

Vortex Express is built from the ground up with cutting edge PCI-E fabric technology to support RDMA and NVMe-oF protocols providing you an end to end NVMe all flash solution. Give yourself a head start with the speed and performance that was previously only available for the fortune 500 companies, for a much lower cost.
The system delivers flexibility, elasticity, simplicity and resiliency at scale with high-end performance storage fabric. In addition to delivering high-performance block storage with rich data services, Vortex Express offers a comprehensive and easy to manage toolset for IT operations and lifecycle management. It is ready for automating all your infrastructure workflows.

Vortex Express is highly adaptable to your storage needs, as a unique product in a category of its own as it entirely relies on the PCI-E Fabric for all internal operations, including replication, cluster path mirroring, and various system operations with speeds of up to 128GBs and nanosecond latency.

Going from unleashing the power of up to 320 NVMe-disks, or expand your capacity with up to 2048 SAS-disks and still have 160 NVMe-disks available, on one controller, This makes it ideal for Ultra-Large databases, Forensic analysis, Medical and scientific research, intensive big data workloads, AI and deep learning systems, agile private cloud deployments, and datacenter consolidation.
The PCI-E Fabric allows the system to scale out with up to 320 NVMe disks per node, allowing for up to 9.6 PB of ultra-low latency NVMe storage.

Vortex express systems come in various flavors

Non Clustered storage targets

Single node stand-alone systems with a single storage controller (no HA) Single node Active/Passive with two storage controllers (HA)

Clustered storage targets

two-node clustered systems with two storage controllers (metro Cluster) two-node clustered systems with four storage controllers (HA metro cluster)

Vortex Express Base and Advanced Edition Vortex Express Base Edition

Start to leverage the power of NVMe without breaking the bank. The Vortex Express BE supports up to a maximum of 32 U.2 NVMe disks in a compact 1U format.

Vortex Express Advanced Edition

The Advanced Edition is a 2U modular NVMe storage system that offers 24 internal SATA/SAS 2.5 inch bays. It is designed with large research institutes in mind, whether it’s governmental or commercial. This system supports up to 64 U.2 2.5 Inch NVMe disks natively and up to 320NVMe disks using PCIE fabrics.

Vortex Express advanced Expansion options NVMe expansion

Vortex Express is expandable with one UR32 NVMe expansion kit which allows the addition of 32 NVMe disks to the controller

Vortex Express Advanced Expansion

The Advanced expansion provides you with the ultimate in current storage-technologies. It comes with our unique PCIE Fabric Composer to allow the connection of 10 UR32 NVMe expansion kits for a total of 320 NVMe disks to the storage controller through the PCIE Fabric composer that offers 512GB/s of transfer speeds with nanosecond latency

SAS expansion

Vortex Express is expandable with any 2U SAS cabinet, supporting the SAS protocol. This can go up to a maximum of 1024 disks through cabinet cascading. Using SAS expansion, you can still expand your NVMe Standard or Advanced Edition with the NVMe Advanced expansion, with up to 5 UR32 NVMe expansion kits for a total of 160 NVMe disks.

Feature	VFusion Vortex express	HPE Nimble Storage (HF Series)	NetApp FAS Series	Dell EMC SC Series	Pure Storage FlashArray//C
Footprint for 7.3PB effective	7 1U rack units with 100% NVMe with 32 NVMe units per shelf	64 rack units (using 10TB 7k HDDs +3.8TB SSDs for cache)	28 rack units (using 10TB 7k HDDs + PCIe Flash Cache)	30 rack units (using 10TB HDDs + 1.6TB & 3.8TB SAS SSDs for cache)	9 rack units with 100% NVMe DFMs
Latency	Consistent 700NS-1ms latency; no cache misses, no hotspots, no worries	<1ms (cache hit) >5ms (cache miss)	5ms–10+ms write latency; read latency dependent on read caching via FlashCache	<1ms (cache hit) >5ms (cache miss)	Consistent 2-4ms latency
End-to-End NV Me	PCIE Fabric	Not supported	Not supported	Not available	DirectFlash™️
Flash Media	7.6TB / 30TB VFusion Flash modules Compatible with off the shelf Flash modules	Not supported	Not supported	Not available	Proprietary QLC DirectFlash™ modules
NVMe High Availability	HA available via PCIe fabric	Not supported	Not supported	Not available	Not available
Multi-tier expandability	System supports 10 NVMe shelves, and up to 2048 SAS disks within the same controller.	Only SAS based expansion	Only SAS based expansion	Only SAS based expansion	Only NVMe based expansion
PCIE fabric	Used for all internal system operations including replication and data transfer	Not supported	Not supported	Not supported	Not supported
Networking support	Works with all industry standard Network, Fc and infiniband cards	Only manufacturer approved hardware	Only manufacturer approved hardware	Only manufacturer approved hardware	Only manufacturer approved hardware
All-inclusive Software Features	Vortex express comes standard with all features	Via Timeless	Not available	Not available	Not available
Full Performance Through Failure Or Upgrade	100%	100%	~50% impact with controller failure per HA-pair	~50% impact with controller failure per HA-pair	100%
Protocol Support	NVMe-oF, NVMe/TCP (RoCE),ISER, iSCSI, FC, SMB, NFS, Native NVMe (on linux)	FC, iSCSI, SAS	FC, FCoE, iSCSI, NFS, pNFS, CIFS/SMB	FC, iSCSI	NVMe-oF (RoCE), iSCSI, FC, SMB, NFS
Controller NDU	Lifetime data in place upgrade. Modular architecture allowing for true NDU with unique NVMe HA Select HA models	Intra-chassis NDU, forklift between chassis	Via complicated aggregate relocation process, done by professional services	Not Supported	Free Every Three – via Evergreen Gold

Benefits of adopting Vortex Express

Impressive performance in throughput up to 200Gbit/s per port and up to 6 Million IOPS with sub-millisecond latency.
Intelligent hardware-assisted data reduction and encryption up to 100Gbit/s.
Software defined storage with virtually unlimited configurations.
Plug and play VMware support.
Easy online Upgrades in cluster environments.
Protection against silent corruption.
Integrates seamlessly in existing infrastructures
No disk or shelf ordering needed.
Disks and Shelves are transferable between systems as volumes

System Specifications

Dual Intel scalable processors

a variety of processors picked based on requirements

up to 1.5TB of memory

Memory capacity is defined depending on customer wishes for a variety of operations including Deduplication and compression in relation to storage target sizes

16Gb Fibre Channel
10/25/50/100/200Gb iSCSI
25/50/100/200Gb RDMA
12Gb SAS (optional)
Native NVMe
PCI-E Fabric support
infiniband Supportt
Multiprotocol: 16Gb Fibre Channel SFP+ / 10Gb iSCSI SFP+ RDMA 25GB SFP28 100GB QSFP28

Thin Provisioning

Allocate and consume physical storage capacity as needed in disk pools. Thin is virtual mode only.

IP & FC Remote Replication

Safely replicate data to any global location that includes mirroring thin provisioned pools

Snapshots

Easily recover files after accidental deletion or alteration with Redirect on Write snaps

Volume Copy/Clones

Enable seamless volume relocation and disk-based backup and recovery with a full, replicated copy of

Encryption (SEDs)

Render data useless to unauthorized users with drive-level encryption, even if the drive has been removed from the enclosure (internal key management included)

Encryption (Quick Assist)

Native support for Intel quick assist for inline hardware assisted data encryption

Virtualization Integrations

VMware vSphere, vCenter, Microsoft Hyper-V

SupportAssist:

Provides enhancements enabling automated maintenance capabilities

Best in Class Performance

VFusionOS and its advanced PCIE Fabric technology can help you achieve maximum efficiency and cost savings for your applications. With its unmatched performance density, the VFusion PCIe Fabric offers up to 800GB/s throughput, 24M IOPs, and incredibly low latency of 10µs per 7RU system. This means that you can enjoy lightning-fast performance without the added complexity and expense of traditional storage solutions.

Performance Density at Scale

VFusion Vortex Express is designed for modern workloads and provides unmatched performance density. With VFusionOS at its core, it can handle large amounts of data with ease. Each 7RU system offers an impressive 7.3 PB of storage capacity, 800GB/s throughput, and 24M IOPS. The performance density scales linearly with the number of arrays, making it easy to expand as needed. Two arrays can provide up to 1.6TB/s in 14RU, three arrays can offer 2.4TB/s, and a full rack can deliver up to 4.8TB/s with over 43PB of usable capacity. It’s the perfect solution for mission-critical and data-intensive workloads..