Imation Corp. announced the availability of the latest version of its Nexsan(R) NST5000 unified hybrid storage system. The new release addresses the increasing demand for enterprise-class storage capabilities in small to midsize enterprises and the need for greater performance at an affordable price for a variety of primary storage applications including databases, virtual servers and public and private cloud environments.

It is available immediately through the 600-plus Nexsan value-added channel partners worldwide. The growing need for long-term data retention and the increased adoption of virtualization and cloud computing are creating even more pressure on users to find highly efficient and reliable storage solutions that can deliver performance, capacity and ease of use. The NST5000 unified hybrid storage system targets that gap by delivering exceptional performance without the capacity limitations and high price points of SSD-only solutions.

The NST5000 uses the right amount of solid state cache to deliver the performance users need while controlling storage costs. In addition, it leverages Nexsan's E-Series high density external storage systems for maximum capacity. The new release of the NST5000 expands on this unique value to deliver unparalleled price/performance for even the most demanding workloads.

Key enhancements include: A 400% increase in storage capacity to over five petabytes - giving users greater enterprise-level capacity to meet their fast growing data retention needs; A 50% decrease in cost for solid-state cache with greater SSD capacity improving overall price/performance value; Streamlined management and administration for larger scale installations and managed service providers - including SNMP support for complex environments, a full command line interface (CLI) for advanced users, and an enhanced GUI that is faster and easier to use; Support for VMware vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI) accelerates vSphere server performance by up to 50% - providing hardware acceleration on the NST5000 when integrated into a VMware ESX/ESXi environment. This functionality accelerates the VMware ESX/ESXi host performance by offloading specific virtual machine and storage management operations to the NST5000 which reduces consumption of server CPU and memory and storage fabric bandwidth.