LeftHand nails first-time virtual rollouts

The SAS Starter SAN is pitched at firms looking to deploy their first virtual projects

LeftHand Networks, a storage area network (SAN) developer owned by HP, has announced a new entry-level solution designed to help firms lower costs, improve performance and remove bottlenecks in virtualised environments.

The LeftHand SAS Starter SAN is pitched at firms looking to deploy their first virtual projects, and has been built to make the process of creating, accessing and managing shared storage resources much simpler, the company said.

"Customers are looking for cost-effective storage solutions that help them realise the promised efficiencies of virtualised server environments," said Bill Chambers, vice president of LeftHand Networks.

"The entry-level SAS Starter SAN gives customers an affordable, high-performing option that allows them to start small and add capacity as their needs grow."

The Starter SAN can scale to over 80 network ports and 320 disk drives.

The firm also announced a high-capacity Sata Starter SAN, which it said would save companies a quarter of their disk-drive capacity, in comparison to its own previous releases.

Both the Starter SANs are available now, and include a number of management tools designed to help firms as they tackle virtual systems for the first time. Prices start at $35,000 (£25,000) for the 4.8TB SAS Starter SAN, and $30,000 (£22,000) for the 12TB Sata Starter SAN.