MD3220 Dell PowerVault 24-Bay 2.5-Inch SAS Storage Array

The Dell PowerVault MD3220 is a 6Gb SAS storage array that holds up to twenty-four 2.5 inch SAS, Near-line SAS and solid state drives. It is the 2.5 inch member of the MD3200 series, and a single MD3220 connects directly to up to four servers in a high availability configuration, or up to eight servers without redundancy.

Each controller in the PowerVault MD3220 has 2GB of battery-backed cache, flash memory protects the cache, and dual controllers run active-active while mirroring each other's cache. RAID levels 0, 1, 10, 5 and 6 are supported, with up to 512 virtual disks. Every controller has four x4 6Gb SAS host connectors (SFF-8088), one x4 6Gb SAS expansion connector, one RJ-45 1Gb Ethernet remote management port and one serial service port.

Capacity grows by hot plugging MD1220 24-bay SAS expansion enclosure or MD1200 12-bay SAS expansion enclosure units behind the array. The base limit is 120 drives, and the Additional Hard Drives Premium Feature Key raises it to 192. Optional features include snapshots (16 per virtual disk, 256 per system), virtual disk copy, the High Performance Tier firmware upgrade and self-encrypting drives. MD Storage Manager handles setup and monitoring.

Available 2.5 inch drives for the MD3220 are 15,000 RPM SAS in 73GB and 146GB, 10,000 RPM SAS in 146GB and 300GB, 7,200 RPM Near-line SAS in 500GB and a 149GB solid state drive. The array measures 8.68 cm (3.42 in.) high, 44.63 cm (17.57 in.) wide and 50.8 cm (20 in.) deep, and weighs 24.2 kg (53.35 lbs) fully configured. Power supplies are rated 600 W peak output over 90 to 264 VAC. More arrays and enclosures are in Dell storage systems.