Dell announced the expansion of its XC Series with new hyper-converged appliances that offer an increase in storage density. The XC Series Version 2.0 models are built on 13th generation (13G) PowerEdge Servers and are designed to address the demands of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), private cloud and big data workloads. The new XC630 and XC730xd utilize OEM’d Nutanix software to merge storage, compute and hypervisor resources into one cohesive unit.
Dell expects the hyperconverged market to grow at an order of magnitude, and it has experienced strong demand for its current products. “We’ve seen strong customer interest in our debut Dell XC Series appliances, and our newest offerings substantially raise the bar,” said Alan Atkinson, vice president and general manager, Dell Storage. “The new web-scale converged appliances add greater configuration flexibility and pack more performance and capacity into our 13th generation servers, making them even more compelling for customers looking to adopt a newer, integrated systems model for delivering IT to their organizations.”
The Dell XC630-10 comes in a slim 1U chassis, a first for the XC Series. The slim design will appeal to space-constrained environments, such as co-location deployments. The XC630 is slimmer than the previous-generation 2U XC720xd, but it can support more virtual desktop users. The XC630-10 offers several configurations and a maximum storage capacity of 9.6 TB.
The XC730xd comes in a 2U chassis and offers -12 and -24 models. The XC730xd-12 supports 32 TB of capacity, which is 60 percent more storage than the previous generation. The XC730xd-24 offers up to 20 TB. Both models come with several CPU, SSD and HDD options. The previous generation offerings came in five fixed configurations, but the new models are modular and enable a “mix-and-match” purchasing system.
The Dell XC Series features a “pay-as-you-grow” pricing model that offers more flexibility to scale the environment as needs grow. Dell’s global services and support covers the appliances and provides customers with centralized support services. Dell also altered the support structure from limited three-year or five-year support packages to include one-year support packages, which appeals to budget-constrained customers. The Dell XC Series offers 27 percent lower cost compared to traditional VDI approaches according to a recent Wikibon analysis. The XC Series will be available in March.
