StoneFly USS™ Hyperconverged Storage Appliance
- Supported Hypervisors: Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware, and Citrix (Formerly XenServer) hypervisors.
- Available in Integrated, Dual Node Shared Nothing, Scale Out, Disaggregated High Availability, and Totally Disaggregated Hardware Configurations.
- Configure NAS, SAN, and Object storage in one hyperconverged system.
- Manage all storage resources with a single centralized management interface.
- Built-in Cloud Connect to Azure, AWS, StoneFly cloud and support for all S3 compatible clouds.
- Built-in NVMe for Storage Operating system.
- Support Terabytes to Petabytes in Storage Capacity.
- Pre-configured with StoneFly SCVM™.
StoneFly Hyperconverged Storage Overview
StoneFly USS™ (Unified Storage and Server) combines storage, compute, and networking into one easy-to-manage, simple-to-use, highly scalable and redundant storage appliance.
With StoneFly’s innovative software defined storage approach, it’s easy to deploy, scale, and manage the hyperconverged storage infrastructure. Pre-configured with StoneFly Storage Concentrator Virtual Machine (SCVM) software, the USS hyperconverged servers delivers NAS, SAN, and Object storage with support for Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware, and Citrix (Formerly XenServer) hypervisors.
Our USS appliance is a customizable hyperconverged system. Users can choose the drives, RAID, network ports, and the hypervisor that runs on their USS appliances, thus making it a highly flexible solution and the perfect replacement for the “fixed hardware model” of the past.
Supported Hypervisors
High Performance Infrastructure
StoneFly hyperconverged infrastructure supports high speed network ports, high performance processors, and combinations of enterprise hard drives and flash drives. Enterprises can customize their hyperconverged storage appliance to best fit their storage and performance requirements.
Simplified Management
Manage compute, storage, and network resources with a single centralized management interface. Effortlessly provision resources, deploy a private cloud, integrate a public cloud, and manage all storage with a single one-click GUI.
Scalable without Limits
Start from Terabytes and scale out to Petabytes and virtually unlimited number of appliance nodes. Our hyperconverged storage are available in different form factors starting from 2U 8-bay to 4U 108-bay with Petabytes of storage capacity per Rackmount.
StoneFly Hyperconverged Storage: Enterprise Features & Data Services
StoneFly hyperconverged storage appliances are equipped with enterprise-grade data services and features that deliver an optimize data storage experience.
By leveraging the following data services and features, our hyperconverged infrastructure offer higher storage space utilization and greater value for money.
Erasure Coding
Make data more accessible and available with erasure coding. Erasure coding works similar to RAID technology but consumes less storage space.
Erasure coding divides data blocks into component and parity blocks and distributes them over the available storage drives. This makes the hyperconverged solution fault-tolerant. In the event of a drive failure, the end user experiences no disruption or data loss and continues to operate as if nothing happened.
Flash Cache™
Setup flash (SSDs) as a front-end cache to enhance data read and write speeds.
Our Flash Cache™ technology facilitates business environments looking to setup high speed data storage for hot tier or frequently accessed data. Flash Cache enables IT environments to process enterprise-grade workloads at incredible speeds. By setting up Flash Cache, businesses can effectively optimize data storage and speed up their storage experience.
Image-based Snapshots
SCVM enables businesses to configure image-based snapshots and create point-in-time snapshots of mission-critical workloads to recover from data corruption, accidental / malicious deletion, ransomware attack and other similar disasters.
For additional data protection, our customers can choose to run mainstream backup software like Veeam, Commvault, Veritas, Zerto, and more on StoneFly hyperconverged solutions.
Image-based snapshots can be configured using the pre-configured SCVM software. There’s no need to add a third party service provider to setup snapshots. Users can leverage SCVM to create snapshots and store them on on-premises or offsite storage appliances or in the cloud.
Thin Provisioning
Improve storage provisioning speed and dynamically allocate more disk space when required with thin provisioning.
Thin provisioning enables users to create virtual volumes that appear larger than their original size to applications that require dedicated storage capacity. This enhances storage provisioning speed by 3x. Businesses can add more capacity when the original storage space is consumed.
This feature also helps regulate the per TB cost of hyperconverged storage.
Asynchronous Replication
Schedule Replication jobs and replicate Virtual Machines between on-premises servers, or from on-premises to offsite servers, or from on-premises to cloud-based repositories.
Effortlessly setup redundancy for critical VMs and ensure high availability in a way that does not overload your network and bandwidth.
Synchronous Replication / Mirroring
Remove single point-of-failure and setup a highly available and redundant hyperconverged infrastructure.
Synchronous replication (mirroring) enables businesses to deploy a storage infrastructure that replicates data between two appliance nodes, creating a mirrored cluster. This cluster makes sure that the end user does not experience any disruption in data accessibility and availability.
In the event of a disaster (rogue malware, hardware failure, etc.), the path automatically changes and the appliance fails over to the working node. This failover is seamless and disruption-free. The user continues to access data while IT staff fixes the failed appliance node.
The integration of synchronous replication / mirroring creates a highly available hyperconverged infrastructure suitable for environments that rely on disruption-free accessibility to enterprise data.
Data Deduplication
Deduplication enhances storage space utilization by removing duplicates that consume unnecessary storage capacity. The built-in SCVM software analyzes data blocks and looks for repetition. The duplicate copies are replaced with a reference address that directs to a single, compressed copy; hence reducing the storage capacity consumed.
Our hyperconverged infrastructure leverages deduplication extending it to appliance nodes, any file system, and/or hypervisor.
Automated Storage Tiering
Setup storage tiers in on-premises, offsite, and cloud storage repositories. Define policies that move data between storage tiers for automated and efficient data management.
By using combinations of enterprise hard drives (SAS) and flash (SSDs) drives and moving data volumes between them, businesses can effectively control the cost of data storage and retention in our hyperconverged infrastructure.
Advanced Data Encryption
Secure mission-critical enterprise workloads with advanced encryption technology.
StoneFly hyperconverged solutions protect data at rest with AES 256-bit encryption while the data at transit is secured with SSL/TLS tunneling.
Data encryption facilitates businesses processing confidential data to operate without having to worry about data leak or breach. Encryption technology plays a pivotal role for industries like healthcare by encrypting patient data, police departments by encrypting Personally Identifiable Information (PII), financial companies by encrypting financial records and credit card information, and many others.
Cloud-Enabled Hyperconverged Storage Appliance
StoneFly hyperconverged storage appliances have built-in cloud connect services. Enterprises can integrate public clouds, like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and any other S3 compatible cloud, and StoneFly private cloud.
Cloud integration makes our hyperconverged storage appliances a truly hybrid storage solution. Users can add cloud storage on the fly and setup redundancy by storing copies in the cloud.
The hybrid hyperconverged infrastructure also plays an effective role in an enterprise data protection plan. Businesses can leverage remote replication to create on-site or offsite copies with an additional copy in the cloud. This facilitates data protection policies, like the 3-2-1 rule, hence making the storage solution reliable, robust, and secure for mission-critical enterprise workloads.
Remote Replication to Secondary Hyperconverged Storage
With built-in iSCSI initiators and synchronous or asynchronous replication, setup remote replication (campus mirroring) for mission-critical workloads.
Our USS hyperconverged storage is compatible with most mainstream storage servers and can be configured as a secondary storage / disaster recovery site. Enterprises can also choose two USS hyperconverged storage systems with one as primary and the other as on-premises or offsite secondary storage system.
Leverage our remote replication features to facilitate high availability requirements and deploy a robust hyperconverged storage system without a single point of failure.
Replace your Datacenter with StoneFly Hyperconverged Storage Systems
The traditional datacenter consists of different servers, network systems, and uses a number of tools to assign and manage storage resources for different clients and users. StoneFly USS hyperconverged storage appliances enable enterprises to replace all their servers, storage, network hardware and tools with one storage system that has it all.
Enterprise IT environments can manage the virtualization layer and provisioned storage resources with a single centralized management interface.
Our software defined storage technology enables users to run Windows, Linux, and applications on dedicated VMs. The USS hyperconverged storage appliances also allow users to quickly spin up new VMs, whenever necessary.
StoneFly hyperconverged storage appliances have a modular and redundant infrastructure. This architecture makes our hyperconverged storage appliances a reliable choice to replace storage infrastructure as primary or secondary enterprise datacenters.
Redundant & Modular Storage Hardware
Each hyperconverged hardware houses redundant, hot-swappable and modular key components. Users can dynamically replace storage drives and power supplies in a disruption-free and tool-less process.
The redundant architecture ensures that even if one of the power supplies fail, the hyperconverged appliance continues to operate without discontinuity.
Integrated data services such as delta-based snapshots, synchronous replication, and erasure coding together with proven hardware technologies like RAID and RAID cache battery backup ensure business continuity and high availability for enterprise mission-critical workloads.
Software-Defined Hyperconverged Storage
Our hyperconverged appliances come pre-configured with our Software Defined Storage (SDS) solution – SCVM. With SCVM, users can control their hyperconverged storage infrastructure and integrate several enterprise-grade data services such as deduplication, thin provisioning, snapshots, replication, and more.
StoneFly’s software-defined storage solution facilitates IT administrators to manage, control, organize and process petabytes of storage with a single centralized management interface. This effectively compliments data storage efficiency, utilization, and management.
Available StoneFly Hyperconverged Storage Hardware Configurations
StoneFly Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) is available in three hardware configurations:
- Integrated Hyperconverged Storage Appliance (USS)
- Dual Node Shared Nothing Hyperconverged Storage Appliance (USS-SN™)
- Scale Out Hyperconverged Storage Appliance
- High Availability Disaggregated Hyperconverged Storage Appliance (USS-HA™)
StoneFly USS – Integrated Hyperconverged Storage Appliance
The USS integrated hyperconverged appliance combines network, compute, storage, and virtualization engines (hypervisors) in a single appliance node.
Each USS hyper converged platform comprises of integrated HCI Controller (SC), RAID controllers, and storage drives. The USS integrated appliance configuration supports combinations of enterprise SAS, and flash drives (SSDs) to deliver Terabytes to Petabytes of highly scalable hyperconverged storage.
StoneFly USS hyperconverged servers can scale out to virtually unlimited number of nodes; all managed by a single centralized interface.
StoneFly USS – Integrated Hyperconverged Storage Architecture
StoneFly USS Integrated Hyperconverged Storage Appliance Scalability
Each StoneFly USS integrated appliance node can scale to virtually unlimited storage capacity. The USS can scale up (add storage capacity) and scale out (add storage capacity and performance) to terabytes and petabytes of storage capacity.
To scale up, users can add expansion units with Terabytes of storage capacity. To scale out users can add USS integrated appliance nodes.
Interested about StoneFly USS Integrated Hyperconverged Appliance Hardware Specifications?
StoneFly USS-SN™ – Dual Node Shared Nothing Hyperconverged Appliance
The Unified Storage and Server Shared Nothing (USS-SN) appliance comprises of two single appliance nodes configured as hyperconverged clusters.
The hyperconverged cluster appliances have redundant hardware. Each hyperconverged cluster appliance has integrated HCI Controllers, RAID controllers, and storage drives. The two hyperconverged appliances are configured as hyperconverged clusters and data is replicated between them.
This creates a fault-tolerant architecture without a single point of failure.
The USS-SN is highly scalable and durable with built-in cloud connect for additional redundancy and data availability.
StoneFly USS-SN – Dual Node Shared Nothing Hyperconverged Cluster Architecture
The Dual Node Sharing Nothing Hyperconverged Cluster is for customers that have between 2 to 10,000 sites where the application uptime is critical, and downtime not acceptable. Each node is independent and self-sufficient and shares no memory, disk storage, network, CPU, power supply etc. all fully virtualized. So if one node fails, the other will pick up the pace, offering always-on, continuous support to your enterprise.
Interested about StoneFly USS-SN Hyperconverged Cluster Appliance Hardware Specifications?
StoneFly Scale Out Hyperconverged Appliance
StoneFly scale out hyperconverged appliance configuration starts with three appliance nodes. The HCI is available with Terabytes to Petabytes of storage capacity, dually scalable to virtually unlimited storage capacity and performance capabilities.
Enterprise users can scale up by adding expansion units. To add storage capacity and performance, users can add RAID expansion arrays.
The scale out node aggregates workload volume over the total appliance nodes within the system and built-in erasure coding ensures high availability, redundancy, and fault-tolerance.
The combination of enterprise data services, high performance storage technology, and hyperconvergence delivers a highly scalable, feature-rich, easy to manage and scale storage solution.
StoneFly Scale Out Hyperconverged Infrastructure Architecture
Interested in our Scale Out Hyperconverged Infrastructure?
Available StoneFly HCI Appliance Series
Choose from a range of value-tier, mid-tier and enterprise-tier HCI appliances & build your hyper-converged system as per your requirements and budged. Available StoneFly USS appliance series include:
- D-Series (Value-Tier HCI Appliances for SMBs & SMEs)
- XS-Series (Enterprise Single Xeon HCI Appliances)
- XD-Series (Enterprise Dual Xeon HCI Appliances)
Supported Hyperconverged Storage Expansion Units
Add Terabytes of storage capacity comprising of enterprise SAS, SSD, or combinations of both to our integrated hyperconverged appliances.
The expansion process is disruption-free and our SCVM software takes care of the integration process.
Here’s a list of available expansion units:
- 12-bay 3.5” 2U 12Gb SAS Expansion Unit
- 16-bay 3.5” 3U 12Gb SAS Expansion Unit
- 24-bay 3.5” 4U 12Gb SAS Expansion Unit
- 24-bay 2.5” 2U 12Gb SAS Expansion Unit
- 44-bay 3.5″ 4U 12Gb SAS Expansion Unit
- 60-bay 3.5″ 4U 12Gb SAS Expansion Unit
Each USS integrated hyper converged platform can support a maximum of 256 enterprise SAS or flash drives (SSDs) per RAID controller.
12-bay 3.5″ 2U 12Gb SAS Expansion Unit
16-bay 3.5″ 3U 12Gb SAS Expansion Unit
24-bay 3.5″ 4U 12Gb SAS Expansion Unit
24-bay 2.5″ 2U 12Gb SAS Expansion Unit
Build a Single Hyper-converged Storage Solution for All Your Enterprise Needs
StoneFly USS-HA™ – High Availability Disaggregated Hyperconverged Storage Appliance
The USS-HA™ is high availability disaggregated configuration of StoneFly hyperconverged solutions.
The USS-HA appliances have a disaggregated and redundant architecture. Each disaggregated HA disaggregated appliance comprises of:
- Dual 1U HCI Controllers (or Dual 2U HCI Controllers)
- RAID Array (Base configuration with 12Gb SAS attached and optional upgrade for 16Gb Fibre Channel attached RAID arrays)
The HCI controllers comprise of the virtualization layer (with the hypervisor) and the management layer that enables management of the hyperconverged storage resources.
The RAID array has integrated dual active/active RAID controllers and supports combinations of enterprise SAS and flash drives (SSDs).
The Dual 1U HCI Controllers can support a maximum of 1776 drives (or more with FC switch)
The Dual 2U HCI Controllers can support a maximum of 4440 drives (or more with FC switch)
StoneFly USS-HA™ – High Availability Disaggregated Hyperconverged Appliances Architecture
StoneFly USS-HA – Highly Scalable Disaggregated Architecture
Add Performance to StoneFly Hyperconverged Storage Appliances
Users can add more performance to StoneFly disaggregated high availability hyperconverged appliances by adding HCI controllers.
By adding another hardware independant controller, the user adds processing capabilities with the additional processor. The total workload is aggregated over the total number of HCI controllers in the hyperconverged storage system.
Add Storage Capacity to StoneFly Hyperconverged Storage Appliances (Scale Up)
Add Performance & Storage Capacity to StoneFly Disaggregated Hyperconverged Storage Appliances (Scale Out)
Users can add Terabytes to Petabytes of storage capacity to StoneFly disaggregated hyperconverged appliances by adding storage expansion units. The USS-HA supports expansion units with 12, 24, 36, 60, 90, and 108 enterprise 7200RPM, 10k, 15k SAS and 12Gb SSDs in 2U, 3U, and 4U rackmounts.
Add performance and storage capacity by adding appliance nodes to the disaggregated hyperconverged system.
Appliance nodes comprise of dual HCI controllers and RAID arrays. The USS-HA is capable of scaling out to virtually unlimited number of appliance nodes delivering Petabytes of enterprise-grade hyperconverged storage and high performance with incredible read and write operations.
Interested about StoneFly USS-HA Hyperconverged Appliance Hardware Specifications?
Available Disaggregated USS-HA Appliance Models
Choose from a range of value-tier, mid-tier and enterprise-tier Voyager SAN appliances & build your HA cluster SAN system as per your requirements and budget. Available StoneFly Voyager SAN appliance series include:
- D-Series (Mid-Tier SAN Appliances for SMEs)
- XS-Series (Enterprise Single Xeon SAN Appliances)
- XD-Series (Enterprise Dual Xeon SAN Appliances)
USS-HA HCI Appliances: D-Series
2 x 2U HCI Controller
- Quad-Core (Standard) to 16-Core (Optional) Xeon Processor
- Support upto 1776 SAS drives or SSDs with EBODs
- 32GB per Node (Standard) to 128GB per node (Optional) System Memory
Note: USS_HA appliances have 2 x HCI controllers + one or more HA RAID arrays. The supported D-Series HA RAID arrays are listed under.
For customization options, contact StoneFly sales.
USS-HA HCI Appliances: XS-Series
2 x 1U HCI Controller
- Choice of 2 x 12Gb SAS Ports or 2 x 16Gb FC Ports for HA RAID Arrays
- 10-Core (Standard) to 28-Core (Optional) Xeon Processor
- Support upto 1776 SAS drives or SSDs with EBODs
- 32GB per Node (Standard) to 512GB per node (Optional) System Memory
- 256GB (Standard) to 3.8TB (Optional) NVMe SSD for OS
2 x 2U SAN Storage Controller
- Choice of 2 x 12Gb SAS Ports or 2 x 16Gb FC Ports for HA RAID Arrays
- 10-Core (Standard) to 28-Core (Optional) Xeon Processor
- Support upto 4440 SAS drives or SSDs with EBODs
- 32GB per Node (Standard) to 512GB per node (Optional) System Memory
- 256GB (Standard) to 3.8TB (Optional) NVMe SSD for OS
Note: USS-HA appliances have 2 x HCI controllers + one or more HA RAID arrays. The supported XS-Series HA RAID arrays are listed under.
For customization options, contact StoneFly sales.
USS-HA HCI Appliances: XD-Series
2 x 1U HCI Controller
- Choice of 2 x 12Gb SAS Ports or 2 x 16Gb FC Ports for HA RAID Arrays
- Dual 10-Core (Standard) to Dual 28-Core (Optional) Xeon Processor
- Support upto 1776 SAS drives or SSDs with EBODs
- 64GB per Node (Standard) to 1TB per node (Optional) System Memory
- 240GB (Standard) to 1.9TB (Optional) SSD for OS
2 x 2U HCI Controller
- Choice of 2 x 12Gb SAS Ports or 2 x 16Gb FC Ports for HA RAID Arrays
- Dual 10-Core (Standard) to Dual 28-Core (Optional) Xeon Processor
- Support upto 4440 SAS drives or SSDs with EBODs
- 64GB per Node (Standard) to 1TB per node (Optional) System Memory
- 256GB (Standard) or 3.8TB (Optional) NVMe SSD for OS
Note: USS_HA appliances have 2 x storage controllers + one or more HA RAID arrays. The supported XD-Series HA RAID arrays are listed under.
For customization options, contact StoneFly sales.
Supported Hyperconverged Storage Expansion Arrays and Units for HA Cluster Appliances
USS-HA hyperconverged storage appliances support a range of expansion arrays / RAID subsystems:
- 12 x 3.5” 2U High IOPS HA RAID Expansion Array – 12Gb SAS or 16Gb FC
- 16 x 3.5” 3U High IOPS HA RAID Expansion Array – 12Gb SAS or 16 Gb FC
- 24 x 3.5” 4U High IOPS HA RAID Expansion Array – 12Gb SAS or 16Gb FC
- 24 x 2.5” 2U High IOPS HA RAID Expansion Array – 12Gb SAS or 16 Gb FC
Supported expansion units for the hyperconverged storage HA cluster appliances include:
- 12 x 3.5” 2U HA Expansion Unit – 12Gb SAS
- 16 x 3.5” 3U HA Expansion Unit – 12Gb SAS
- 24 x 2.5” 2U HA Expansion Unit – 12Gb SAS
- 60 x 3.5” 4U HA Expansion Unit – 12Gb SAS, Single Drawer
- 60 x 3.5” 4U HA Expansion Unit – 12Gb SAS, Three Drawer
12 Bay
16 Bay
12 Bay
16 Bay
24 Bay (3.5″ drives)
24 Bay (2.5″ drives)
24 Bay (2.5″ drives)
60 Bay
StoneFly Hyperconverged Infrastructure is also available with Petabyte Storage capacity in a truly modular, high availability hardware configuration
Trusted by Customers Worldwide
Recommended StoneFly Hyperconverged Storage Appliance Models
12-bay 2U 3.5" Hyperconverged Appliance
- Dual bonded 10Gb RJ-45 iSCSI connections per cluster (backwards compatible with 1Gb)
- Twelve 12Gb SAS 3.5″ enterprise drives: 7200RPM, 10k, 15k, and SSD.
- Supports up to 256 SAS drives or SSD for maximum capacity of 4 Petabytes (PBs) per node
- Uses only 4U total rack height.
- Redundant 80-PLUS certified high-efficiency hot-swappable power supplies.
Dual 2U Cluster Appliance with 12-Bay High IOPs HA RAID Subsystem
- Six bonded 10Gb RJ-45 iSCSI connections per cluster (backwards compatible with 1Gb)
- Supports up to 1776 SAS drives or SSD with optional expansion.
- Dual 12Gb SAS ports on each cluster node for connection to HA RAID expansion array(s).
- No single point of failure.
- Supports all famous Hypervisors such as Vmware, Hyper-V and Citrix
- Redundant 80-PLUS certified high-efficiency hot-swappable power supplies
