DS8870 overview

The DS8870 is the newest addition to the IBM® System Storage® DS8000® series. The DS8870 adds Model 961 (base frame) and 96E (expansion unit) to the 242x machine type family.

Features and functions of the DS8870

The following describes the features and functions of the DS8870.
High-density storage enclosure
The DS8000 series previously introduced the storage enclosure that supports 24 small form factor (SFF) 2.5” SAS drives in a 2U (height) factor. The DS8870 also supports a high-density and lower-cost-per-capacity large form factor (LFF) storage enclosure. This enclosure accepts 3.5" SAS drives, offering 12 drive slots. The LFF enclosure has a different appearance from the front than does the SFF enclosure, with its 12 drives slotting horizontally rather than vertically.
High-density frame design
The DS8870 base frame supports up to 240 disks. Up to three additional expansion frames (Model 96E) can be added. The first expansion model supports up to 336 disks, the second expansion model supports up to 480 disks, and the third expansion model supports an additional 480 disks. The DS8870 can support a total of 1,536 drives (four frames) in a compact footprint, allowing high density and preserving valuable floor space in datacenter environments. Coupled with the DS8000 series cooling implementation, compact system footprint, and small form factor SAS-2 drives, a fully configured DS8870 consumes up to 37% less power than earlier generations of DS8000 storage units.
IBM POWER7® technology
The DS8870 supports IBM POWER7 processor technology for high performance. It can be equipped with a 2-core, 4-core, 8-core, or 16-core processor complex for the highest performance requirements.
8 Gbps host and 8 Gbps device adapters
The DS8870 model offers host adapters that include high-function PCIe-attached four and eight-port Fibre Channel and IBM FICON® host adapters. The DS8870 uses direct point-to-point high-speed PCIe connections to the I/O enclosures to communicate with the device and host adapters.

The DS8870 offers I/O enclosures that include up to 16 device adapters. The device adapters have four 8 Gbps Fibre Channel arbitrated loop (FC-AL) ports. The device adapters attach the storage enclosures to the DS8870.

Disk drive support
The DS8870 supports the following choice of disk drives:
  • Solid state drives (SSDs) FDE:
    • 400 GB (FDE)
  • Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) FDE drives:
    • 146 GB, 15K RPM
    • 300 GB, 15K RPM
    • 600 GB, 10K RPM
    • 900 GB, 10K RPM
    • 3 TB, 7.2K RPM
  • SAS drives with Full Disk Encryption (FDE) and encryption Standby CoD:
    • 146 GB 15K RPM
    • 300 GB 15K RPM
    • 600 GB, 10K RPM
    • 900 GB 10K RPM
    • 3 TB 7.2K RPM
Business Class Feature
The DS8870 business class feature offers a streamlined, cost-competitive configuration with limited feature and function support. This model provides an upgrade path to the full enterprise class configuration and functions.
Parent topic: DS8870 (Models 961 and 96E)