Dell Storage MD1280 Dense Enclosure
Ultra-dense server storage capacity at an affordable price per gigabyte

Overview:

Expand server capacity with the Dell Storage MD1280 dense enclosure to help maintain compute power and performance, while adding storage capacity to Dell PowerEdge servers.

• Two 42-drive drawers offer extreme density in minimal space
• Drawer and drives stay active when the drawer is open
• Hot-pluggable hard drives, fans, EMMs, PSUs and drawer expander assemblies
• 4TB, 6TB or 8TB NL-SAS hard drives

Ultra-dense storage

Storage requirements continue to grow - the closer that storage can be to the server, the better performance the server can maintain. Take advantage of the space savings of a 5U form factor that can expand to the extreme density of up to 168 hard drives using just 10U of rack space. The modular design of the MD1280 allows you to start with just 28 drives and with progressive scalability, expand when and how to continually meet your business needs.

The high density of the MD1280 holds up to 84 hard drives in a 5U standard rack mount chassis, ensuring the best drive density per rack unit at Dell,¹ while reducing the storage footprint in a data center. Putting so many drives into a smaller footprint minimizes the amount of space used in the data center, which will in turn drive additional savings on power and cooling expenses to the bottom line.

Competitive price

The MD1280 is Dell’s ultra-dense storage enclosure. Designed to add capacity to the PowerEdge server product line, the MD1280 provides 40% more capacity than previous generations of dense enclosure options.¹ The MD1280’s capacity can be tailored to meet the most stringent performance requirements with the option to select from a variety of drive speeds to optimize server performance, ensuring an affordable storage solution for PowerEdge servers.

Due to the modular design of the MD expansion series, adding capacity allows you to grow as your data requirements grow. Dell’s enterprise hard drives ensure that added capacity is affordable, maintaining the ability to scale without losing sight of the need for competitive pricing. Begin with as few as 28 hard drives. Scale in groups of 14 drives, until you reach the maximum capacity of the compact 5U chassis with the high density tray for optimal space saving.

Operating as a JBOD (just a box of disks) the MD1280 scales to a maximum of 168 drives with two enclosures. Dell PowerEdge servers can simply and efficiently add storage capacity as needed, taking advantage of Dell’s competitive price per gigabyte.

Tailored performance

Maintaining the compute power of servers is important, and the MD1280 can help ensure that performance is optimized while adding storage capacity. The MD1280 can be tailored to meet performance requirements by choosing the size of disks needed within the enclosure. Because it is direct connect SAS, the data remains close to the compute power of a PowerEdge server keeping performance at its peak.