EchoStreams High-Density Rack and Tower Storage Solutions

At Computex 2019, we were able to see a few innovative solutions from EchoStreams around high-density rack and tower storage solutions using next-generation SSD form factors. We also saw the company’s fascinating Pedestal Server design which we can imagine being attractive to design studios for video editing on-location. In this article, we are going to show some of the solutions we saw.

EchoStreams FlacheSAN2N108M 108-bay 2U Chassis

This is a single-socket AMD EPYC platform with impressive specs. Namely, it is designed to handle up to 108x EDSFF (E1.L) SSDs or other devices such as AI accelerators, packaged in E1.L form factors.

Beyond the EDSFF bays, the system incorporates an OCP Gen2 slot, and two PCIe 3.0 x16 slots which give the system ample networking capabilities.

We asked, and the company says that while it sources motherboard PCB from companies like Supermicro and Tyan, it designs the chassis and PCIe expander PCB itself.

EchoStreams FlacheSAN1N36M-UN 36-bay 1U Chassis

For those more focused on 1U and smaller storage arrays, the EcoStreams FlacheSAN1N36M-UN is a 36-bay NF1 chassis. This is also based on a single-socket AMD EPYC platform.

The company was showing off this solution with not just NF1 support. Like the handful of other vendors with NF1 solutions, EchoStreams has M.2 to NF1 adapters. This allows one to use today’s commodity M.2 drives today and then upgrade the chassis in the future.

EchoStreams Pedestal Server 24-bay NF1 or M.2

For those who need something more portable than in a rack form factor, the EchoStreams Pedestal Server platform utilizes a tower server form factor and even includes handles for transportation.

As you can see, the front of the chassis has 24x NF1 bays. Like its rackmount counterpart, this solution can also use adapters and take M.2 drives. We also had a shot of inside the chassis:

As you can see, this is another single slot AMD EPYC design with 16 DIMM slots. One can also see the OCP 2.0 slot as well as support for GPUs as can be seen in this photo.

Final Words

A lot of platforms STH sees are standardized designs that target a wide range of use cases. What EchoStreams has here are some targeted platforms. If you are looking for a data center NVMeoF solution using some of the more cutting-edge storage/ accelerator types, these solutions may be just right. The pedestal server and 108-bay EDSFF solutions, in particular, have promise in some segments of the market. By sourcing motherboards from Tyan and Supermicro and instead focusing design on form factors and PCIe connectivity, the company is able to accelerate its design cycles and time to market building even these more niche solutions.