Automated Storage Tiering

Smarter Performance with Cost-Efficiency

As enterprise data volumes continue to surge, relying exclusively on SSDs can lead to costly investments, while HDD-only configurations often fail to meet performance demands. Automated storage tiering (auto-tiering) provides a smarter solution, offering fast access to performance-sensitive data while optimizing long-term storage costs.

What Is Auto-Tiering?

Auto-tiering is a data service feature that automatically places data on the most suitable type of drive, based on access frequency and performance requirements. The diagram below illustrates how data can be organized into different tiers:

• Tier 0 handles the most frequently accessed, high-demand ‘hot’ data on SSDs
• Tier 1 stores less active ‘warm’ data on high-capacity SAS HDDs
• Tier 2 contains rarely accessed ‘cold’ data on cost-effective SATA HDDs

Benefits of Infortrend Auto-Tiering

• Optimized Performance and Cost: Achieve a near-all-flash performance with reduced storage expenses by intelligently optimizing data placement across different storage tiers.
• Simplified Data Management: Auto-tiering can be activated in just five minutes with a few clicks via a user-friendly GUI. Once enabled, the system’s intelligent algorithms handle data placement and migration automatically—no further manual effort required.
• No Operational Impact^*: Data migration can run during user-defined off-hours to minimize I/O impact and avoid service interruptions.

Applications

Auto-tiering is ideal for workloads with large data volumes and consistent access patterns, where files are actively used for a period and later accessed only occasionally. Compared to an HDD-only configuration, the auto-tiering feature in hybrid storage delivers substantial performance improvements^*:

• In Enterprise File Sharing: 350% faster reads for active files
• In Media and Entertainment: 600% performance increase for rendering and VFX workloads
• In Healthcare Imaging: 400% faster access to diagnostic images
• In Manufacturing Inspection: Faster access and analysis of AOI (Automated Optical Inspection) images and videos during the production phase

Supported Storage Solutions

Infortrend Auto-Tiering is available on the following storage families:

• EonStor GS Unified Storage: Offers a versatile lineup of models and form factors that delivers top-tier performance while optimizing costs across diverse workloads.
• EonStor CS Scale-Out NAS: Ideal for massive file-based workloads and extreme scalability.
• EonStor DS SAN Storage: Designed for block-level applications, ensuring optimal IOPS and low latency for performance-critical environments.

Auto-Tiering vs. SSD Cache

Auto-tiering is designed for workloads with large data volumes and consistent access patterns, ensuring ‘hot’ data is stored on SSDs for fast retrieval. On the other hand, SSD cache suits smaller data volumes requiring short-term acceleration, such as workloads with sudden access spikes and high IOPS demands.