EMC last week introduced what it calls a new high-end storage architecture - the Symmetrix V-Max (short for Virtual Matrix).

The V-Max consists of industry standard components assembled into building blocks, each with their own cache memory and I/O. The building blocks perform as a single - virtualized - array. The array uses a coherent-memory architecture and can scale to thousands of ports, cores, disks and memory.

Like other Symmetrix’s, the V-Max can be configured with SSDs, Fibre Channel and Serial ATA drives. And it has a new feature called fully automated storage tiering (FAST) that lets it mix these different types of drives into virtual drives and lets data be migrated among tiers based on changing needs.

The V-Max runs the Enginuity code stack and is not considered to replace Symmetrix DMX-4’s. It scales from 2-16 directors among 1-8 engines. Although the V-Max at introduction is limited to eight engines, the architecture provides for many more.

With the V-Max, EMC has moved away from the monolithic model that characterized previous Symm. The new V-Max could be considered a mix of monolithic and modular systems – it starts small and can grow to much larger sizes. The interconnect the V-Max uses among its modules is rumored to be the UltraFlex, a technology used in the CLARiiON CX-4’s. It also uses RapidIO for shared memory between the modules.

If you need the type of high-end storage the V-Max represents, you can get it at the paltry starting price of $250,000.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW and host of both the Masters of Storage and Masters of Servers Solution Centers.