Dell PowerVault


PowerVault is a line of data storage and backup products from Dell.
After Dell acquired EqualLogic for its iSCSI products in 2008, and Compellent Technologies in 2011, the PowerVault line was positioned as less expensive than the other product lines.

Direct Attached Storage

MD1000

3U, up to 15 drives, 3 Gbit/s SAS or SATA. Uses the PERC 5/e and 6/e as its RAID controller. This unit is no longer available directly from Dell.

MD1120

2U, up to 24 drives, 3 Gbit/s SAS. Uses the PERC 6/e as its RAID controller.

MD1200

2U, up to 12 drives, 6 Gbit/s SAS. Uses the PERC H810 as its RAID controller.

MD1220

2U up to 24 drives, 6 Gbit/s SAS.

MD1280

5U, up to 84 drives, 6 Gbit/s SAS. It can hold 672 TB raw when fully populated with 8 TB hard drives.

MD1400 and MD1420

The MD1400 and MD1420 are identical units except that the 1400 holds 12 drives while the 1420 holds 24.
2U, 12 Gbit/s Mini-SAS. Uses PERC9 series controllers.
The MD1400 supports up to 12 drives in a single chassis, while the 1420 supports 20 drives. The 1400 can be either 3.5" or 2.5" drives while the 1420 can only take 2.5". Up to eight of these enclosures can be connected to a single PowerEdge server.

MD3000

This unit is no longer sold directly by Dell. It supports being connected up to four PowerEdge servers simultaneously via dedicated iSCSI gigabit ethernet ports, as well as running as network attached storage via two other gigabit ethernet ports which allows it to support up to 16 Linux or Windows servers. The dual redundant on-board hardware RAID controllers have 512 megabytes of cache RAM. It would accept up to 15 3.5" SAS drives, and had dual power supplies. It also could serve as a controller for up to two MD1000 units, resulting in a total drive count of 45. 3 Gbit/s SAS or SATA.

MD3060e

4U, up to 60 drives, 6 Gbit/s SAS.

MD3200

Has 4x 6Gbit/s SAS ports and is 2U with 12 3.5" drives.
Has 4x 6Gbit/s SAS ports, is 2U, with 24 2.5" drives.

MD3400

2U, 12 Gbit/s, 12 drives.

MD3420

2U, 12 Gbit/s, 24 drives.

MD3460

Holds up to 60 drives. Optional features include snapshots, snapshots plus virtual disk copy, firmware upgrade to increase array performance, remote replication, and SSD cache.

Older Equipment

Includes the PowerVault MD 3200i, 3400, 3420, 3460 for 1 Gb iSCSI, MD 3800I, 3820I, and 3860I for 10 Gb iSCSI, and the MD 3800f, 3820f, and 3860f for fibre channel.

Older Equipment