Symmetrix V-Max, which targets high-end virtualized data centers, offers more capacity and lower power consumption than its previous high-end product.EMC has launched a new version of its Symmetrix product. Called the Symmetrix Virtual Matrix, or V-Max, the system overtakes EMC's DMX-4 as the highest-capacity SAN in the company's product lineup.

Available today, the V-Max is composed of engines built on Intel quad-core processors. Today the V-Max can support up to 8 engines and 128 physical ports. On the storage capacity front, the V-Max lets customers mix solid-state Flash storage and Fibre Channel and SATA disks. One V-Max can house up to 2,400 disks for a total of 2 Pbytes of usable storage.

Dave Donatelli, president of EMC's storage division, says the product uses about 20 percent less power per Tbyte compared to the DMX-4. Customers that adopt Flash drives in large numbers should see even greater power savings because those drives consume less power than spinning disks.

Over time, EMC plans to enable customers to string together or federate multiple V-Max systems, up to 256 engines, to create a highly scalable storage environment. The V-Max is built on a new architecture, called the Virtual Matrix, which lets the storage system share major pieces of the infrastructure, including CPU, memory and ports, to give administrators more flexibility when provisioning storage to applications.