NetApp unveils new ASA -A-series that accelerates and consolidates block workloads for businesses no matter the size.
NetApp announced enhancements to its enterprise storage portfolio, introducing new systems in the NetApp ASA A-series. These updates are designed to accelerate and consolidate block workloads for businesses of all sizes. Additionally, new cyber resiliency capabilities empower customers to build intelligent, silo-free data infrastructures that support evolving IT requirements.
To modernize IT operations and drive innovation, organizations require data flexibility and confidence. NetApp’s latest expansion includes three enterprise storage systems—the ASA A20, A30, and A50—offering customers powerful, cost-effective storage solutions tailored to workload-specific needs. These high-performance systems are well-suited for mission-critical applications, including databases and virtual machines, and are designed to support both large enterprises and smaller deployments, such as remote or branch offices. With a starting price of $25K, these new systems make enterprise-grade block storage accessible to a wider range of customers.
The NetApp ASA A-Series family expands with the ASA A20, A30, and A50, providing exceptionally low-latency block-optimized flash storage. These systems allow companies to start small, with an affordable 15 TB entry point, and seamlessly scale performance and capacity.
Key Benefits of the NetApp ASA Systems
Simplicity: The NetApp ASA systems provide effortless storage modernization, enabling rapid deployment within minutes, provisioning in seconds, and one-click data protection. With common management workflows across both NAS and SAN environments, customers gain simplicity at scale, allowing seamless growth into the future.
Power: The architecture of the ASA series ensures consistent performance and operational agility. Customers benefit from built-in business continuity, a 99.9999% data availability guarantee, and a ransomware recovery guarantee. These features collectively help reduce operational risks, ensuring organizations can operate with confidence.
Affordability: NetApp ASA systems offer upfront costs 30-50% lower than competing solutions while delivering significant cost savings over time. Customers transitioning to all-flash ASA solutions experience up to 97% lower power consumption and minimal operational overhead, resulting in a strong return on investment.
According to Sandeep Singh, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Storage at NetApp, the company has rapidly refreshed its entire portfolio, demonstrating a commitment to innovation. NetApp’s comprehensive storage lineup, with built-in cyber resiliency, is designed to be faster, simpler, more scalable, and more cost-effective than competing solutions. The company aims to empower customers with an intelligent data infrastructure that optimizes operations, mitigates risks, and accelerates AI-driven transformation.
The newly introduced ASA systems will also be available in a FlexPod converged infrastructure. This integration delivers further benefits, including simplified data center operations and faster enterprise application deployment through pre-validated architectures.
FAS and EF Updates
In addition to ASA updates, NetApp is expanding its enterprise portfolio with new FAS and EF-Series systems. The new NetApp FAS50 system completes the hybrid flash family refresh. A 2U midrange hard drive-based system, the FAS50 is optimized for data tiering, backup, and cyber vault solutions. It delivers 1.5 times the performance of its predecessor while offering an optimal balance of price and performance. Customers will benefit from its incredible density, I/O flexibility, and cost efficiency, making it an excellent complement to NetApp AFF and ASA systems.
NetApp also introduced two new EF-Series systems: the EF300C and EF600C arrays, which feature 30TB and 60TB QLC SSDs, respectively. These high-throughput flash storage solutions are designed for workloads requiring extensive data transfer, such as video streaming, log file processing, and backup/archiving.
Strengthening Cyber Resiliency
NetApp continues to enhance its built-in cyber resiliency capabilities. Later this year, the company will introduce NetApp ONTAP Autonomous Ransomware Protection with AI (ARP/AI) for Block. This enhancement extends real-time ransomware threat detection and response, previously available for NAS, to SAN customers. NetApp also introduced the Ransomware Detection Program, which provides recovery services at no initial charge if an undetected ransomware attack occurs. This initiative complements the NetApp Ransomware Recovery Guarantee and the company’s broader cyber defense solutions.
Enhancing Storage Intelligence and Security
NetApp Data Infrastructure Insights (formerly Cloud Insights) is advancing SAN monitoring, VM optimization, and AIOps with machine learning. The latest updates improve SAN feature support, reinforcing NetApp’s position as a market leader in ASA block storage. Additionally, Data Infrastructure Insights now offers VM optimization capabilities, allowing customers to identify inefficiencies and make immediate improvements in host and cluster performance.
The NetApp BlueXP unified control plane continues to expand, offering enhanced management of storage and data services in hybrid multi-cloud environments. Key enhancements include:
- BlueXP ransomware protection now enables on-demand attack simulations and recovery validation.
- BlueXP disaster recovery, offering simple, integrated protection for VMware workloads with cost savings of more than 80% over competitors.
- BlueXP workload factory, a service for intelligent optimization and automation, is now capable of deploying and managing PostgreSQL workloads.
Cloud Storage Enhancements
The announcement also includes cloud storage updates for Azure and AWS. Azure NetApp Files introduces new features to enhance enterprise file share experiences with improved flexibility, resilience, and performance. NetApp FSx for ONTAP CloudFormation extends AWS-native tools, allowing advanced ONTAP operations to be managed seamlessly within AWS CloudFormation.
NetApp ASA Series Specifications
| Feature | ASA A1K | ASA A90 | ASA A70 | ASA A50 | ASA A30 | ASA A20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base enclosure form factor | 2x2U modular | 4U | 4U | 2U | 2U | 2U |
| Base enclosure drive count | Requires NS224 | 48 | 48 | 24 | 24 | 24 |
| Power consumption (median) | 2718W (with NS224) | 1950W | 1232W | 512W | 495W | 432W |
| Max. drive count (NVMe) | 240 | 240 | 240 | 120 | 72 | 48 |
| Max. raw capacity | 2.67 PB | 2.67 PB | 2.67 PB | 1.8 PB | 1.1 PB | 734 TB |
| Max. effective capacity | 11.6 PB | 11.6 PB | 11.6 PB | 8 PB | 4.8 PB | 3.2 PB |
| Supported NVMe drives | 1.92TB, 3.84TB, 7.68TB, 15.3TB | |||||
| Cluster nodes | 12 Nodes (6 HA Pair) | |||||
| Max. raw capacity (per cluster) | 16 PB | 16 PB | 16 PB | 11 PB | 6.6 PB | 4.4 PB |
| Max. effective capacity (per cluster) | 69 PB | 69 PB | 69 PB | 48 PB | 29 PB | 19 PB |
| PCIe expansion slots | 18 | 18 | 18 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Max. FC ports | 56 | 56 | 56 | 24 | 24 | 24 |
| FC port speeds | Up to 64 Gbps | |||||
| Max. Ethernet ports | 56 | 56 | 56 | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| Max. Ethernet speed | Up to 200 Gbps | Up to 200 Gbps | Up to 200 Gbps | Up to 100 Gbps | Up to 100 Gbps | Up to 100 Gbps |
| Shelves | NS224 (2U, 24 drives, 100Gbps NVMe) | |||||
| Storage networking supported | NVMe/TCP, NVMe/FC, FC, iSCSI | |||||
| OS version | ONTAP 9.16.0 GA or later | ONTAP 9.16.0 GA or later | ONTAP 9.16.0 GA or later | ONTAP 9.16.1 or later | ONTAP 9.16.1 or later | ONTAP 9.16.1 or later |
| Host/client OS supported | Windows Server, Linux, Oracle Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, VMware, macOS, ESX | |||||
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