Storage heavyweight EMC has confirmed that the latest versions of its Clariion midrange storage systems is ready to ship.

The Clariion CX4 Series will make it easier for customers to rapidly deploy greater volumes of storage capacity. The CX4 range will include EMC's virtual provisioning technology from October, which allows users to present a nominal storage allocation to applications without having to allocate the physical capacity until it is needed.

The new Clariion systems also feature EMC's UltraFlex technology, which supports both dual-protocol Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage area network (SAN) connections in the same array. It will also allow users to easily connect to future technologies, such as Fibre Channel over Ethernet.

The addition of flash drives in October will provide the CX4 Series with up to 10 times the performance the CX3 series contained, EMC claimed.

Flash drives store data using flash memory, unlike conventional hard drives that use mechanically rotating discs.

Drive spin-down that will autonmatically place inactive drives in sleep mode will be available some time in 2009.

"The CLARiiON CX4 Series is unmatched in the industry when it comes to scalability, features, energy efficiency and ease of use," said David Donatelli, president of EMC's storage division in a statement.

Clariion CX4 Series is comprised of four models: 120, 240, 480 and 960. The numbers correspond to the number of disk drives.

The CX4 Series was first unveiled in June at the firm’s annual customer conference, EMC World.