Quantum’s DXi 2.0 software will have the same dedupe ratio as the original DXi version, but Quantum claims it has the fastest throughput of any dedupe software on the market. The vendor also eliminated the option to dedupe post-process and failed to add global deduplication capabilities.

The vendor made its 2.0 release at the same time as it reported earnings, falling well short of its revenue guidance mainly because of disappointing enterprise deduplication system sales.

Quantum said a DXi4500 SMB appliance running DXi 2.0 software will deduplicate at up to 1.4 TB/hour for NAS and 1.7 TB/hour for the Symantec OpenStorage (OST) protocol, and a midrange DXi6500 with version 2.0 will dedupe at 4.3 TB/hour for NAS and 4.6 TB/hour for OST.

The DXi software upgrade follows enhancements by EMC Data Domain and Sepaton to their deduplicatio products over the last nine days.

The first version of DXi let customers choose between inline and post-process deduplication, but DXi 2.0 only supports inline dedupe. Quantum SVP Janae Stow Lee said with the speedier software plus more powerful processors, inline dedupe is fast enough to negate any advantage of post-process. DXi 2.0 still does not support global dedupe across systems. Software deduplication products support global dedupe, as does Quantum hardware rivals Sepaton, Data Domain and IBM for at least two nodes.

“This is not a clustered system,” Lee said. “There are advantages, but also complexity and cost disadvantages of clustered systems. We have a different strategy for that over time.”

Quantum will begin selling 2.0 software on its SMB DXi4500a and midrange DXi 6500 systems by March, and it will be available on higher end DXi6700 and DXi8500 hardware over the summer. DXi 2.0 will have the same price as the 1.0 software and will be a free upgrade to existing customers.

Quantum today reported revenue of $176 million for last quarter, which fell below its guidance of $185 million to $200 million. Quantum executives said the vendor did have record sales of its midrange DXi systems and StorNext file system software and gained share in tape, but had trouble closing large deals with its new DXi8500.

“We continue to make progress on our growth strategy, but not as much as some people expected,” Quantum CEO Rick Belluzzo said of the revenue miss. “The biggest factor was the enterprise business was substantially down because of deal flow and a transition to the 8500. We had a lot more [DXi] deals, but a lot of small ones.”