Panasas ActiveStor AS5000 and AS3000 series of Parallel Storage Clusters, described in Annexure –A, meet WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive criteria for Recovery, Recycle and Reuse (RRR).

These products are classified under category 3 of WEEE product category and have the following targets for rate of recovery and rate of recycle.

Rate of Recovery = 75%, and
Rate of Recycle = 65%

Panasas AS5000 and AS3000 series family of products are analyzed for ease of dismantling, ease of service, ease of selective removal of components and sub-assemblies, design for environment, and regulatory compliance markings such as EN55022, EN55024 and safety compliance markings such as CSA, CE, UL.

WEEE RRR – Analysis (WEEE Recovery, Recycle and Reuse) was performed on AS5000 and AS3000 Parallel Storage Clusters provided by Panasas, Inc.. No destructive operations and component-level disassembly of surface mount PCBs were performed to avoid damage to the product. However, all the products were disassembled to major sub-assemblies to assess the selective removal. Descriptions, data sheets for AS5000 and AS3000 series of products and associated line cards/blades are placed under Annexure-A for reference. The material is processed as per standard M-Cubed Traveler. Traveler provides the means of controlling the material flow to various work stations and provides a summary of Covered Electronic Waste (CEW) and Universal Waste Electronic Devices (UWED). Pictures of assemblies, before and after dismantling, are placed under Annexure-C for reference. Annexure-D provides the details of WEEE RRR - Analysis.

The design of AS5000 and AS3000 is flexible and modular. The Panasas ActiveStor Parallel Storage Clusters meet the demands of a massively parallel data movement by offering scalable performance and capacity via an object-based approach to storage. Standard sub-assemblies are used in multiple systems thereby taking advantage of volume purchases at competitive prices. Modularity of the system design lends itself to Field Replaceable Unit (FRU) and Customer Replaceable Units (CRUs) concepts for servicing the down systems to maintain high uptime and a low Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) resulting in low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Due to modularity of design it is easy to implement field upgrades for continuous improvements to enhance reliability, availability, maintainability and product performance, and hence increasing the end of life cycle. Modularity of product design also enhances the end of product cycle RRR. WEEE RRR Analysis shows that Panasas AS5000 and AS3000 series of products have the potential to meet rate-of-recovery and rate-of-recycling targets for WEEE Product Category 3, IT and Telecommunications products, including selective treatment of the material.