IT Pro's Top Products of 2013

Vendors continue to make performance gains with the inclusion of Intel's latest Xeon E5 processor - and there were a number of products which caught our eye this year.

Dell VRTX

This beast of a system came in a 5U rack server or pedestral configuration. and has been used to power environments ranging from retail warehouse environments to hospitals and F1 teams.

Verdict: 5 stars + Innovation award

HP MSA 2040

One of best performing appliances we've tested this year, the HP MSA 240 delivered a high-speed 8/16Gbps FC storage for 6,598 ex VAT, a price few vendors can match.

Verdict: 5 stars + Editor's Choice

Synology DiskstationDS1813+

The recommeded NAS box for SMBs, the Diskstation packed a number of connections and features. It's also sports blistering speeds.

Verdict: 5 stars + Editor's Choice award

Dot HillAssuredSAN Pro 5000

The AssuredSAN Pro 5000 took automated data tiering to the next level, by performing the task in real-time. This was done via Dot Hill's RealStor technology, which moveed hot data to an SSD-based cache in seconds making it responsive to changes in access patterns.

Verdict: 5 stars + Recommended award