HPE boosts MSA and StoreVirtual with sub-$10,000 flash storage options

HPE has launched two entry-level storage products that can provide fully-featured storage arrays – with all-flash and hybrid flash possible – for less than $10,000.

The new HPE StoreVirtual 3200 comes as a dual controller hardware appliance and its base 2U form factor can accommodate 25 2.5in drives or 12 3.5in drives.

Drives are SAS-connected and can be up to 3.2TB SSD and 6TB HDD, which means potential capacities can be as high as 72TB if the largest drives are selected. Connectivity to hosts is Fibre Channel or iSCSI.

The StoreVirtual operating system (OS) includes thin provisioning, snapshots and Raid levels 5, 6 and 10. HPE claims that a basic 1.2TB StoreVirtual 3200 configuration can be had for less than $6,000.

The StoreVirtual 3200 adds to existing software-defined and hyper-converged offerings, as well as the 4000 array platform.

The 3200’s target market is lower-end SMEs, while the overall idea of StoreVirtual is to provide a common platform across physical arrays, virtual appliances and hyper-converged, said product marketing director Till Stimberg.

“The StoreVirtual 3200 is an expansion in which we are going after a new area of the market – the lowest end, with prices starting at $6,000,” he said. “The StoreVirtual platform covers software-defined and hardware platforms and hyper-converged and allows customers to expand between these.”

Meanwhile, the MSA 2042 makes an out-of-the-box hybrid-flash array out of the existing MSA 2040. It does this by incorporating 800GB of flash, while another key difference between the 2042 and 2040 appears to be the ability to use flash in 2.5in and 3.5in form factors.

Host connectivity is Fibre Channel, iSCSI and SAS. Base unit capacity is between 80TB and 100TB depending on whether small or large form factor drives are chosen. With expansion shelves, capacity runs to several hundred TB.

Storage features include thin provisioning, snapshots and remote replication.

Stimberg added: “MSA is an existing offering, but we are expanding and targeting performance-focused app environments in the entry-level space. MSA today is deployed for dedicated app environments, for example databases. The 2042 brings a performance boost to that space.”

Quoted IOPS performance on both arrays is less than stellar, but then these are arrays to which flash has been retrofitted, in contrast to products designed around SSD or which have controller architecture suited to them, such as in HPE’s 3PAR arrays.