HP MSA 1500 provides flexibility, reliability, high-performance, capacity in a single solution

Tarsus Technologies has announced the availability of a new Fibre Channel SAN attached 2U controller shelf from HP. The new controller shelf connects to HP StorageWorks Serial ATA (SATA) and/or SCSI disk enclosures to provide the best balance of reliability and performance cost efficiency to both SME and corporate customers in SA.

Called the HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array (MSA) 1500 CS, the new controller shelf is designed to provide customers with flexible, low-cost storage that offers a high level of reliability for primary data storage functions, as well as high-performance and low cost for the storage of infrequently accessed information.

"The MSA1500 is perfect for customers seeking less expensive storage solutions to store information that doesn`t require a high degree of I/O performance and/or is viewed as non-critical to business operations, as well as customers that require a high-level of reliability," explains Terence Barter, product manager at Tarsus Technologies.

In terms of capacity, the MSA1500 can deliver up to 24TB of storage utilising eight SATA enclosures that consists of 96 250GB SATA disk drives. If the business needs SCSI reliability then 8TB of storage capacity can be delivered by attaching four SCSI enclosures that consists of 56 146GB SCSI disks.

In its quest to deliver high capacity at the lowest possible cost, fully configured with 24TB SATA technology, the array delivers a cost per megabyte of less than $.01.

In terms of reliability, the array makes use of Advanced Data Guarding (ADG) technology, which delivers the highest level of fault tolerance available, allocating two sets of parity data across all drives in the array, allowing simultaneous write operations.

"This level of fault tolerance can withstand two simultaneous drive failures without downtime or data loss," Barter says.

If a failure should occur, the MSA 1500 supports hot pluggability of hard drives, controllers, fans and power supplies. Because redundancy is integrated, none of the components are ever off-line and capacity can be expanded by hot-plugging additional controllers and hard drives on the fly.

The new solution also goes a long way to protecting any investment the customer may already have in fibre channel SAN technology. "Because the MSA 1500 supports both 1Gb and 2Gb fibre channel fabrics, customers can rest assured that their investment in 1Gb infrastructure is protected, while they transition to 2Gb technology when the time is right," Barter continues.

"The MSA 1500 presents a new way of thinking in the storage market. This will allow customers enough flexibility to integrate the solution easily into their existing environment, populate the solution with storage technology that delivers the high-reliability or high-capacity and the ability to scale capacity and functionality without taking the solution offline. Furthermore, the fact that the solution is able to fit into the SME companies` budgets is truly meaningful, since the ECT Act will see the demand on capacity and reliability increase as companies of all sizes begin taking control and responsibility for their storage," Barter concludes.