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, Fusion iO
, other SSD
Below from storagenerve
| VSP Technology | USPV Technology | |
| Name | VSP: Virtual Storage Platform | USPV: Universal Storage Platform – Virtualization |
| Cabinet | Min: 1 Cabinet Max: 6 Cabinets (2 Systems) |
5 Cabinets |
| Drives (2.5 inch SAS) | Min: 0 Drives (External Storage) Max: 2.5 inch x 2048 SAS II Drives |
3.5 inch x 1152 FC drives |
| Drives (3.5 inch SAS) | Min: 0 Drives (External Storage) Max: 3.5 inch x 1280 SAS II Drives |
3.5 inch x 1152 FC drives |
| Federation | Min: Single System Max: Two Systems tightly coupled using the Hitachi Star Fabric over PCIe |
Non |
| External Storage (Federation – Virtualization) | Max: 255 PB | Max: 247 PB |
| External Storage (Federation Drives) | 1TB x 255000 drives | 1TB x 247000 drives |
| Storage | 2 PB’s Internal | 1 PB Internal |
| Processors | INTEL Quad Core Processors plus ASICs on FED / BED | ASICs |
| Single Controller (System) | Min: 1 Cabinet Max: 3 Cabinets |
5 Cabinets |
| Virtual Storage Director Blades | 4 Cores per Blade Min: 2 Blades (8 Cores) Max: 8 Blades (32 Cores) |
NON |
| FED (Front End Directors) | Each FED has 8 ports Min: 2 FED (16 ports) Max: 24 FED (192 Cores) |
112 Ports |
| FED Port Speed | 8 Gbps | 4 Gbps |
| FED Port types | Min: 16 – FC Ports (8GB) Max: 192 – FC Ports (8GB), 192 FICON Ports |
224 – FC (4GB ports), 112 – FC (8GB ports), 112 – FICON |
| FCoE | It may be supported in a short duration but no support with Release 1 | Not Supported |
| iSCSI | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| Infiniband | Not Supported | Not Supported |
| BED (Back End Directors) | Each BED has 4 SAS links Min: 0 (incase of external Storage) Max: 64 BED (64 SAS links – Two federated VSP’s) |
64 FC loops – Half duplex AL loops |
| BED Speed | 6 Gbps SAS | 4 Gbps FC-AL |
| Cache | 32GB or 64GB Adapters Min: 2 (64GB cache) Max: 16 (1024 GB Cache) |
512 GB Cache |
| Cache Protection | Flash plus Battery | Big Batteries |
| Power Consumption | 30KW (one phase) – 1024 drives | 33.2 KW (three phase) |
| Automated Dynamic Tiering | LUN Level and Sub LUN level | LUN Level |
| Secure MultiTenancy | Yes | No |
| VAAI – vStorageAPI support | Yes (expected late 2010) | No |
| Native within UCP (expected) | Yes | No |
| Support for 2.5 inch drives and/or 3.5 inch drives | 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch drives | 3.5 inch drives only |
| SATA drive support | Yes | Yes |
| SAS and SATA drive support – intermix | Yes | SAS not supported |
| FC and SATA drive support – intermix | FC not supported | Yes |
| Cache Mirroring | Write Cache Mirroring | Write Cache Mirroring |
| Command Suite 7 | Supports | Supports |
| SSD | Supported | Supported |
| Predecessor | USPV | USP |
| Released | Sep 2010 | 2006/2007 |
| Operating System | BOS / BOS V | BOS / BOS V |
| LUN based Tiering | Yes | Yes |
| Sub LUN based Tiering | Yes | No |
| Page Size | 42MB | 42MB |
| Large Batteries | No | Yes |
| Drive Formats | ??? bytes (expecting 520) with 8 bytes ECC | ??? bytes (expecting 520) with 8 bytes ECC |
| Microcode | Runs on Virtual Storage Processors | Runs on FED, BED |
| Rack System | 19 Inch Racks, 42U | 19 inch Racks |
| Airflow | Hot – Cold Aisle | Hot – Cold Aisle |
| RAID | Mirroring, RAID 5, RAID 6 | Mirroring, RAID 5, RAID 6 |
| Cooling Fans | Noise Reduction | Non |
| Cooling Fans Speed | 3 level speeds for cooling | 1 level speed for cooling |
| Control Memory | On Virtual Storage Directors | On FED/BED |
| Color of the Cabinet | Green | Bluish / purple |
| Purchased as | VSP only with Controllers or with X number of drives scalable to 2048 drives | USPVM only sold with Controllers. USPV sold with controllers and drives. USPVM cannot be upgraded to USPV |
..
Cabinet Numbering and Structure
Below are how two VSP systems are coupled together using the Hitachi Star Switch (PCIe Connect), which enables the expansion of two VSP into a single system scalable to 2048 drives with 1024 GB of cache.
| Cab 12 | Cab 11 | Cab 1 | Cab 0 | Cab 1 | Cab 2 |
| Drives only | Drives only | Controller 1 + Drives | Controller 2 + Drives | Drives only | Drives only |
HP P9000 and XP
HP OEMs the Hitachi storage system on the high-end. The Hitachi USP V corresponds to the HP XP24000? and the new Hitachi VSP is the HP P9000? The HP name maybe the P9000 Disk Array Family with Model 9500. The associated software is the P9000. Neither has meaningful architectural details on their website, just the usual marketing rubbish, big words evoking good feelings that a used car sales rep might spout. Why can't we just get the CarFax report!
The good part is the back-end is SAS, not fiber channel, and it may be 2.5in drives, not 3.5in.
| Scalability of the P9500 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| MIN | INCREMENT | MAX | |
| Data Drives | 4 | 4 | 2044 |
| Spare Drives | 1 | 1 | 128 |
| Capacity | 575 GB * raw 287 GB * usable | - | 1.178 PB * raw 1.030 PB * usable |
| SAS Disk Adapter (DKA) Pairs | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Channel Adapter (CHA) Pairs | 1 | 1 | 0** |
| Host Ports | 8 | 8/16 | 128/160** |
| Cache | 16 GB | 16 GB | 512 GB |
| LDEVs | 1 | 1 | 65,280 |
| Racks | 1 | 1 | 6 |
Below is directly from the HP P9000 webpage
P9500 Hardware
The P9500 hardware consists of one or two DKC racks that will hold up to 256 drives each. Each DKC rack can attach to one or two optional DKU racks that each holds up to 384 drives. The DKC Rack contains the Controller Chassis and two 128 slot Drive Chassis. The DKU Racks contain up to three 128 slot Drive Chassis.
Channel Adapter (CHA) Pairs
Channel Adapters (CHA) pairs provide connections to host or servers that use the P9500 for data storage (either directly connected to the servers or through SAN switches). CHA pairs also provide connections to External Storage devices and to remote replication devices. CHAs are configured in pairs for redundancy. A minimum of 1 CHA pair is required. The maximum number of CHA pairs that can be installed in one DKC rack depends on the number of DKAs installed:
- Max 4 CHA pair with 2 DKA pairs installed
- Max 5 CHA pair with 1 DKA pair installed
CHA pairs available for use in the P9500 include:
- Fibre Channel-8 port 2-8 Gbps auto sensing Fibre Channel.
- Fibre Channel-16 port 2-8 Gbps auto sensing Fibre Channel.
- various FICON options.
The Fibre Channel CHA pair uses SFP (small form factor pluggable) Transceivers on each port of the CHA. Each port is configurable as short wave or long wave by installing the appropriate transceiver. These CHA pairs ship with 8-Gbps short wave transceivers installed on every port.
Disk Adapter (DKA) Sets
The Disk Adapter (DKA) performs
all data movement between the drives and Cache Memory. The DKA also provides
data protection using RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 6.
The P9500 can have one, two or DKA pairs installed.
Cache Memory
Cache Memory is used to temporarily store data from the host until it
is written to drive storage, or to stage data requested by the host from
a drive. The P9500 contains global mirrored cache. All write data is written
in cache twice, one time each on two separate SSD backed up Cache Memory
Adapters. This insures that even if one cache board fails that the data
is still in the other one until it is safely written a drive. Read data
is not mirrored as a copy of that data remains on the drives, allowing
more of the total cache capacity available for data.
P9500 Cache Memory can be configured into partitions allocated to particular
host/port combinations to ensure that those hosts/ports enjoy optimized
performance of cache-oriented I/O. These cache partitions are assigned
to specified disk array groups. Up to 32 partitions of at least 4GB can
be created in a P9500. Assigning cache in this way provides another method
for tuning performance for data access for performance critical applications.
Disk Drives
| Drive Specifications |
500 GB
7.2K |
300 GB
10K |
600 GB
10K |
146 GB 15K |
| Raw capacity (User area) |
492.31 GB*
|
288.21 GB*
|
576.43 GB*
|
143.76 GB* |
| Rotation speed |
7,200 rpm
|
10,000 rpm
|
10,000 rpm
|
15,000 rpm |
| Mean latency time |
4.16 ms
|
2.99 ms
|
2.99 ms
|
2.01 ms |
| Mean seek time (Read/Write) |
8.0/8.4 ms
|
4.0/4.4 ms
|
3.8/4.4 ms
|
2.9/3.3 ms |
| Internal data transfer rate |
Up to 142 MB/sec
|
Up to 208.6 MB/sec
|
Up to 253.6 MB/sec
|
Up to 242 MB/sec |
| Interface type |
Dual ported 6 Gbps
SAS |
Dual ported 6 Gbps
SAS |
Dual ported 6 Gbps
SAS |
Dual ported 6 Gbps SAS |
SSD Disk Drives
| Drive Specifications | 200 GB SSD |
| Raw capacity (User area) | 196.92 GB* |
| Access time | |
| Interface type | Dual ported 3 Gbps SAS |
3PAR
HP recently acquired 3PAR, after Dell started the bidding. Sometime ago, 3PAR launch their storage system with a good system architecture. I am thinking they did not have the resources to update their system, hence the desire to be acquired by some one who did have financial resources to support this. More when new product details are released.