HP brings new array, JBOD enclosure online

HP 3000 to get access to systems using Ultra320 disks

HP 3000 customers looking for RAID disk storage and newer enclosures for Just a Bunch of Disk (JBOD) configurations have two new products to consider. HP is introducing an upgraded VA7110 virtual array for the HP 3000, a 45-disk configuration, up from the 15-disk 7100 arrays. Like its 7100 predecessor, the 7110 supports RAID 1+0 and RAID 5DP (double parity).

HP’s 3000 hardware manager Kriss Rant said the device leverages performance improvements from HP’s VA7410 virtual array into a lower-cost unit, at a price point “which is the sweet spot of the older 7100 arrays, the low-end of the midrange,” according to HP’s Kriss Rant.

Pricing before discounts shows the VA7110 coming in at slightly higher prices than the 7100, $54,984 for a 7110 with four 36Gb disks with a 512Mb cache versus $48,354 for the same configuration in a 7100. Prices drop slightly per Mb of storage when comparing the 7100 fully loaded versus a 15-disk 7110. The VA7100 comes off HP’s price list on May 1, 2003.

The new 7110 operates with both MPE/iX 7.0 and 7.5, using an SCSI to Fiber Channel router on 7.0 and native Fiber Channel in 7.5 implementations. The new array supports the 146Gb 10,000 RPM drives from HP, and the vendor says in some cases this array can double the performance of the 7100. The total capacity of the 7110 can run as high as 6 terabytes, and the unit accepts 15,000 RPM drives of 36Gb and 73Gb, and 10,000 RPM drives of 36Gb and 73Gb, in addition to those 146Gb drives.

HP 3000 JBOD choices will be expanding to the DS2110, a next-generation enclosure expected to be available this summer. It’s a fully compatible replacement for the DS2100, the current JBOD enclosure supported under MPE/iX. The older 2100 is coming off the HP price list on July 15. While the 2110 supports the newer Ultra320 SCSI disk mechanisms, those drives are also limited to the 80Mb/second support constraints of MPE/iX. But the device will let HP 3000 customers use a wide range of disk devices from HP, including HP’s Ultra160 SCSI disks.

The 2110 supports mixed disk capacities, and HP 3000 sites can load it up with as much as 584 Gb of capacity in a 1U enclosure. It can be used with a PCI disk array controller as a low-cost RAID solution.

HP’s introducing the DS2110 to ensure a steady stream of disk mechanisms for the enclosures, since it’s discontinuing its Ultra160 disks. The newer Ultra320 disks can negotiate down to Ultra160 IO cards. While HP 3000 customers can’t use more than 80Mb/second of this bandwidth today, Rant said the project to upgrade MPE/iX drivers to accept all of the Ultra320’s 320Mb/second of bandwidth “hasn’t dropped off the engineering prioritization list yet.”