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HP's top-end array just TOPPED ITSELF

XP becomes XP7

HP has announced the XP7, the successor to the high-end XP array. The XP, or P9500, is an OEM version of Hitachi's VSP array and Hitachi has announced the VSP G1000 follow-on product, which HP has manufactured as the XP7.

HP says it is the "highest performing, full-featured, enterprise-class disk array." That means it's better than EMC's VMAX and IBM's DS8870, the only competing products in this space that come to mind, unless we include the HP 3PAR 10000 in the category.

The XP7 has:

  • Up to 4.5PB of capacity in a single array (2PB in P9500 XP)
  • Six-nines uptime (less than 31.5 seconds downtime a year)
  • Always-on disaster recovery with multi-array virtualisation
  • Up to 3 million IOPS
  • Sub-millisecond response times

The IOPS number is greater than that delivered by three EMC VMAX 40K storage arrays according to HP, which goes on to say: "Consolidating multiple EMC disk arrays onto a single HP XP7 Storage system reduces data centre floor space requirements by a total of 130 square feet and storage-related costs by more than $100,000 per year."

The system can use XP Flash Modules, hard disk drives and SSDs. There are new user authentication and access control functions, and the array "secures data with Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 encryption readiness".

HP says the XP7 is an enterprise-class system for mission-critical enterprise applications. The StorServ (3PAR) arrays are for "purpose-built tier-1 solutions designed for unpredictable workloads such as virtualisation and cloud computing."

The XP arrays used to have a P9500 prefix. That is not being used in this announcement, which refers only to the HP XP7 Storage product. It will be available in May 2014, starting at $462,000. ®

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