Hitachi Launches Mid-Range Unified Storage Systems

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Hitachi Data Systems on Tuesday launched the new Hitachi Unified System (HUS), a system that stores files, block- and object-based storage. The company also announced that its Hitachi Command Suite (HCS), which manages its high-end Virtual Storage Platform (VSP), will manage the HUS and replace the Storage Navigator software.

The Hitachi Unified System is available in three unified models and three block-models--the unified models support both file and object-based storage and CIFS, NFS, and HTTP/FTP while the three block models support iSCSI and 8-Gbps Fibre Channel transport protocols. They will replace the Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 models, which will be end-of-lifed at the end of this year. Volumes on the HUS can be as much as 256 TB in size.

The system uses 300-GB, 600-GB and 900-GB drives. The HUS 110 can support as many as 130 drives and as much as 360 TB in capacity; the HUS 130 can support 264 drives and up to 792 TB in capacity; and the HUS 150 can support as many as 960 drives for a total capacity of 2.88 PB.

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The Hitachi Unified Storage System can scale to as much as 3 PB of data in a single frame and the use of a single namespace over the pool of storage simplifies management and allows quick provisioning of block and file capacity for virtual machines. The system is designed to help IT departments save on storage investments because it can scale for capacity, performance, replication, and file system capacity.

Further, the HUS performs auto-tiering across four types of drives, including 15K SAS, 10K SAS, 7.2K SAS, and solid state drives. Data can be tiered not only on the file- and object-level versions of HUS, but also on the block-level versions of HUS. Data tiering can be intermixed between unified and block, pulling data from each other as necessary. Data can also be shared between the Hitachi Content Platform, HDS's archive system.

The HUS is able to dynamically balance workloads to maintain predictable performance, execute four times the number of snapshots per volume as a comparable NetApp appliance, and meet performance level objectives for sequential and random workloads and file access, the company said. In addition, remote or local asynchronous or synchronous replication is possible for added resiliency and disaster recovery.

HUS achieves replication capability through the use of new Application Protector (HAPRO) software, which provides application consistent snapshots for both file and block data. HAPRO supports Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and SQL Server. Oracle support is on HDS's roadmap.

A block-only based HUS starts at $22,749; the unified HUS starts at $52,830.

Deni Connor is founding analyst for Storage Strategies NOW, an industry analyst firm that focuses on storage, virtualization, and servers.

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