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Invest for the future
Why you can’t afford not to consider all-flash HPE 3PAR
StoreServ Storage
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Page 2
Think you can’t afford flash?
Think again.
Thin technologies make flash
affordable from the start
• Built-in zero-detection and HPE 3PAR
Thin Deduplication work with
HPE Thin Provisioning and Thin
Conversion software to reduce capacity
requirements by up to 75 percent1
• HPE 3PAR Thin Clones instantly creates
capacity-efficient, non-duplicative virtual
machine clones for Microsoft® Hyper-V
and VMware® ESXi
• Patented Express Indexing feature
enables block and file data deduplication
without capacity scalability constraints
• Reservationless snapshots reduce
consumption by only using capacity for
changed data
Adaptive technologies prolong flash
media lifespan to lower TCO
• HPE 3PAR Adaptive Sparing uniquely
extends SSD usable capacity by
20 percent2 and aids wear management
within the drive, offloading this task from
the storage controllers
• A fine-grained allocation unit and the
HPE 3PAR Adaptive Writes feature protect
performance while extending SSD lifespan
• System-wide striping avoids hot spots to
enable uniform wearing of SSDs
• Optional HPE 3PAR Dynamic Optimization
software lets you convert both “fat” and
“thin” virtual volumes to deduplicated
volumes (and vice versa) in order to free
up capacity on your array
If you’re looking to make a primary storage investment
in the near future, you can’t afford not to consider an
all-flash or converged flash array. HPE offers the only
architecture on the market that is flash-optimized
without being flash-limited—so you won’t have to make
business-limiting decisions when it comes to implementing
flash, such as inserting a new silo into your environment or
undergoing painful hardware rip-and-replace.
All-flash and no compromise
Maybe you think you don’t need the ultra-high IOPS and ultra-low latency that an all-flash
array delivers, but performance isn’t the only reason to choose flash and an all-flash array isn’t
your only option. More compact, more energy-efficient, lower latency, and more predictable in
performance than spinning drives, flash-based media is no longer the future of storage—it has
become mainstream. You need the storage platform you invest in today to meet your needs not
just tomorrow, but well into the future, and that means you need to be considering a solution
with a flash-optimized architecture today.
Falling drive prices and lower-cost, higher-density options such as commercial multi-level cell
(cMLC) SSDs are making flash more affordable than ever—as low as $1.50 USD per usable
gigabyte for all-flash HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage. 3 Flash has gone mainstream, and more
businesses are using it for more of their applications—and with good reason. Flash delivers
incredible power in an unbeatably efficient package. For example, by using SSDs instead of
HDDs, the all-flash HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8450 uses 92 percent fewer disks, 71 percent less
power, 75 percent less rack space, and an 86 percent reduction in software licensing costs.4
Think you can’t afford it? Think again. All-flash HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8000 Storage system
configurations start as low as $19K and offer new value-priced starter kits and bundles such
as the HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8200 All-Flash Starter Kit, which includes software and three
years of 24x7 Proactive Care support.
1
ased on a compaction ratio of 4:1 and subject to
B
qualification and compliance with the HPE 3PAR
Get Thin Guarantee Program Terms and Conditions.
2
ith HPE 3PAR Adaptive Sparing, a 400 GB
W
drive yields 480 GB of usable capacity for
a 20 percent net capacity extension.
3
equires the use of 3.84 TB cMLC SSDs and
R
HPE 3PAR compaction technologies.
4
ased on the comparison of the HPE 3PAR
B
StoreServ 8450 with 3.84 TB cMLC SSDs versus
an equivalent HDD-only 8400 system.
5
equires the use of HPE 3PAR Peer Motion
R
software. Assuming 4 x 20800 arrays that
support 2.5 M IOPs and 15 PBs of usable capacity,
customers can configure up to 60 PBs of
usable capacity that supports an aggregate of
10 million IOPs and 300 GB/s of bandwidth.
Need additional scalability and quad-node resiliency? The all-flash HPE 3PAR StoreServ
8450 and converged flash 8440 both scale to four nodes and 1843 Terabytes (TB) of raw
flash capacity, with the converged flash array also supporting spinning media for additional
scalability and flexibility.
Looking for massive headroom? The new HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 20800 All-Flash Starter
Kit offers the industry’s most scalable flash architecture with up to 60 PB of aggregate usable
capacity, 10 million IOPS, and 300 Gbps bandwidth in a four-system federation. 5
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Storage that is flash-optimized, not flash limited
Built-in resiliency and investment
protection provide long-term
cost control
• HPE protects your flash investments
with a 5-year warranty on all SSDs,
including 3.84 TB cMLCs
• Proactive media management monitors
flash utilization and wear so you can get
the greatest utility from your flash drives
• Storage federation with HPE 3PAR Peer
Motion lets you non-disruptively move
data between systems and federate up
to four systems for massive capacity and
performance
• One operating system and a uniform
feature set across all HPE 3PAR
StoreServ Storage models make forklift
upgrades a thing of the past
Express Backup to HPE StoreOnce
protects your applications and boosts
flash efficiency
• Optional HPE StoreOnce Recovery
Manager Central (RMC) software
delivers flat backup to HPE StoreOnce
for additional protection and greater
flash capacity efficiency
• RMC expedites backups by 17X
and recovery by 5X as compared to
traditional methods
To understand how the HPE 3PAR StoreServ architecture is flash-optimized, it’s critical to first
understand some of the fundamental limitations of the other all-flash array options available
today. These options give you a choice between two general categories. On one hand, you
have all-flash and hybrid systems from major storage vendors that typically leverage legacy
architectures that were never designed for flash, but are now being used to support SSDs. This
is an inefficient and expensive way to deploy flash, and has resulted in a healthy ecosystem of
startups looking to fill the gap with purpose-built, all-flash arrays.
Your other option is an all-flash system that is highly specialized—generally targeted at either
delivering incredible flash-based performance or lowering the cost of deploying flash. While
some of these niche systems may deliver impressive performance or a low entry price point,
they cannot deliver both ultra-high performance and a low all-flash array cost at the same
time—so you have to trade one for the other.
What is even more troubling is that benefits offered by these niche systems come at the expense
of adding another silo to your data center, meaning you have to sacrifice enterprise-class
resiliency, scalability, federated data mobility, and in some cases advanced data services such as
replication and quality of service (QoS) controls. So while it’s true that, among these options, you
can surely find an array that fits your specific needs today, they are all inherently limited.
Any architecture that relies on a modular design cannot offer Tier-1 resiliency. Any solution that
is limited in scalability and lacks rich data services cannot give you the most return on your
storage investment. Adding flash to the equation only magnifies these limitations.
All of the benefits and none of the limitations
Hewlett Packard Enterprise offers a flash-optimized architecture unlike any other on the market.
It is highly scalable in terms of both capacity and performance, and if you’re already using
HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage, it doesn’t require you to introduce an entirely new architecture
into your environment to get the benefits of flash. The entire family is flash-optimized, giving
you a choice of all-flash models, converged flash models that also support spinning media,
flash-extended system cache, and the addition of a high-performance flash tier to an existing
system. This completely eliminates the need to rip and replace. What’s more, HPE 3PAR
StoreServ Storage offers the only flash array with an architecture that doesn’t compromise data
mobility, cost efficiency, or rich data services to achieve all-flash performance.
True convergence of block, file, and object access
With converged protocol support for block and file workloads, there’s even more reason to
choose flash-optimized HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage. All models in the HPE 3PAR StoreServ
family feature converged controller nodes that not only serve block workloads, but now file
workloads as well as object access. With the HPE 3PAR File Persona Software Suite, you can
unlock the native file and object access capabilities within your HPE 3PAR StoreServ array—not
just with the all-flash models, but across the entire flash-optimized family.
The HPE 3PAR File Persona Software Suite is a licensed feature of the 3PAR OS that enables a
rich set of file protocols, an Object Access API, and file data services. By unlocking File Persona
capabilities, you gain the ability to provision file shares and block volumes from a single user
interface. This approach offers a unique solution that incorporates multi-protocol support into
the system architecture to deliver a tightly integrated, converged solution for provisioning both
block storage volumes and file shares from a single storage system.
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With the HPE 3PAR File Services Suite software license, the entire flash-optimized family
of HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage arrays supports home directory consolidation, group/
departmental shares, and corporate shares in addition to workloads ideally suited for block
protocols. You also get an Object Access API for custom cloud applications—all using the
same hardware, the same system capacity, and the newly redesigned HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Management Console (SSMC)
HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8200 All-Flash Starter Kit
Looking for a complete all-flash array at the lowest cost? The HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8200
All-Flash Starter Kit gives you an affordable entry point without limiting your ability to grow
or deploy advanced data services. With 11.5 TB of usable capacity to start, you can easily
increase this initial configuration by adding more cMLCs to a maximum usable capacity of
1.3 PB. Essential software and three years of 24x7 Proactive Care support are included with
the Starter Kit, as is a free HPE 3PAR Online Import software license for easy migration from
HPE EVA Storage, EMC CLARiiON, VMAX, and VNX arrays, and HDS TagmaStore NSC, USP,
and VSP storage systems—so everything you need is rolled into one easy package.
An unconditional, 5-year warranty on all HPE 3PAR StoreServ SSDs—including high-capacity,
high-density 3.84 TB cMLCs—protects your flash media investment. Federated data movement
between all HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems means that your new all-flash array won’t
become a stranded island in the middle of your data center and technology refreshes will
forever be painless and simple.
The All-Flash HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8450 Storage Array
When it comes to flash, the HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8450 gives you the best of both worlds. Not
only does a Mesh-Active design remove the bottlenecks that can choke legacy architectures
and limit scalability, but it lowers your cost per usable gigabyte through an impressive lineup of
unique hardware and software efficiencies that extend your flash investments.
Simply put, the 8450 gives you all of the benefits of flash without any limitations, so you can
invest in a storage system that doesn’t just meet your immediate needs, but is designed to
handle whatever your future might bring.
Table 1: How the HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8450 stacks up against other all-flash arrays
6
ased on deduplication ratios of 4:1 to 6:1, depending
B
on the system
7
Requires the use of 3.84 TB cMLC drives.
Flash Appliances
Flash Limited Arrays HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8450
Design focus
Hardware focused
Flash-only point solution
Flash-optimized, adaptive architecture
Performance
1,000,000 IOPS
200,000–500,000 IOPS
1,000,000 IOPS
Architecture
Dual-controller
Dual-controller
Mesh-Active, Quad-controller
Data services
None
Limited
Complete, enterprise-class
Data mobility
Siloed within appliance
Siloed
Federated. Bi-directional Peer Motion
between systems. Online Import for
data migration from legacy arrays.
Capacity
granularity
Coarse
Granular
Fine-grained
Raw capacity
scalability
60–280 TB
70–120 TB
1843.2 TB
Usable capacity
scalability
40–200 TB
(with RAID5)
250–375 TB
5.5 PB
Cost6
Approximately
Approximately
$6–$10 USD/GB (usable) $4–$8 USD/GB (usable)
Approximately
$1.50 USD/GB (usable)7
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The Converged Flash HPE 3PAR StoreServ 8440 Storage Array
Want the additional flexibility to support spinning media on your flash array? The 8440 is for
you. Featuring the same architecture, operating system, data services, and management console
as the all-flash 8450, the 8440 gives you the option of supporting up to 2000 TB of spinning
media. You still get all the other benefits of an all-flash array—including the ability to consolidate
block and file workloads—but can also support HDDs for greater scalability and flexibility.
The Enterprise Flash HPE 3PAR StoreServ 20000 Family of Arrays
If massive flash consolidation is your goal, the all-flash HPE 3PAR StoreServ 20000 family is a
new class of enterprise flash arrays that revolutionizes speed, scale, and efficiency. The all-flash
3PAR StoreServ 20850 scales to 12 Petabytes (PB) usable and the converged flash 20800
scales to 15 PB usable,8 meaning both are ideal for customers looking to consolidate multiple
racks of legacy high-end storage gear while assuring quality of service and boosting business
productivity. Both models scale out to eight nodes and deliver greater than 3 million front-end
IOPS at sub-millisecond latency with RAID5 protection9 and 75 Gbps of front-end throughput.10
The new HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage 20800 All-Flash Starter Kit—priced at US $120K—offers
the industry’s most scalable flash architecture at a price that places it within reach of more mid-size
enterprises and service providers. And with HPE 3PAR Peer Motion software, it is possible to federate
up to HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage systems of any model, meaning you can aggregate up to 60 PB
of usable capacity, 10 million IOPS, and 300 Gbps bandwidth.11
Learn more
Want to learn more about the
flash-optimized HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Architecture? Read the technical white
paper HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage:
optimized for flash to get all the details.
Designed for flash, from the ground up
Making optimal use of flash requires a multi-faceted approach. For example, the HPE 3PAR
StoreServ platform is designed to make smarter use of available storage capacity through thin
storage technologies and data compaction, but it also features technologies to increase the
endurance and lifespan of flash media. Since, unlike mechanical HDDs, flash is an electronic
media that wears down with each write, the system is designed to reduce the number of times
data is written to SSDs wherever possible.
Adaptive Sparing
One unique approach that HPE uses to extend SSD media utilization and endurance is with
patented HPE 3PAR Adaptive Sparing technology. Applying this technology, HPE collaborates with
SSD suppliers to gain access to capacity typically reserved by flash media for wear management,
and then perform that wear management more efficiently. As a result, Adaptive Sparing is able to
increase usable drive capacity—and therefore usable system capacity—without introducing risk or
compromising drive endurance. In fact, Adaptive Sparing actually extends media lifespan.
When an SSD failure occurs, the drive typically relies on this spare or reserved capacity to
recover. However, since the HPE 3PAR OS reserves spare chunklets in each of its drives rather
than reserving entire spare drives, space set aside by individual drives (as determined by the
manufacturer) is no longer necessary or efficient. Instead, HPE works with our drive vendor
partners to release much of this reserved space so that the system can use it as overprovisioned
capacity while still ensuring that each SSD has the necessary amount of spare capacity to perform
critical operations such as garbage collection. If an SSD fails, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s patented
Adaptive Sparing technology reclaims the spare capacity from the SSD and only once that SSD is
replaced by a new one does the system release the spare capacity back to the SSD (Figure 1).
8
sing 3.84 TB cMLC SSDs and 3PAR
U
data compaction technologies
9
ased on internal testing using 100% random
B
read workload with an 8k block size and node
local volume layout using RAID5 protection.
10
ased on internal testing using a 256K
B
sequential read workload, node local
volume layout, and RAID5 protection.
11
equires four 20800 arrays with
R
15 PBs of usable capacity.
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Standard sparing
HPE 3PAR Adaptive Sparing
Over-provisioned flash
Over-provisioned flash
Adaptive spares
Spares
X
20% gain
in user
space
User space
User space
High endurance at
high cost/GB
Adaptive spares
available for use
as over-provisioned
capacity only
as needed
High endurance at
lower cost/GB
Figure 1: HPE 3PAR Adaptive Sparing—how it works
With high-capacity 3.84 TB cMLC drives, Adaptive Sparing technology employs a modified
strategy that does not augment raw capacity but instead makes read-intensive drives both
read- and write-intensive. The result is greater system capacity and greater SSD endurance.
Controller/Firmware Quality
Multiple SSDs options, including high-density cMLCs
Just as not all flash architectures are created equally, the same is true of flash media. SSD drive
technology has evolved significantly as flash has become more mainstream in the enterprise
data center, and over time vendors have abandoned using single-level cell (SLC) flash drives,
graduating instead to multi-level cell (MLC) drives. Flash-optimized architectures such as
HPE 3PAR StoreServ have also begun graduating to the use of newer technologies, including
commercial cMLC drives. It is important to note that these enterprise-grade cMLC drives are not
the same as the consumer-grade cMLC drives used in consumer applications, such as personal
computing systems (Figure 2).
Enterprise-grade
cMLC
PC-grade
MLC
eMLC
cMLC
0
1
3
Drive Writes per day
Figure 2: Common types of SSD technologies
10
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As already discussed, the use of Adaptive Sparing allows the HPE 3PAR Architecture to make
more efficient use of cMLC SSDs. This technology, in combination with other flash optimization
technologies presented in this paper, make it possible for the system to use high-density
1.92 TB and 3.84 TB enterprise-grade cMLC SSDs to deliver similar performance and media
endurance as compared to the use of MLC drives, but at a 20–30 percent lower cost per
gigabyte. While releasing reserved SSD capacity does have a minimal impact on media
endurance at the drive level—on the order of one drive write per day—Adaptive Sparing
technology actually boosts media endurance at the system level equivalent to approximately
1 to 2.5 drive writes per day for a net positive effect.
As a result, Adaptive Sparing allows the system to not only lower the cost of flash through the
use of cMLCs, but to extend system capacity and do this without sacrificing endurance. This
is only possible with a software stack optimized for flash. All currently available HPE 3PAR
StoreServ SSDs carry a five-year warranty offering unconditional replacement due to drive
failure, media wear-out, or both. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is able to offer this guarantee
because of the unique benefits of Adaptive Sparing and the other optimization technologies
built into the system operating system and hardware architecture.
Data protection designed for flash
One of the best ways to get more out of your all-flash HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage system
is to offload snapshot data to cost-effective, deduplicating HPE StoreOnce Systems using a
feature called Express Protect, available with HPE StoreOnce Recovery Manager Central (RMC)
software. This feature gives your applications additional protection, accelerates recovery, and
makes your flash array more efficient through cost-effective, off-array snapshot data retention.
Here’s how it works. With Express Protect, you can create application-consistent snapshots on
your array and back them up directly to an HPE StoreOnce physical or virtual appliance without
involving a media server or backup agent software. Only incremental changes are sent over to
the HPE StoreOnce appliance. These incremental changes are used to create and maintain an
up-to-date, synthetic full backup—so when it’s time to recover, you have a full backup ready
and waiting without the need to apply incremental backups.
With no load on the array, no media server, and no dependency on backup software to move
data, recovery time objectives (RTOs) are decreased to seconds or minutes. Elimination of the
media server and associated backup software also means greater simplicity and significantly
lower cost as there is no capacity-based licensing involved. But that’s not all. You also get
additional protection against file loss or data corruption beyond the oldest snapshot stored
on your array. And since your snapshot data resides on the StoreOnce appliance and not your
array, you aren’t consuming valuable flash capacity. You also get protection against a wider
range of failure scenarios such as storage platform outages.12 Today this solution supports
VMware and integration with other applications is under development.
12
S ee ESG, Examining the Benefits and Strategic
Impact of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s
Converged Storage Vision, December 2014.
Brochure
The last primary storage platform you’ll ever need
HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage radically improves capacity and performance efficiency, making
all-flash HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage arrays more affordable for a wider range of applications
and a wider range of data centers than ever before.
Developing solutions for major social and
environmental challenges.
hp.com/hpinfo/globalcitizenship
Unlike bolt-on thin storage solutions available with legacy platforms, HPE 3PAR StoreServ
Storage features hardware-enabled data compaction technologies that allow systems to run
in a state of consistently high capacity utilization without performance tradeoffs. In fact, the
HPE Get Thin Guarantee promises new HPE 3PAR StoreServ customers at least 50 percent
reduction in capacity requirements by simply replacing legacy storage with HPE 3PAR
StoreServ Storage—guaranteed.13
Whether you choose the all-flash 8450, the converged flash 8440, the 8200 All-Flash Starter kit,
or one of the new enterprise flash models, the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage platform delivers
unique flash efficiencies that give you more from your investment. This lets you get the most out
of every dollar and I/O for lower TCO and increased storage ROI, backed by a 5-year SSD warranty.
If your organization is seeking to increase the productivity of employees while improving
protection and security of user-generated file data, Hewlett Packard Enterprise now offers
you a truly converged primary storage platform that effectively addresses an expanded set of
workloads. The HPE 3PAR StoreServ File Persona Suite is your key to unlocking this capability
within any HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage system.
Combine this with the fact that the HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage family uses the same OS
and offers the same rich set of enterprise-class data services across the entire portfolio—from
midrange to high-end and across flash and spinning media—and the choice becomes simple.
Investing in HPE 3PAR StoreServ Storage is investing in your future by choosing the last
primary storage platform you’ll ever need.
Learn more at
hpe.com/storage/3par
13
S ubject to qualification and compliance
with the HPE 3PAR Get Thin Guarantee
Program Terms and Conditions.
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The only warranties for Hewlett Packard Enterprise products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying
such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Hewlett Packard Enterprise shall not
be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
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