HP Storage Announcement – Trying to Catch Up, Still Not There

Yesterday, HP announced a refresh to their EVA storage line, which sounds new to those who haven’t been following the evolution of storage solutions over the last few years. For those in the business, it is seen for what it is: an attempt to catch up to what Dell and others have been doing for some time now. It is an attempt because, while the “new” EVA arrays have added some additional features – some that Dell has had for almost three years – they are still noticeably missing many that customers are looking for to help solve their storage problems and simplify their IT.

Catch up:

Still not there:

  • Increased capacity, ports and cache that doesn’t approach the levels available on Dell/EMC arrays: 960 drives, 32 ports, 32GB cache;
  • No ability to add additional ports or new network technologies like FC8 and 10Gbit iSCSI to an existing array;
  • No native support for iSCSI – only through an expensive FC-to-iSCSI bridge;
  • No data-in-place upgrades from previous generations of arrays;
  • No native thin-provisioning ability like what is available on Dell/EMC and Dell EqualLogic arrays;
  • No support for low-power SATA;
  • No announced support for drive spin down.

In today’s environment, features that save money or extend a product’s useful life are essential. Dell includes them because we listen to customers who tell us how they need to extend the life of their storage, consolidate it on intelligent SAN platforms and manage it more easily as their businesses grow and evolve. This is revolutionary and dynamic. We have been consistent in our approach since the beginning that we will continue to drive customer-centric innovation and make storage simple, capable and affordable. In the dynamic data center, Dell’s storage products will continue to help our customers grow.

We’ll also look forward to giving HP more targets to shoot for as they plan out their next generation of storage products a few years from now.

About the Author: Greg White