The MSA 2040 is the 4Th generation of HP’s popular Modular Storage Array (MSA) series entry SAN arrays. As expected the MSA2040 sees the usual hardware and performance updates such as;
- Support for 16Gb FC
- 12Gb SAS (front and back end)
- 1Gb/10Gb ISCSI
- 2x Cache (from 2GB to 4GB per controller),
- Faster processors capable of handling more IO and throughput (up from 35K IOPs to over 85K IOPs)
However, the most important enhancement is in the software/ firmware which now provides enterprise level functionality & features, placing the likes of EMC (with their family of VNXe & VNX arrays) in the uncomfortable position of having to explain to the customer “Why they should spend 2-3x as much for a VNX when an MSA 2040 can do everything a VNX can do?”
- Want active / active controllers?
- Want to create virtual pools of RAID groups for wide striping across all disks?
- Want thin provisioning?
- Want automatic sub-lun Tiering across both SSD, SAS and NL-SAS?
- Want SSD caching?
- Want support for ‘at rest’ encryption?
- Want integrated array based replication over IP or FC?
- Want intuitive web based management with both real time and historical capacity & performance charts?
With a starting price of under $10K, it is easy to see why the competition should be worried.
HP also continues to offer superior investment protection for MSA owners with the ability to do data-in-place upgrades from a P2000G3 to an MSA 2040 via simple controller swap out allowing existing enclosures and disk drives to be re-used rather than replaced.
The MSA 2040 is ideal for;
- Customers looking for a cost optimised storage platform for their Virtualisation, Messaging, VDI, Digital Media archive
- Customers looking for plug-and-play connectivity without the cost and hassle of implementing & managing iSCSI or FC networking
- MSA 2040 with SAS interfaces can support up to 4 x Hosts redundantly connected via 12Gb SAS (e.g 3 x VM hosts & 1 x Backup server) without the need for any switching
- Customers with aging EMC CX4 or VNX arrays looking for the same features without the price tag
- Customers who have a need for high performance storage for working dataset (SSD Cache, performance tiering, wide striping etc.) and a need a large amount of capacity to store various digital assets such as video & images, or archives (leverage auto-tiering down to low cost 6 & 8TB NL-SAS disks)
- Customers looking to leverage an existing investment in P2000G3 or D2700 disk enclosures.
Please Contact Lynx for more information.
