HP StoreEasy - Easy storage of unstructured data

HP updated its line of junior-class NAS systems in December, and the previously released X-Series NAS (X1000, X3000 and X5000) were replaced by the HP StoreEasy1000, 3000 and 5000. Of course, the changes compared to their predecessors are not limited to the new brand. First of all, the HP ProLiant Gen8 servers released this spring became the hardware basis of the new systems.

As we already said in our blog , in this generation of the industry's best standard architecture servers, productivity and reliability have significantly increased, which is extremely important for storing data on which business depends on uninterrupted access.

In addition, the new NASs use the recently released Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2012 as the OS, which implements new features such as block-level deduplication, thin provisioning, fault tolerant ReFS file systems, and the ability to combine multiple systems into a failover cluster , Support for NFS Version 4.1 and SMB 3.0, Enhanced Scaling for NFS, SMB, or iSCSI.

These OS enhancements offer converged storage options on the HP StoreEasy, i.e. the owner of this system can store on it not only files, but also block data of server applications with access through an iSCSI-based storage network.



The HP StoreEasy Storage line now consists of three series - the 1000th and 5000th series of completely ready-to-use file storage systems and the 3000th series of NAS gateways:

• HP StoreEasy 1000 Storage with capacities from 5 to 50 TB are the entry-level models based on the HP ProLiant Gen8 tower and rackmounts, targeted at small companies, branches and workgroups. Such a system can be implemented to replace several standard Windows-servers used for storing files, and as a result get an improvement in the speed of access to data, reliability of storage and reduction in the cost of servicing the server park.
• HP StoreEasy 5000 Storage with capacities from 100 to 400 TB is a turnkey solution for medium-sized companies that provides high availability with a two-node active-active cluster that is optimized to serve Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and implement virtualization. HP StoreEasy 5000 Storage is fully compatible with the 1000th model of this series, so if you install this model in the main office of the enterprise, with a geographically distributed infrastructure, and StoreEasy 1000 in its branches, you can easily replicate data from branches to the center. For this scenario, the HP Hosted BranchCache feature is useful, which stores frequently requested data in the local cache of the remote branch to reduce the delay when moving data from the main office to the branches and loading communication channels between them.
• HP StoreEasy 3000 Storage is a clustered NAS-gateway that allows you to implement NAS storage functions for the customer’s existing disk array in the SAN infrastructure and turn it into a converged storage system. They are fully compatible with the HP 3PAR Storage and HP StoreVirtual Storage (LeftHand) storage systems, and provide access to data on these arrays both in the form of file resources and at the block level.

But of course, all this is just the beginning. We will return to the story about StoreEasy more than once with practical examples from our laboratory and real applications from HP customers.