HP has announced two new storage solutions supporting data deduplication. For SMS customers, HP's D2D2500 and D2D4000 devices offer rack mounted solutions as part of a tiered storage infrastructure. For large enterprises, HP has added deduplication to its StorageWorks Virtual Library Systems. These are HPs first serious entry into the deduplication market where it is struggling to make up ground on IBM, SUN, EMC and other storage vendors.
The D2D2500 is a 1U, 3TB solution with 6 drives and an iSCSI interface. The D2D4000 is a 3U device with up to 9TB of disk, depending on the model, and supports both iSCSI and FC interfaces. HP is targeting the remote and branch offices with these D2D devices as well as smaller datacentres.
Both of these support HPs dynamic deduplication technology which works at the block level rather than the file level. This works by looking at each block of data and giving it a unique ID. Each new block is compared to an index of blocks. If there is an existing entry in the index, only a point, rather than the block, is stored. Depending on your backup strategy, HP is claiming that companies can reduce the disk space used by over 85%.
The D2D2500 is available immediately at a price of US$6,499 (approx £3,300) while the D2D4000 will depend on disk type (SAS/SATA), capacity (4TB/9TB) and interface (iSCSI/SAS). At the bottom end the 4TB iSCSI will sell at around US$18,999 while the top end 9TB FC comes in at US$42,998.
The HP StorageWorks Virtual Library System 6200, VLS6600, VLS9000 and VLS12000 EVA gateway will also be getting deduplication. For the VLS VLS supports complex SAN environments allowing data to be kept online for longer using virtual tape technology. HP has licensed the DeltaStor technology from Sepaton for its VLS solutions and unlike the software inside the D2D devices, this works at file rather than block level.
In this instance, files are compared at the byte level and identical files are replaced by a pointer. Like block level deduplication, it can offer a significant reduction in disk requirement with Sepaton claiming a 50:1 reduction in required space.
Product availability is going to be spread over several months. The VLS6600 and VLS9000 are already shipping while the VLS6200 and VLS12000 EVA Gateway will ship in September 2008.
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