HP Modular Smart Array 1500 (MSA1500)

HP StorageWorks MSA 1500

The HP StorageWorks 1500 cs Modular Smart Array (MSA1500) is a 2 Gigabit (Gb) Fibre Channel (FC) Storage Area Network (SAN) or Direct Attach Storage (DAS).  Configured as a 2U controller shelf, the HP StorageWorks MSA1500 array can be connected to enterprise-class Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) and Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) disk enclosures. There are many reasons to select SCSI drives over SATA drives and vice versa in your HP MSA1500 SAN. For instance, HP recommends SCSI drives for intense I/O applications while SATA drives are ideal for archived, reference, etc. disk-to-disk backup configurations. However, you really don’t even need to choose since you can mix and match these 2 drive types in a single array. Additionally, the MSA1500 cs provides 2 Gb/1 Gb FC connection to the hosts as well as using existing SCSI drive enclosures and MSA1000/1500 controller technology. MSA1500 arrays feature single or dual controller model options, and the option of dual active/active controllers can even be supported on some operating systems (OS).

The HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array (MSA1500) is just one SAN in the entire line of HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array (MSA) products. But there are several reasons that it stands out as an exceptional storage solution. One such reason is that the HP MSA1500 array is able to scale to up to 4 SCSI enclosures for a maximum storage capacity of up to 16.8TB or up to 8 SATA enclosures for a maximum storage capacity of up to 64Terabytes (TB). Another reason is that the HP MSA 1500 storage array offers support for multiple Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) levels including RAID 6 for Advanced Data Guarding (ADG) capabilities, as well as up to a 512 Megabyte (MB) controller cache per controller and up to 56 SCSI or 96 SATA hard disk drives.