HP Modular Smart Array 50 (MSA50)

HP StorageWorks MSA 50

As a 1U disk storage enclosure, the HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array (MSA) 50 is an affordable way to expand the disk storage capacity of HP ProLiant and HP Integrity servers. As a direct-attached storage (DAS) solution, the HP MSA 50 enclosure is a cost-effective solution compared to Network Attached Storage (NAS) or Storage Area Network (SAN) options. HP StorageWorks MSA50 disk enclosures can hold up to 10 hot-pluggable Small Form Factor (SFF) disk drives, with the option of high-performance Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), Mid-Line SAS (MDL-SAS), or high-capacity Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard disk drives (HDDs). Any of these disk drive types can be mixed and matched within the HP MSA 50, which offer support for the new Universal form factor hard drive. Through the different disk drive types, the HP MSA 50 storage enclosure can offer a maximum storage capacity of 2.5 Terabytes (TB) with SATA drives, up to 5TB of ML-SAS, and up to 6TB of high-performance SAS drives.

However, if the shelves of an HP StorageWorks Modular Smart Array 50 are cascaded in a 1 + 1 configuration that allows the disk drive capacity of the enclosure to expand up to 20 SFF disk drives instead of the normal maximum capacity of 10 disk drives. When shelf cascading is used, then the HP MSA50 enclosure can offer a maximum storage capacity of 5TB with SATA drives, 10TB with ML-SAS drives and 12TB of high-performance SAS drives. Also offering broad operating system (OS) support, further advantages of HP MSA 50 storage enclosures include support for various Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) levels such as RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 1+0, RAID 5 and RAID 6 data protection. And since the HP MSA 50 disk enclosure features a common storage platform, it can be utilized in storage configurations ranging from Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD) to Smart Array storage enclosures.