Hardware features of VSP G1000, G1500, and VSP F1500
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1x00 and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F1500 are flash-optimized virtual storage platforms that deliver up to 4M IOPS of performance and offer the industry's only 100% data-availability guarantee.
Storage system architecture
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1x00 and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F1500 contain an improved, seventh-generation hierarchical star net architecture that is shown in the following illustration. In this architecture, the virtual storage directors (VSDs) are shared across the cache, front-end directors (FEDs), and back-end directors (BEDs), providing immediate processing power without wait time or interruption to maximize I/O throughput.
The storage systems provide a highly granular upgrade path, allowing the addition of drives to the drive chassis and components such as FEDs to the controller chassis as storage and processing needs increase. A storage system configuration can range from a single controller with no drives (diskless) to a dual controller managing up to 2,304 small form factor (SFF) drives or 1,152 large form factor (LFF) drives (or 576 FMDs) with homogeneous logic control, cache, and front-end and back-end interfaces, all mounted in standard Hitachi Vantara 19-inch racks. You can also use non-Hitachi standard racks that meet the specifications listed in the Hardware Guide for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000, G1500, and F1500.
Hardware components
The VSP G1x00 and VSP F1500 storage systems can be configured with one or two controller chassis and up to twelve drive chassis that contain the drives. A controller chassis contains the control logic, processors, memory, and interfaces to the drive chassis and the host servers. A drive chassis contains drives, power supplies, and the interface circuitry that connects it to the controller.
The controller rack contains the controller chassis and up to two drive chassis. Additional racks can contain an intermix of 16U SFF or LFF drive chassis and/or 8U flash drive chassis as well as one or two Hitachi NAS (HNAS) file system servers. When the controllers of a two-controller system are housed in separate racks, the two controller racks can be placed up to 100 meters apart. In addition, the drive racks attached to a controller rack can be placed up to 100 meters from the controller rack.
VSP G1x00 support three types of drives: SFF hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs), LFF HDDs and SSDs, and flash module drives (FMDs), including the second-generation FMD DC2 drives. The drives are mounted in a chassis that is specific to each drive type. VSP G1x00 also support a "diskless" configuration (no drive chassis, all external storage).
The VSP F1500 all-flash array is equipped with advanced high-density FMDs, providing up to 4M IOPS and 40 PB of capacity for multi-workload consolidation.
The following illustration shows a fully configured VSP G1000 with two controllers containing 8 virtual storage director (VSD) pairs (128 CPU cores), 2 TB cache, and 12 16U drive chassis containing 2,304 SFF drives with a physical storage capacity of approximately 2.7 PB. When configured with 6-TB LFF drives, the storage system provides a physical storage capacity of approximately 6.8 PB. When configured with 14-TB FMDs, the storage system provides a physical storage capacity of approximately 8.1 PB.
Controller chassis
The controller chassis includes the logical components, memory, SAS drive interfaces, and host interfaces. The controller chassis is mounted at the bottom of the rack. If a two-controller system has two service processors (SVPs), both are mounted in controller chassis #0. A controller chassis includes the following maximum number of components:
- Two SVPs, or one SVP and one hub
- 1 TB cache memory
- Two cache backup modules, each comprising a set of two boxes that back up the cache in case of power failure
- Two cache path control adapters (CPA), each comprising a pair of redundant blades that host cache modules as well as providing the PCI-Express path to distribute data among virtual storage director (VSD) pairs, front-end directors and back-end directors. They mirror the data to prevent data loss if one blade fails.
- Four VSD pairs
- Four redundant power supplies with cooling fans
- Six front-end directors (FEDs), each comprising a pair of redundant blades
- Two back-end directors (BEDs), each comprising a pair of redundant blades
- Ten cooling fan assemblies
The following illustration shows the front and rear views of the controller chassis. All components are installed symmetrically on the left and right sides of the controller. The rear side of the controller includes 12 configurable I/O slots. Four of the slots support either FEDs or BEDs, and four of the slots support either FEDs or VSD pairs. Components can be added to these slots as needed to increase performance or storage capacity or to support more host systems. Note that it is not possible to install the maximum number of VSDs, FEDs, and BEDs all at the same time.
Drive chassis
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1x00 support three types of drives: SFF, LFF, and flash module drives (FMDs). The Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F1500 all-flash array is configured with FMDs. Each drive type requires its own chassis.
|
Drive chassis |
Description | Drive trays / Drives per tray |
Maximum number of chassis / drives per system | |
|
Single controller (3 racks) |
Dual controller (6 racks) | |||
|
SFF |
A 16U group of eight 2U drive trays. Each holds up to 24 vertically positioned 2.5-inch HDD and SSD drives, for a total of 192 SFF drives per chassis. | Eight 2U trays, up to 24 drives each |
6 / 1,152 hard drives Up to 192 SSDs |
12 / 2,304 drives Up to 384 SSDs |
|
LFF |
A 16U group of eight 2U drive trays. Each holds up to 12 horizontally positioned 3.5-inch drives, for a total of 96 LFF drives per chassis. | Eight 2U trays, up to 12 drives each |
6 / 576 hard drives Up to 192 flash drives |
12 / 1,152 Up to 384 SSDs |
|
FMD |
An 8U group of four 2U drive trays. Each holds up to 12 horizontally positioned drives, for a total of 48 FMDs per chassis. | Four 2U trays, up to 12 drives each |
6 / 288 |
12 / 576 |
Hardware features
The Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1x00 and Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F1500 offer state-of-the-art advances in hardware technology that improve reliability, serviceability, and access to drives and other components when maintenance is needed.
The key hardware features of the VSP G1000, VSP G1500, and VSP F1500 storage systems include the following:
- High-speed 8-core CPUs in the virtual storage directors (VSDs), expanded cache memory (up to 2 TB per 2-controller system), flexible installation, and increased drive types and capacities. The VSP G1500 and VSP F1500 storage systems are equipped with new virtual storage directors (VSDs) that use the latest generation of Intel Xenon 2.3-GHz 8-core microprocessor.
- Hitachi Accelerated Flash FMD DC2 storage offers a patented data-center-class design and rack-optimized form factor that delivers more than 2 PB per system, supporting a sustained performance of 100,000 8K I/O per second, per device, with low and consistent response time.
- Hitachi FMD-HDE (high-density with encryption) drives provide high-density storage capacities with accelerated compression and hardware-embedded encryption capabilities.
- The latest 2.5-in. and 3.5-in. 6-Gbps SAS drives support lower power consumption and higher density per rack with up to 2,304 drives in six 19-inch standard racks.
- Hitachi NAS Platform hardware accelerated network protocols support up to 2 Gb/sec throughput for sequential workloads and up to 1.2 million NFS operations per second.
- Efficient caching makes up to 2 TB global cache dynamically accessible by all connected hosts and Hitachi NAS Platform nodes.
- Controller racks can be placed up to 100 meters apart, providing maximum flexibility to optimize data center space usage and to provide ease of access for operation and maintenance. In addition, the drive racks attached to a controller rack can be placed up to 100 meters from the controller rack. See the detailed description of this feature and the cable diagrams in the Hardware Guide for Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform G1000, G1500, and F1500.
- Accelerated compression delivers a data compression capability that enables you to realize more virtual capacity in a parity group than the actual usable capacity.
- High-temperature mode is a licensed feature that allows the storage system to run at either standard temperature (60.8°F to 89.6°F / 16°C to 32°C) or at higher temperatures (60.8°F to 104°F / 16°C to 40°C) in a data center, saving energy and cooling costs.
- External SAN storage virtualization extends the useful life of existing assets by allowing legacy devices to transparently inherit new functionality from the storage system and SVOS RF. This capability eases migration and reduces costs and risk when moving from legacy Hitachi or non-Hitachi storage systems. Dynamic tiering of storage capacity (internal or external capacity) is supported as well as nondisruptive data migration between tiers and between vendors.