Hewlett-Packard Co. is planning a major refresh of its StorageWorks line of corporate storage gear.
Company executives gave a preview recently of three new EVA (Enterprise Virtual Array) models—EVA4000, EVA6000 and EVA8000—which can store up to 72TB of data using varying numbers of 146GB disk drives at 10,000 rpm.
The preview comes days before a wider rollout of new storage systems. HP, which ousted CEO Carly Fiorina in February and later named former NCR Corp. President and CEO Mark Hurd as its new CEO, has said that storage lately has been one of its biggest areas of disappointment in terms of revenue and market share.
HP is hoping to change its fortunes with the refresh, which it plans to detail this week. The company plans to bring new features to products such as the EVA line as well as to fill in certain product-line gaps with the introduction of a midrange tape library product.
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Besides offering more speed and a greater range of capacities—the three new EVAs supersede two models, the EVA3000 and EVA5000—the line offers several extras, including additional Fibre Channel ports management software.
HP officials said their goals with the new releases are to bring capabilities down to midrange price points and to develop some creative packaging options for customers and resellers.
To accomplish this, HP will bundle a new version of its Command View EVA management software suite with the products for free, officials said.
The suite, which can run on any version of Windows Server, includes the EVA performance tool EVAPerf for monitoring real-time performance of the arrays as well as for analyzing their historical performance metrics.
Prices for typical installations of the three different EVA systems will range from about $124,000 for an EVA4000 with 3.5TB of storage capacity, two years of support, a network switch and a cabinet, among other gear, to about $409,000 for an EVA8000 with 14TB of capacity, twin switches, two years of support and a cabinet. A 6.7TB EVA6000 will cost about $221,000, officials at HP, based in Palo Alto, Calif., said.
HP is also working on its Enterprise Modular Library, which is capable of backing up as much as 350TB of data on 442 LTO (Linear Tape-Open) cartridges.
John Spooner is a senior writer for Ziff Davis Internet.
