Best High-End Storage Arrays

This report, published on July 21, 2022, was written by Ken Clipperton, lead analyst, storage, DCIG LLC.

DCIG is Updating its High-end Storage Array Research

The analyst firm is currently updating its research on primary storage arrays, and intends to publish multiple Top 5 reports based on this research beginning in 3Q22. The first of these reports will cover high-end storage arrays, followed by enterprise all-flash array and midrange array reports.

Critical need for high-end storage arrays
Organizations that provide critical infrastructure to the rest of society must provide uninterrupted service availability – even in the event of a disaster. In hospitals, an interruption in service could mean life or death for a patient. In financial institutions, a brief outage could easily have multi-million dollar ramifications; and an extended outage could have a measurable impact on a nation’s economy as a whole.

Organizations in these and other critical industries, such as telecom, energy utilities, and transportation, depend on high-end storage arrays to provide uninterrupted access to the world’s most essential data.

High-end storage array inclusion criteria
Current criteria for inclusion in the high-end storage array research include:
• Be identified by the vendor as a high-end storage array
• Must support high availability through multiple controllers in an active-active configuration
• Must provide synchronous replication for non-disruptive operations across at least 2 data centers
• Must be able to provide at least 3PB of raw capacity
• Must offer support options to include:

Automated case creation based on fault data
Proactive support based on fault data
Technician onsite with 4-hour GTD response

DCIG has identified the following vendors as offering arrays that meet its criteria and is in the process of updating its research database to capture the latest feature data:
• Dell PowerMax 8500 and VMAX 950F
• Fujitsu Eternus DX8900 S4
• Hitachi Vantara VSP
• HPE Primera 600
• HPE XP8 Gen2
• Huawei OceanStor 18000 / OceanStor Dorado 8000/18000 V6
• IBM DS8900F
• Infinidat InfiniBox
• NetApp ASA AFF A800