HGST Enterprise HDDs and SSDs Certified for VMware VSAN

HGST, Inc., a Western Digital company, announced that multiple devices from its SAS enterprise HDDs, as well as PCIe and SAS SSDs have been certified by VMware as interoperable storage tiers for VMware Virtual SAN.

It is a hypervisor-converged, storage platform for vSphere environments that brings the benefits of software-defined storage to the data center. Leveraging certified HGST HDD and SSD solutions, customers have access to the a high-capacity, high-performance, high-resilience storage portfolio designed to be flash-accelerated for virtual environments.

“VMware has been a partner with HGST for many years. We are pleased to have them as part of our VMware Virtual SAN ecosystem, and look forward to working closely with them as they introduce even more products that interoperate with our platforms,” said Gaetan Castelein, senior director, storage and availability, VMware.

The HGST drive certification for VMware Virtual SAN involved a five-stage process that included review, performance, reliability, compatibility and overall integrity. The certification process ensures that the overall solution meets VMware Virtual SAN customer expectations. There are specific certification tracks for SAS and PCIe drives and HGST is now the only vendor to have VMware Virtual SAN certification for its SAS HDDs and SSDs, as well as its PCIe SSDs.

Listed within the VMware Compatibility Guide, the Ultrastar C10K1200, HGST s1122 PCIe Accelerator, HGST FlashMAX family and HGST S842 SAS SSDs offer VMware Virtual SAN customers the flexibility to granularly scale-up or scale-out their storage environment, while maintaining performance and endurance for mission-critical applications.

“This is a win for HGST, a win for VMware and most importantly a huge win for VSAN customers,” remarked Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “The performance gains a customer can attain are massive.”

“The future of the data center lies in making data and storage more accessible and faster across all infrastructure environments, and we see this being enabled and accelerated by our portfolio of leading devices and solutions,” said Mike Gustafson, SVP and GM, HGST flash platforms group. “HGST has the only complete certified, storage device portfolio that allows customers large and small to leverage the advanced technology and performance tiers of VMware Virtual SAN. With our solutions, customers can easily scale up or scale out their VM infrastructure with the reliability and performance they have come to expect from HGST.”