Document conventions

This document uses the following typographic conventions:

Convention Description
Bold Indicates text on a window, other than the window title,
including menus, menu options, buttons, fields, and labels.
Example: Click OK.
Italic Indicates a variable, which is a placeholder for actual text
provided by the user or system. Example: copy source-file
target-file
Note: Angled brackets (< >) are also used to indicate
variables.
screen/code Indicates text that is displayed on screen or entered by the
user. Example: # pairdisplay -g oradb
< > angled brackets Indicates a variable, which is a placeholder for actual text
provided by the user or system. Example: # pairdisplay -g
<group>
Note: Italic font is also used to indicate variables.
[ ] square brackets Indicates optional values. Example: [ a | b ] indicates that you
can choose a, b, or nothing.
{ } braces Indicates required or expected values. Example: { a | b }
indicates that you must choose either a or b.
| vertical bar Indicates that you have a choice between two or more options
or arguments. Examples:
[ a | b ] indicates that you can choose a, b, or nothing.
{ a | b } indicates that you must choose either a or b.

This document uses the following icons to draw attention to information:

Icon Meaning Description

Tip Tips provide helpful information, guidelines, or suggestions
for performing tasks more effectively.

Note Notes emphasize or supplement important points of the main

text.

Caution Cautions indicate that failure to take a specified action could

result in damage to the software or hardware.

WARNING Warnings indicate that failure to tae a specified action could

result in loss of data or serious damage to hardware.

ELECTRIC Failure to take appropriate precautions such as not opening

SHOCK or touching hazardous areas of the equipment could result in
HAZARD injury or death.

x Preface
Hitachi VSP User and Reference Guide
Convention for storage capacity values
Physical and logical storage capacities of disk drives in Hitachi Data Systems
storage products are calculated based on the following values:

Logical Units: Block Size - 512 Bytes (Logical Disk Capacity)

1 KB (kilobyte) = 1,024 bytes (210) 1 TB (terabyte) = 1,0244 bytes

1 MB (megabyte) = 1,0242 bytes 1 PB (petabyte) = 1,0245 bytes

1 GB (gigabyte) = 1,0243 bytes 1 EB (exabyte) = 1,0246 bytes

Logical storage capacity values (logical device capacity) are calculated

based on the following values:

Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) (Physical Disk Capacity)

1 KB = 1,000 bytes 1 TB = 1,0004 bytes

1 MB = 1,0002 bytes 1 PB = 1,0005 bytes

1 GB = 1,0003 bytes 1 EB = 1,0006 bytes

Accessing product documentation

The VSP user documentation is available on the Hitachi Data Systems
Support Portal: https://Portal.HDS.com. Check this site for the most current
documentation, including important updates that may have been made
after the release of the product.

Getting help
The Hitachi Data Systems customer support staff is available 24 hours a
day, seven days a week. If you need technical support, log on to the Hitachi
Data Systems support portal for contact information: https://
Portal.HDS.com

Comments
Please send us your comments on this document:
[email protected]. Include the document title, number, and revision.
Please refer to specific sections and paragraphs whenever possible.
Thank you! (All comments become the property of Hitachi Data Systems.)

Preface xi
Hitachi VSP User and Reference Guide
xii Preface
Hitachi VSP User and Reference Guide
 1
Introduction

This chapter provides a brief description of the hardware and software used
in the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform storage system. Detailed information
is located in Chapter 2, Functional and Operational Characteristics on page
2-1, and Chapter 3, System Components on page 3-1.

□ Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform overview

□ Hardware overview

□ Features

□ Specifications

□ Software features and functions

Introduction 1–1
Hitachi VSP User and Reference Guide
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform overview
The Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform is a high-capacity, high performance
data storage system that offers a wide range of storage and data services,
software, logical partitioning, and simplified and unified data replication
across heterogeneous storage systems. Its large-scale, enterprise-class
virtualization layer combined with dynamic provisioning, Dynamic Tiering,
and thin provisioning software, delivers virtualization of internal and
external storage into one pool.
Using this system, you can deploy applications within a new framework,
leverage and add value to current investments, and more closely align IT
with business objectives. VSP storage systems provide the foundation for
matching application requirements to different classes of storage and
deliver critical services including:
• Business continuity services
• Content management services (search, indexing)
• Non-disruptive data migration
• Thin provisioning
• Dynamic Tiering
• High availability
• Security services
• I/O load balancing
• Data classification
• File management services
New technological advances improve reliability, serviceability and access to
disk drives and other components when maintenance is needed. Each
component contains a set of LEDs that indicate the operational status of the
component. The system includes new and upgraded software features,
including Dynamic Tiering, and a significantly improved, task-oriented
version of Storage Navigator that is designed for ease of use and includes
context-sensitive online help. The system documentation has been changed
to a task-oriented format that is designed to help you find information
quickly and complete tasks easily.

Hardware overview
Virtual Storage Platform systems contain significant new technology that
was not available in previous Hitachi Data Systems storage systems. The
system can be configured in many ways, starting with a small, one rack,
diskless system, to a large, six-rack system that includes two controller
chassis, up to 2048 HDD drives, up to 256 SSD drives, up to 96 Flash
Module Drives, and a total of 1TBcache. The system provides a highly
granular upgrade path, allowing the addition of disk drives to the drive
chassis, and Virtual Storage Directors (microprocessors) and other
components to the controller chassis in an existing system as storage needs
increase. Virtual Storage Platform systems can be combined so that what
would previously have been two separate storage systems are now a single

1–2 Introduction
Hitachi VSP User and Reference Guide
storage system with homogeneous logic control, cache, and front end and
back end interfaces, all mounted in standard Hitachi Data Systems 19-inch
racks.
A basic Virtual Storage Platform storage system consists of a controller
chassis and one or more drive chassis that contain the data drives. The
system includes a control rack (Rack-00) that contains a controller chassis,
and may be either diskless (no drive chassis) or may contain one or two
drive chassis in the same rack. Each drive chassis can contain one of three
drive types: SFF HDDs or SSDs, LFF HDDs or SSDs, or Flash Module drives.
The controller chassis contains the control logic, processors, memory, and
interfaces to the drive chassis and the host servers. A drive chassis consist
of disk or SSD drives, power supplies, and the interface circuitry connecting
it to the controller chassis. The remaining racks (Rack-01 and Rack- 02)
contain from one to three drive chassis.
The following sections provide descriptions and illustrations of the Hitachi
Virtual Storage Platform storage system and its components.

Figure 1-1 Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform

Introduction 1–3
Hitachi VSP User and Reference Guide
Controller chassis
The controller chassis (factory designation DKC) includes the logical
components, memory, disk drive interfaces, and host interfaces. It can be
expanded with a high degree of granularity to a system offering up to twice
the number of processors, cache capacity, host interfaces and disk storage
capacity.
The controller chassis includes the following maximum number of
components: two service processors, 512 GB cache memory, four grid
switches, four redundant power supplies, eight front-end directors, four
back-end directors, and ten dual fan assemblies. It is mounted at the
bottom of the rack because it is the heavier of the two units. If a system has
two SVPs, both SVPs are mounted in controller chassis #0.
The following illustration shows the locations of the components in the
controller chassis. The controller chassis is described in more detail in
System Components on page 3-1.

Figure 1-2

Item Description Item Description Item Description

Power Supply Service Processor FED (front-end director)
2, 3 or 4 units per One or two units in the #0
controller controller chassis.
Grid switches FED (up to 8, and Cache (2 to 8 boards)
BED (back-end director)
(up to 4)
Virtual Storage Directors
(2 to 4 microprocessor boards)

1–4 Introduction
Hitachi VSP User and Reference Guide
Drive Chassis
A VSP storage system can contain up to three types of data drives. Each
type of drive is mounted in a chassis that holds only that type of drive. Drive
types cannot be intermixed within the same drive chassis.
The HDD/SSD drive chassis (factory designation DKU) contains either disk
(HDD) drives or flash (SSD) drives, eight SAS switches, and two 8-fan
“door” assemblies that can be easily opened to allow access to the drives.
There are two types of DKU drive chassis. One type can contain up to 80 3-
1/2 inch HDD disk drives or SSD flash drives. The second type can contain
up to 128 2-1/2 inch HDD disk drives or SSD flash drives.
The maximum number of 3-1/2-inch drives in a Virtual Storage Platform is
1280. The maximum number of 2-1/2 drives is 2048. The maximum
number of Flash Module drives is 96. Details are located in System
Components on page 3-1.

Figure 1-3 Drive chassis

Flash chassis
In addition to the chassis for disk and/or flash drives, a second type of
chassis can be installed in a VSP system. A flash chassis (factory
designation FBX) is a cluster of four flash boxes (trays), as shown in the
following illustration. Each flash box contains up to 12 flash modules
(factory designation FMD). A flash chassis contains up to four flash boxes
and 48 flash modules.

Introduction 1–5
Hitachi VSP User and Reference Guide
 A VSP single module system (3 racks) can contain up to two flash chassis.
Therefore, the maximum number of flash modules is 96 per VSP module or
192 per two module (6-rack) system.
The flash chassis, flash box, and flash module are described in detail in
System Components on page 3-1.

Figure 1-4 Flash chassis

Features
This section describes the main features of the Virtual Storage Platform.

Scalability
The Virtual Storage Platform is highly scalable and can be configured in
several ways as needed to meet customer requirements:
• The minimum configuration is a single rack containing one controller
chassis in a diskless configuration.
• A small VSP system could include a single rack containing one controller
chassis and one or two disk drive or flash chassis.
• A mid-sized VSP system could include one to three racks containing one
controller chassis and up to eight drive chassis. A LFF drive chassis can
contain up to 80 3-1/2 inch disk drives. A SFF drive chassis can contain
a combination of up to a total of 128 2-1/2 disk and SSD data drives. An
Drive sizes can be intermixed within a system but not within a drive

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Hitachi VSP User and Reference Guide
 chassis. Different chassis are required for the 2-1/2 inch data drives, 3-
1/2 inch, and 5-1/2 inch flash module drives. See Table 1-2 Drive
Specifications on page 1-11 for details.
• The maximum configuration is a six-rack twin version of the above
that contains two controller chassis and up to 16 drive chassis containing
up to 2048 2-1/2 inch disk drives or 1280 3-1/2 inch disk drives. The
total storage space of this configuration is 2-1/2 PB. A six-rack system
can contain a maximum of 192 1.6 TB flash module, with a maximum
capacity of 307.2 TB.

Figure 1-5 Example Virtual Storage Platform storage system

Configurations
In addition to the number of disk drives, the system can be configured with
disk drives of different capacities and speeds, varying numbers of FEDs and
BEDs, and varying cache capacities, as follows:
• Two to six FEDs (each is a pair of boards). This provides a total of 12
when all of the FED slots are used and there are no BEDs installed, as in
a diskless system. The maximum total number of FEDs and BEDs is 12.
• Two to four BEDs (each is a pair of boards). This provides a total of 8
when all of the BED slots are used. In this case only two FEDs can be
installed.
• Cache memory capacity: 512 GB per module / 3-rack system, and 1TB
per two modules / 6-rack system)
• HDD (disk) drives with capacities of 146 GB, 300 GB, 600 GB, 900 GB,
2 TB and 3TB.
• Flash drive capacities of 200 GB and 400 GB
• Flash modules with a capacity of 1.6 TB and 3.2 TB
• Channel ports: 80 for one module, 176 for two modules.

High performance
The Virtual Storage Platform includes several new features that improve the
performance over previous models. These include:

Introduction 1–7
Hitachi VSP User and Reference Guide
 • High speed disk drives that run at 7,200, 10,000, or 15,000 RPM
• Flash drives with ultra high speed response
• Flash modules with response times faster than SSDs.
• High speed data transfer between the BED and HDDs at a rate of 6 GBps
with the SAS interface
• High speed quad core CPUs that provide three times the performance of
a Universal Storage Platform V/VM storage system.

High capacity
The Virtual Storage Platform supports the following high-capacity features.
See Table 1-2 Drive Specifications on page 1-11, for details.
• HDD (disk) drives with capacities of 146 GB, 300 GB, 600 GB, 900 GB,
2 TB and 3TB.
• Flash drive capacities of 200 GB and 400 GB
• Flash modules with a capacity of 1.6 TB or 3.2 TB each.
• The VSP controls up to 65,280 logical volumes and up to 2,048 disk
drives, and provides a maximum physical disk capacity of approximately
2.521 PB per full storage system.

Connectivity
Virtual Storage Platform
The Virtual Storage Platform storage system supports most major IBM
Mainframe operating systems and Open System operating systems, such as
Microsoft Windows, Oracle Solaris, IBM AIX, Linux, HP-UX, and VMware. For
more complete information on the supported operating systems, go to:
http://www.hds.com/products/interoperability/index.htm
Virtual Storage Platform supports the following host interfaces. They can
mix within the storage system.
• Mainframe: Fibre Channel (FICON)
• Open system: Fibre Channel

Storage Navigator
The required features for the Storage Navigator computer include operating
system, available disk space, screen resolution, CD drive, network
connection, USB port, CPU, memory, browser, Flash, and Java environment.
These features are described in Chapter 1 of the Hitachi Storage Navigator
User Guide.

High reliability
The Virtual Storage Platform storage system includes the following features
that make the system extremely reliable:

1–8 Introduction
Hitachi VSP User and Reference Guide