The two devices are part of HP’s mid-range MSA series of disk arrays, and are direct-attach only extensions to HP’s Proliant servers, costing around $3,000 each.
The first is the MSA60, which is shipping now. This houses up to 12-off 3.5in SAS or SATA drives, giving a maximum capacity of 9TB when loaded with 750GB SATA drives.
The second is the MSA70, which is housed in the same 2U sheet metal enclosure, but takes up to 25-off 2.5in SAS, serial-attached SCSI, or SATA, serial ATA, units.
While the MSA60 is intended to provide capacity, the MSA70 is designed for I/O-intensive performance. More than double the number of drives provides short-stroking increase in throughput for transactional-style applications, which is a major design goal of the 2.5in drive format.
HP claimed that last year it was the first of the major vendors to offer SAS drives in its disk arrays. Those were 2.5in drives.
