Choosing the right storage solution is critical for achieving optimal performance, cost efficiency, and long-term sustainability in your data center. However, many organizations stick with their current providers without asking the tough questions that can uncover critical gaps in functionality and service. Suppose you’re using Dell, Pure Storage, IBM, HPE, or NetApp storage solutions. In that case, asking the following questions can help you evaluate whether your current solution meets your needs—or if it’s time to consider alternatives like Hitachi Vantara’s Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) One.
1. Availability: How Reliable Is Your Data Storage?
Question: How does your storage system ensure data availability, and does it come with a guarantee?
Why It Matters: Data downtime can be costly and disruptive. Some vendors only offer six or seven nines of availability and need formal availability guarantees. In contrast, Hitachi’s VSP One sets the industry standard with a 100% Data Availability Guarantee and up to eight nines of availability.
2. Cost Efficiency: Are You Getting Maximum Value?
Question: Does your provider offer a data reduction guarantee? If so, what are the restrictions?
Why It Matters: Vendors often promote aggressive data reduction claims but include restrictive terms. Hitachi offers a “4:1 No Questions Asked Data Reduction Guarantee” without fine print or limitations, reducing storage costs while enhancing performance.
3. Capacity: Are You Forced to Buy More?
Question: Can you virtualize existing storage from other vendors to maximize legacy investments?
Why It Matters: Unlike providers who push new infrastructure purchases, Hitachi leads in storage virtualization, enabling you to manage any existing storage platform as if it were native to VSP One. This allows you to optimize your current storage arrays without the need to invest in duplicate capacity, saving significant costs.
4. Sustainability: Is Your Storage Environmentally Friendly?
Question: How does your storage provider support your sustainability goals? Do their products have third-party energy certifications?
Why It Matters: Hitachi’s VSP One holds the top four spots in Energy Star IOPS per watt ratings and is certified for its low carbon footprint. It’s an excellent choice for organizations aiming to reduce their environmental impact.
5. Scalability and Performance: Can Your Storage Keep Up?
Question: Can your storage scale out seamlessly, or are there limits?
Why It Matters: Some solutions, like Dell’s PowerStore and Pure Storage arrays, have scale-out limitations that create isolated storage islands. Hitachi’s VSP One supports up to 65 arrays managed as a single virtual system, delivering unparalleled scalability.
Question: Are you aware of the performance trade-offs with QLC (Quad-Level Cell) SSDs compared to TLC (Triple-Level Cell)?
Why It Matters: While competitors push QLC for higher capacity, it often results in slower writes and higher latency. Hitachi offers both QLC and 60TB TLC SSD drives, ensuring no compromises on performance or capacity.
6. Simplicity: How Complex Is Management?
Question: Does your provider’s storage use a unified operating system?
Why It Matters: Managing multiple operating systems across storage platforms increases complexity and training time. Hitachi’s VSP One operates on a unified OS, simplifying management across all storage types and locations.
7. Interoperability: Will New Storage Work with Existing Infrastructure?
Question: Can your storage replicate data to other models in your vendor’s portfolio?
Why It Matters: Some solutions, like Dell’s PowerStore, can only replicate the same model, limiting flexibility. Hitachi enables replication across all VSP storage models, from entry-level to enterprise-class.
Question: Does your provider guarantee full interoperability with business-critical applications such as Oracle, SAP, Mongo DB, SQL? How about hardware infrastructure like Cisco or Brocade switches?”
Why It Matters: Hitachi has over 20 years of ensuring 100% interoperability with a wide range of applications and infrastructure, avoiding the compatibility challenges some competitors face.
8. Data Center Footprint: Is Data Center Footprint or Rack Space Cost at a Price Premium to Your IT Operations?
Question: Can your current storage help you reduce your data center footprint, reduce rack space costs or reduce power and cooling capacity?
Why it Matters: Data center space, power, and cooling constraints are critical challenges for IT operations, and not all storage providers are equipped to address them effectively. Asking the right questions can reveal whether your current provider’s solutions truly optimize your infrastructure or leave you stuck with inefficiencies that drive up costs and limit scalability. Hitachi’s VSP One Block 20 platforms offer unmatched density in performance, capacity, and host port count compared to other vendor solutions. In just 2 Rack Units, the VSP One Block 28 delivers 10.1 million IOPS, 14.1 petabytes of effective capacity, 32 host ports, and 164.2 GB/s of performance bandwidth, with latency as low as 40 microseconds—helping you achieve more with less space and resources.
9. Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery: Can You Recover Data Quickly with Unexpected Failures and Ransomware Attacks?
Question: Does your storage provider offer Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery capabilities in case of unexpected failure? What about ransomware protection and recovery?
Why it Matters: Unexpected failures and ransomware attacks can disrupt operations and jeopardize critical data, yet not all providers offer robust solutions for business continuity and disaster recovery. Ensuring your storage provider delivers comprehensive protection and recovery capabilities is essential to safeguarding your organization’s mission and data integrity.” “Hitachi continues to be top-rated by Gartner in availability and business continuity. Hitachi GAD (Global Active Device) is the remote site replication for disaster recovery. Our ransomware recovery delivers continuous, comprehensive protection for apps and data across your ecosystem.
Final Thoughts
By asking these critical questions, you can uncover your current storage solution’s limitations and identify improvement opportunities. Hitachi Vantara’s Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) One stands out in availability, cost efficiency, sustainability, scalability, and simplicity, making it a powerful alternative to other vendors.
If you’d like to explore how Hitachi Vantara’s VSP One can transform your storage strategy, please reach out to learn more today. Don’t settle for less when you can achieve more with Hitachi Vantara Federal.
Take the Next Step: Contact Us to discover how VSP One can address your data challenges.