HPE Storage

The starting point is how many servers need shared storage, how critical the workloads are, and how much IT resource is available to manage it day to day. The MSA range suits smaller environments where storage needs are predictable and straightforward to manage — setup is quick and the system runs without specialist storage skills. The Alletra 5000 and 6000 suit organisations where workloads are growing or business-critical, and where the team needs early warning of problems rather than reacting to them. The Alletra MP B10000 and X10000 suit large enterprises managing petabytes of data across multiple sites, where scale, automation, and cloud integration are day-to-day operational requirements.

MSA Storage is built for teams that need reliable shared storage without the overhead of managing an enterprise platform. Configuration takes hours rather than days, there is no additional software licence to maintain, and the system does not require a cloud connection or specialist storage skills to operate. For organisations with a small number of servers, stable workloads, and limited IT headcount, MSA delivers exactly what is needed at a lower total cost. Alletra adds predictive analytics, automated tuning, and cloud management — capabilities that are valuable when workloads are growing or unpredictable, but unnecessary overhead when they are not.

The Alletra 5000 and 6000 use HPE InfoSight, which monitors the system continuously and flags likely hardware or performance problems before they cause an outage — rather than alerting after something has already failed. Configuration and capacity management are automated, so the team spends less time on routine storage tasks. For IT teams managing growing workloads, multiple applications sharing storage, or environments where downtime has a direct business cost, this predictive capability reduces the time spent firefighting and gives the team confidence that storage is not a hidden risk.

The Alletra 5000 and 6000 are built around a fixed controller pair — capacity and performance scale together within that pair, which eventually becomes a ceiling. The Alletra MP B10000 separates compute from storage, so each can grow independently without replacing the other. For organisations managing multiple petabytes, running SAP HANA or large virtualisation estates, or needing guaranteed 100% data availability with non-disruptive controller upgrades at no additional cost, the MP B10000 removes the constraints that a traditional dual-controller array imposes at scale.

Backing up directly to primary storage uses the same infrastructure that production workloads depend on — a ransomware attack or hardware failure can destroy both at once. HPE StoreOnce is a separate, dedicated backup target that reduces backup data volumes by up to 95% through deduplication, meaning far less storage is needed to retain multiple recovery points. Backup data stored on StoreOnce can be made immutable, so it cannot be overwritten or deleted remotely — even if an attacker gains administrative access. It integrates with Veeam, Commvault, and Veritas without replacing them.

Tape does one thing that disk and cloud cannot replicate by default: once a tape cartridge is removed from a library and stored offline, it is completely unreachable from the network. No ransomware risk, no remote deletion, no accidental overwrite. For organisations with long retention requirements — financial records, healthcare data, legal archives — tape stores data at a lower cost per terabyte than disk or cloud for data that is rarely, if ever, accessed. The MSL tape libraries automate the physical handling of cartridges, so the process is managed without manual intervention for most day-to-day operations.