HP is leveraging Microsoft software in a new portfolio of storage products aimed at taking on EMC in the small-to-midsize-business market.
HP’s StorageWorks All-in-One (AiO) Storage Systems come in two models for a range of capacity needs. They can be installed in less than 10 clicks of a mouse, the company says. The systems provide storage, sharing, management, backup and protection for SMBs’ application and file data.
The HP StorageWorks AiO400, with four drive bays with Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) ports and 1TB of networked storage is priced at $5,000. For SMBs that have bigger storage needs, the HP StorageWorks AiO600 has six drive bays in a rack or tower and 1.5TB of SATA capacity for $6,700, 3TB of SATA capacity for $9,000 or 876GB of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) capacity for $9,200. SAS drives typically are more reliable and higher-performing than SATA drives, so storage devices with these drives cost more.
The systems are based on Microsoft’s Windows Storage Server and are specifically designed or Microsoft environments, HP says. The new AiO systems include point-and-click tools for working with the Microsoft Exchange messaging server and the SQL Server database.
HP first announced it was planning networked storage for SMBs in July, saying it wanted to take on EMC in that market as well as capitalize on what IDC predicts will be a $5.7 billion market opportunity by 2010. The company designed the new offerings to be simple so SMBs could install and maintain them without a full-time IT department, HP says.
HP plans to sell the AiO systems primarily through its channel partners, which the company says number more than 145,000 worldwide.
