Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform Reviews

I use this solution in the data center of the office of Mexico's Secretary of Education. I work with different hosts. In this case, it had to be HP-UX, Linux, and Windows. I work with the entire family of Hitachi hardware, but for this case, I work with the CBS500 and CB2500 Blade. I use all kinds of software, like Command Director and Device Manager.

For the support windows to work, maybe they have to upgrade the firmware of the VSP. They changed the hardware or the disk. I don't know if it was the port blade they changed or a VM for a memory cache. Also, replacing the old target with the processor target would be fine. The old equipment is very easy to manage, and I don't have any bad commentary.

I have worked with this equipment for the last two years. When I worked before in Hitachi Data Systems, I worked for a data architect and designed complete solutions, so I have a lot of interaction with the clients.  I handle the solutions, the capacity of the disk, configuration, initial set up, definitions of the DP pools, assigning the volumes, creating the entire SAN, etc. Also, I manage the SAN switches. I worked for Pearson, Sonic, Mobiistar, Macromer, Mynorte, and Santander. Every time, I created the whole environment— all open and the mainframe in development. For example, at Ponavid, I created the whole solution, assigned the space, performed all the troubleshooting, as well as supported all the hardware and the performance.

Yes it's very scalable. For example, in the VSP, you can scale the capacity of the disk in-tray and also in the mid-range. In the VSP, the tray is a bit bigger obviously, and I think the disk is the same. And also when you escalate the new equipment, configuration is very easy as well.

When I with work with Hitachi Vantara, I oversee the troubleshooting and support. I am the engineer who provides support, and so it's easy. Once we installed using the harddrive manager, when hardware failed.  Support created a case and assigned this to me and I am the engineer. I take the case and I have to take a solution to the client.

The setup is very easy to manage and configure. The initial setup and takes one hour more or less. And when I check the old disk and processor or the memory cache, I check the blade also. Next, I changed the disk, created the configuration, and installed the old disk. This takes maybe one hour extra. Depending on the performance of the old disk and the capacity, it could take maybe three or four hours. Sometimes, it takes eight. Then I created a SAN, a port, the host groups, the DP pools, and the dynamic provisioning. And for performance troubleshooting, I take a dump. For example, I check the read-write performance of the IO as well as the performance of the port, the workflow, the workload, and the memory cache. 

It always depends on what technology you need. Because if you need a very fast flash disk, it's going to be more expensive obviously. But if you need a backup solution, it's fine, because the technology is advanced, but it fits in some cases.

I rate Hitachi 10 out of 10.

Our primary use case is a hybrid private cloud that includes generic server virtualization based on VMware ESXi. The second use case is workstation virtualization — virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). The third is database systems with IBM Power and IBM IX logical partitions.

Data optimization, compression, and deduplication are the most important features for us.

I would like to see Hitachi improve their management software. It's been three years since they introduced Ops Center, their management product, and it still hasn't reached at least 50 percent of the capability we require. We are using legacy software because the product Hitachi offers does not stack up in functionality.

Hitachi should increase the number of possible functions Ops Center can perform. For example, it is impossible to manage any kind of storage replication using this product. All competing solutions provide that, but you need to install a separate solution to manage replication in Hitachi arrays. It was not the case with legacy software, but the current solution doesn't have that.

We've been using Hitachi VSP for about four years.

Hitachi VSP is stable in most cases, but we've had a few hiccups with the storage firmware. 

Hitachi VSP scales pretty well, but it generally depends on storage costs. The high-end arrays have huge scalability limits. Generally, we are limited mainly by the array controllers' performance, not the array's capacity limits. 

Our environment is massive. We have approximately 15,000 users for virtual desktop solutions, about 16,000 email users, and approximately 6,000 to 7,000 servers running on VMware platforms. We also have a few hundred logical partitions on IBM Power servers.

We regularly contact Hitachi technical support. The idea of a storage array is that it's broken up into many small pieces of storage. Each piece may fail, and they do from time to time. Therefore, we typically have to open five or six cases every month for mundane tasks like replacing failed disk drives. That's typical for any customer using storage on a large scale.

Those are minor cases, but storage controller failures are more serious, and we see three or four every year. We also have two or three performance-related cases each year. 

We're a relatively large customer, so we do not perform installation ourselves. Service partners typically perform it. We have three people managing the storage, three working with the storage area network, and five handling the backups.

All the software licenses are bundled with the storage hardware. I'm not the purchasing guy, so I do not negotiate prices. When the company makes a purchasing decision, I only provide the technical requirements. The price is a question for the purchasing department.

I rate Hitachi VSP seven out of 10. Generally, I wouldn't recommend Hitachi VSP to a customer without a background in storage systems. Solid technical expertise is needed to use these storage solutions on a medium or a large scale.

It's for our internal network SAN for about 100 virtual machines. It's about the IOPS. We were looking for a model that would have enough IOPS for these types of virtual machines. IOPS and latency are very important for us because we are running an application, on these virtual machines, that deals with building and milliseconds are very important.

Hitachi's adaptive data reduction technology has helped reduce our storage footprint. This was one of the reasons we bought the solution. It saves us about 80 percent versus another vendor's solution.

One of the features, for us, that is important is the monitoring platform integrated into the solution. It has all the elements that we need to see, at all times, to be sure the platform is working right.

There is room for improvement in terms of the IP solution.

I have been using Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform E990 for three years.

In three years, we have only had four big issues.

Hitachi's effective capacity guarantee has been valuable for us. They provide us a certain capacity with a limit. When we reach this limit, we buy the next step. That means we always have enough capacity.

We use the solution for a specific department with about 200 people in it.

We haven't had to scale it because we bought the biggest option for this solution. We don't plan to increase our usage.

We have had too many issues.

Neutral

We had a Hitachi solution as well, before this one. When doing our assessment of the solution, we had a dedicated Hitachi partner who helped us to check into the IOPS and latency.

I was part of the project from the initial internal requirements. The initial deployment was somewhat complex when it came to the installation because of the network connectivity. It was more difficult, in this specific case, than with other platforms.

We used the embedded management for the installation. It made the latter part of the deployment easy, but the first part was very complicated for us.

The deployment was done directly with Hitachi.

We have seen ROI.

The main difference between Hitachi and other vendors is the cost. At the time that we bought the solution, it was the best option but the price, compared to other vendors, is a little high.

Once the platform is up and running, it's very fast. But for integration, it's not the best option.

It is very flexible, and it is very useful when you want to virtualize different storage from different vendors.

It is absolutely reliable.

In terms of ransomware, Pure Storage is probably a couple of steps ahead of Hitachi, but Hitachi does not rush in terms of features. They want to be really sure that the hardware works properly without any kind of problem in new environments, and the implementation or improvement does not affect the customer installation. They really want to make sure that customers are not affected in any way.

They should support the real Metro Cluster also for the small systems.

We started to work with this storage about two years ago. 

It is very stable. We have had just one failure on a disk, but due to the protection, we didn't lose any data.

It can scale a lot, much more than our needs.

We have had only one instance when we had the disk failure, and we received some calls from them asking about the instance and applying a new update. They were very good. 

Their support team is absolutely on top of my list due to their knowledge and effectiveness. They can really assist you in any case. If you need any assistance with the configuration, they will be able to assist you. I would rate them a five out of five.

We had another Hitachi system. I don't remember the model, but it was hybrid storage.

It is pretty simple. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of ease.

It is cheap. It is not very expensive. If you decide to expand the system, the cost is pretty low as compared to other vendors, such as Dell.

It is a very flexible solution. If we consider the Hitachi brand with other storage brands, it is on the top of the list. We are very satisfied with its stability, reliability, and affordability.

Any organization deciding to put in place a Hitachi storage solution is doing the right thing. It is probably not the best, but it is absolutely the right solution. They will forget all the problems connected to storage. That's because it works very well, and their support is also very good.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

One of the tasks that I have been working on is the consolidation of storage.

This product is one that we have used to consolidate our legacy systems, all formerly residing on older storage. We have it configured for 150 terabytes in size, which is sufficient for all of our legacy applications.

It is also responsible for replication from our production site to DR site.

The performance is very good. 

The size of the storage is very good.

We use many of the enterprise features in production. 

This product should be easier to install and set up.

I have been working with the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series for three years.

This is a stable storage system.

This is a scalable product.

We have five or six storage engineers that are in charge of administration.

We get our support from a local vendor. If there is an escalation then it is done directly to the vendor.

I have experience with several enterprise storage solutions.

The installation and initial setup are not straightforward. We had to do a lot of configuration and required assistance from the vendor to complete it. In particular, there were certain things that there was some confusion about.

The location and the sizing were also things that we had to plan for internally. 

We used a consultant for the deployment, and we also had assistance from the vendor.

We pay for a support contract agreement.

We have decided to migrate our application to the cloud, which is something that we are currently in the process of doing. As such, we do not plan to increase our usage of this storage platform.

In summary, this is a stable product and I highly recommend it. It provides a trouble-free work environment. There are also newer models than the one that we have, and I also recommend these.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We're only using the F Series in our lab for hosting lab infrastructure for all our colleagues. We needed fast storage.

The solution hasn't really improved our organization as it's only for lab infrastructure. It's not business-critical.

However, it has helped reduce our storage footprint. Previously, we had four storage systems and now we have only one F Series for the whole lab infrastructure.

The deduplication is useful for us because we don't have that much money for our lab infrastructure. Deduplication means we have more storage available. And the IOPS are really fast.

One problem is that there are too many management tools for the F Series and for all the other Hitachi storage systems. There are four or five such solutions. Maybe these could be combined in the future.

I've been using the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform F Series for half a year.

There are about 400 users who access our labs across the whole company.

We haven't had to use their support yet.

We have used NetApp, HyperFlex, and vSAN—a lot of solutions. We switched because our main infrastructure is Hitachi and we wanted to keep it all with one vendor.

The deployment of the solution was straightforward. We used the embedded management for the installation and it simplified things. Using it is like a reset and it was really straightforward.

We haven't had to scale it yet and we don't have plans to increase our usage of it at the moment.

Overall, we are very satisfied with Hitachi's product. Managing it is very easy and the F Series is very stable. In general, the stability of Hitachi products is really good.

In addition to being a data center, we are a cloud service provider, so our E990 is connected to our cloud systems. In the cloud itself, we provide storage as a service to the customer from the Hitachi E990 boxes.

The efficiency ratio is just as high as advertised. It's very high relative to other storage solutions as well. The compression and deduplication capabilities are also very high.

One improvement I am hoping for in the next release is unified storage. The other storage systems we use are unified, but E990 is not unified. Only block storage is available. To get the same functionality with the E990, you have to configure it through the NAS setup, which adds some additional costs. I would also like more capacity in a single box — expand the space up to 4 petabytes.

I have been using Hitachi E990 for about one year.

It's a very stable system. In the past year, we haven't had any issues with this.

Scalability is a little bit of an issue. The horizontal scalability is not there—only the vertical scalability is there. 

They're very professional and up to date. Their sales staff and support teams are quite good. The pre-sales support is also excellent.

It's simpler than earlier storage solutions. There are a lot of things that we had to do in the past, but setup and implementation are very simple here. Deployment takes about a week or so. It usually takes no longer than 15 days at most, from the site readiness stage to completion.

I would rate Hitachi an eight out of ten.

I am using the latest update to the solution?

The solution is very good when it comes to performance with the data center. 

The solution is a storage Hitachi E, meaning it is an entry level enterprise solution. For mission critical issues the performance is low. 

I have been using Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform for two years, including the EF 700 and E Model, both of which I have been utilizing for a year apiece, in addition to the S Model. I use the solution to this day. 

The solution is stable. 

I have not tried the solution's scalability. 

The technical support and services are good, strong. 

The initial setup is easy.

The price per gigabyte is good and it is low when it comes to terabytes. 

We are in the process of evaluating the solution at present.

Overall, the solution is strong, easy and fast.

I would recommend the solution to others. 

I rate Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform as a nine out of ten.