Hewlett-Packard Co has announced HP AutoRAID, a product that’s said to automate the configuration of Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks storage systems. The company says HP AutoRAID automates the selection of RAID levels, optimises disk storage capacity and performance; it has the ability to migrate data, supports an active hot-spare disk, and on-line capacity can be expanded. The performance and cost of usage of RAID subsystems varies with the RAID level and system workload. For example, RAID 0/1 has the best overall performance but is a more expensive than RAID 5 or RAID 3. Hewlett-Packard claims that HP AutoRAID understands these differences and can dynamically adapt its algorithms so as best to meet the demands of the host system. The key component of the technology is what Hewlett calls the dynamic data migration, the ability to convert data between RAID levels automatically, based on data usage, for the best combination of performance and cost of storage. Write data, which is normally the most active, is stored in high-performance RAID 0/1. As data ages, it is automatically migrated to RAID 5. A new set of algorithms manage data block-address translations, giving the system the ability to translate intelligently, or map, any host block address to any disk address with a dynamic algorithm and to change the translation while the system is operating. This makes it possible to move data, stored within a subsystem, to any location, on any disk, without affecting the data or how the host addresses the data, according to Hewlett-Packard. HP AutoRAID technology also offers the ability to add capacity on-line without data reload or additional redundancy groups. The company claims systems can be expanded in seconds. HP AutoRAID technology also has supports an active hot spare; by reserving rebuild space across all disks the hot-spare disk can also be used to improve subsystem performance. Hewlett-Packard has not released launch dates or prices but says it is considering building the technology for other companies, as well as selling it OEM and building it for itself.
