HPE-MSA 2060

Description

The HPE MSA 2060 is an enterprise storage array designed to deliver a strong combination of performance, availability, scalability, and affordability. It is particularly suited to organizations requiring shared block storage for virtualization, databases, business applications, backup, and general-purpose SAN environments.

The MSA 2060 is part of the HPE MSA Gen6 storage family and uses a dual-controller active/active architecture for increased availability and continuous access to storage resources.

Dual-Controller Architecture

The MSA 2060 includes two storage controllers, with four host ports per controller for a total of eight host ports per array. The dual-controller design provides redundancy and supports high-availability storage configurations.

Available controller connectivity options include:

• 16Gb Fibre Channel
• 10/25GbE iSCSI
• 1/10GBase-T iSCSI
• 12Gb SAS

The specific connectivity depends on the selected MSA 2060 model.

Flexible SFF and LFF Storage

The MSA 2060 is available in two primary chassis configurations:

• SFF: 24 × 2.5-inch drive bays
• LFF: 12 × 3.5-inch drive bays

The array can also be expanded using additional MSA 2060 drive enclosures. HPE supports up to nine expansion enclosures, with a maximum of 240 SFF or 120 LFF drives depending on the configuration.

HDD and SSD Support

The MSA 2060 supports a mixture of enterprise storage technologies, including:

• 10K SAS HDDs
• 7.2K SAS HDDs
• SAS SSDs
• Self-encrypting HDDs
• Self-encrypting SSDs

Available drive capacities vary according to drive type and form factor. HPE’s current specifications list SFF SSD options up to 30.72TB and LFF HDD options up to 24TB, with newer drive options allowing the platform’s raw capacity to extend beyond earlier specifications.

High Storage Capacity

With expansion enclosures, the MSA 2060 can support up to:

• 240 SFF drives
• 120 LFF drives
• Up to 7.37PB raw SFF capacity
• Up to 2.88PB raw LFF capacity

Actual usable capacity depends on the installed drives, RAID configuration, sparing, and storage-management configuration.

MSA-DP+ Data Protection

The MSA 2060 supports MSA-DP+, HPE’s distributed-parity RAID technology, alongside conventional RAID levels.

Supported RAID options include:

• RAID 0*
• RAID 1
• RAID 5
• RAID 6
• RAID 10
• MSA-DP+

*RAID 0 is listed for read-cache use in HPE’s specifications.

MSA-DP+ provides distributed spare capacity and is designed to improve storage efficiency and rebuild behavior compared with traditional fixed-parity RAID configurations.

Advanced Storage Services

The MSA 2060 provides several enterprise storage-management capabilities, including:

• Thin provisioning
• Space reclamation
• Thin rebuild
• Automated storage tiering
• Performance, Standard, and Archive tiers
• Volume copy
• Snapshots
• Remote Snap replication
• Quality of Service
• Virtual Tier Affinity

The platform supports up to 512 volumes and 512 snapshots.

Large Cache Capacity

The MSA 2060 provides 24GB of system data cache per array, with up to 8TB of maximum read cache according to HPE’s specifications.

The controllers also use battery-free cache backup with supercapacitors and flash-based memory, helping protect cached data in the event of a power interruption.

High-Performance Storage

The MSA 2060 can deliver substantial performance depending on the installed drives and host interface.

HPE’s published performance testing shows configurations reaching hundreds of thousands of random-read IOPS with SSD storage, while sequential throughput can reach multi-gigabyte-per-second levels depending on protocol and configuration.

Actual performance depends heavily on:

• Drive technology
• RAID level
• Number of drives
• Host interface
• Workload characteristics
• Controller configuration
• Network infrastructure

Virtualization Support

The MSA 2060 is designed for shared storage environments and is well suited to virtualization platforms.

Typical applications include:

• VMware
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• Virtual desktop infrastructure
• Server virtualization clusters
• Database virtualization
• Private cloud environments

HPE also lists support for VMware Site Recovery Manager and HPE Zerto Virtual Replication for supported disaster-recovery environments.

Enterprise Availability

The MSA 2060 is designed around redundant components to help maintain storage availability.

Key features include:

• Dual active/active controllers
• Redundant power supplies
• Hot-swappable controllers
• Hot-swappable drives
• Redundant storage paths
• 12Gb SAS expansion connectivity
• Battery-free cache backup

The platform also supports customer self-installation, self-repair, and self-upgrade for supported components.

2U Rack-Mount Design

The MSA 2060 uses a 2U rack-mounted chassis, providing a compact footprint while allowing substantial storage capacity.

Its SFF configuration is optimized for storage density and performance, while the LFF configuration is better suited to high-capacity deployments using larger drives.

Ideal Applications

The HPE MSA 2060 is ideal for:

• SAN storage
• VMware environments
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• Virtualization
• Databases
• ERP applications
• Business-critical applications
• Shared enterprise storage
• Backup infrastructure
• Disaster recovery
• Private cloud
• File and application storage
• Small and medium-sized business data centers

Key Specifications

*Capacity depends on the specific drive options and configuration; HPE has introduced newer high-capacity drives for the MSA 2060 platform.

Configuration Note

The MSA 2060 is available in multiple configurations, including SFF and LFF chassis and Fibre Channel, iSCSI, or SAS controller variants. Drives, SFP transceivers, and expansion enclosures may or may not be included depending on the SKU. HPE specifically lists separate SKUs for 16Gb FC, 10GbE iSCSI, 10GBase-T iSCSI, and 12Gb SAS models.