HP has updated its StoreVirtual Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) with Adaptive Optimisation capabilities including data tiering, making it the first scale-out software-defined storage platform to offer this feature, the firm said.

Available from 30 September, the updated HP StoreVirtual VSA supports automated storage tiering at the sub-LUN (logical unit number) level as part of its new software capabilities, which HP calls Adaptive Optimisation.

This capability includes continuous workload monitoring and migration of frequently accessed data to high-performance storage such as solid-state drives (SSD), while inactive data is moved to less costly storage such as conventional spinning hard disks.

Customers can reduce costs further by repurposing any legacy third-party storage capacity as a secondary tier within HP Adaptive Optimisation, the firm said.

Based on HP’s LeftHand operating system, the HP StoreVirtual VSA runs on either Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware-based virtual infrastructure.

The latest version adds support for VMware’s ParaVirtualised SCSI Controller and greater integration with Hyper-V, enabling users to provision storage from System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

David Scott, senior vice president for Storage at HP, said that customers with virtual infrastructure can save costs by moving from dedicated storage arrays to software-defined storage running on commodity x86 server boxes.

“Having pioneered software-defined storage with an installed base of over 170,000 StoreVirtual VSA licenses, HP is now extending its leadership in this area with auto-tiering capability to further optimise cost and performance for small or medium-sized businesses as well as remote enterprise branches,” he said.

HP said it now offers multiple licensing options for the HP StoreVirtual VSA. Beyond the 10 terabyte (TB) standard license, a 4TB license is available for small sites and a 50TB high-capacity license for large-scale deployments.

As a result, customers can start small and upgrade non-disruptively to a larger VSA or the HP StoreVirtual 4000 appliance as needed, the firm said. A three pack of 4TB licenses will be priced at or below $3,000 (£1,938).