PowerStore stores more, has better file ops and resiliency power

Dell has updated its PowerStore array, adding more capacity and resiliency while making file operations slicker

PowerStore is Dell’s dual-controller, unified file and block, disk, hybrid and all-flash, storage array. The PowerStore 3200Q variant was announced in 2024 and it used QLC (4bits/cell) SSDs in contrast to the other all-flash models: 500T, 1200T, 3200T, 5200T, and 9200T. These use faster TLC (3bits/cell) NAND in their SSDs. The operating system was then PowerStore OS v4.0 and a PowerStore Prime version provided a 5:1 data reduction ratio (DRR). THe main competitors are NetApp’s all-flash arrays, Pure Storage FlashArray and HPE’s Alletra 6000 and Storage MP systems.

The new 30 TB QLC SSDs double PowerStore’s storage capacity per rack unit, with up to 2 PB effective per 2RU enclosure, assuming 5:1 DRR, which contributes to power and space occupancy savings. Dell says power efficiency can improve by up to 23 percent. The new 30 TB drives can be mixed with the current 15 TB ones.

The resiliency features in PowerStore OS v4.3 include three replication additions plus multi-party authorization. Block storage workloads now have synchronous replication over fiber channel (FC), while file-based workloads get asynchronous replication, again over FC. This provides granular, 5-minute Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs). They also get metro area (60 mile distance) synchronous replication with automated failover with zero RPO and RTO (Recovery Time Objective). This is good for mission-critical workloads.

Multi-party authorization means two authorized, admin-level people are needed to approve significant changes to storage, such as file deletions and protection policy modifications.

File ops slickness improvements center on NFS v4.2 features. The first involves server-side copy in which an NFS client tells an NFS (file storage) server to move data from file A to file B itself. Previously the client would copy the file A data from a server and then rewrite it to the file B location. This short cut saves network bandwidth and client CPU cycles by having server do the bulk file data work.

A Sparse Files feature deals with files in server virtualization system disk images and in high-performance computing checkpoint files. These can have a high-proportion of allocated but unused file space or holes, effectively zeroes. Copying such files involves reading these unfilled data regions and transferring their bytes; very wasteful. With the sparse copy feature such holes can be described by file metadata and their bytes skipped in a copy operation.

The third file ops improvement is support for labeled NFS which can attach labels to file signifying security policies to be applied, called Mandatory Access Control (MAC)N The labels travel with security control.

Dell has added a Top Talkers feature which brings to the surface which users/apps are consuming which files. Administrators can identify top consumers, monitor performance metrics like IOPS and bandwidth, and apply them in response to QoS policies to address bottlenecks.

Finally new AIOPs storage management features enable a single view showing all of a customer’s PowerStore clusters and their OS update status. Customers can automate parallel OS updates at scale, making PowerStore estate admin smoother and easier.