HP Adds Storage To BladeSystem

In keeping with a growing strategy at Hewlett-Packard to "blade everything," the company on Tuesday introduced the first storage products for its C-Class BladeSystem enclosure that was introduced in June.

Using a single HP BladeSystem enclosure, one server blade with two disk drives, and 15 of the new StorageWorks SB40c storage blades, a customer can create more than a terabyte of storage capacity, says John Gromala, director of server product marketing at HP.

"This storage play was a promise we made when we delivered our first C-Class server blade," Gromala says.

The SB40c uses serial-attached SCSI drives and an embedded SmartArray P400 controller. HP also offers automated server and storage management with its Systems Insight Manager.

Customers can attain up to a 40% reduction in power and cooling costs when compared to traditional rack or tower servers by implementing the BladeSystem product line, Gromala says, and that is becoming more important as customer are telling him that 50% of the cost associated with a server can be attributed to power and cooling.

The SB40c will be available in mid-November priced starting at $1,599.