HItachi Vantara has revamped its mainstream VSP One 5000 enterprise storage arrays from a hybrid SSD+HDD design to all-NVMe flash systems and new, more powerful high-end model.
The updated range is intended for mission-critical and AI workloads. The existing VSP One Block product set comprises the Enterprise VSP 5000 series, Mid-range VSP One Block, VSP One SDS, and Mid-range VSP E Series. There were four 5000 series products: 5200, 5200H, 5600 and 5600H. An H product has both SSDs and hard disk drives (HDDs) and a non-H product is all-flash. They all run the SVOS operating system.
Octavian Tanese, Hitachi V’s Chief Product Officer, said: “What we’re seeing across industries is a tipping point where data infrastructure must evolve or risk holding back innovation. VSP One Block High End goes beyond performance upgrade; it’s a strategic enabler for enterprises to rethink how they capture, manage, protect, and scale data in the AI era.”
The new VSP One Block range has built-in FIPS 140-3 Level 2 certified protection, with eight nines of availability, near-zero data loss and rapid recovery. It has immutable snapshots, automated recovery and anomaly detection powered by CyberSense. The systems support consolidation of block, file, object, and mainframe workloads, scaling up to 12 controllers and 288 x 60TB SSDs, with connectivity including 100G NVMe over TCP and 64G Fiber Channel.
A VSP 360 management facility provides unified data management operations with centralized fleet management, guided automation workflows, and mobile-enabled observability.
The products automatically switch CPUs into eco mode during low activity periods, to reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint.
Hitachi tells us “VSP One Block High End is the successor product to the VSP 5000 series, which has been included in the VSP One Block umbrella. With VSP One Block High End, we have now released all new Block offerings from entry and midrange through to high end, or the highest scale systems.”
Its VSP One Block High End spec sheet (download here) refers to the VSP One Block portfolio, including the new high end offering. There are now seven models; the VSP One Block 24, 24 QLC, 26, 26 QLC, 28, 28 QLC and the 85 TLC. The last one, the 85 TLC, is the actual VSP Block High-End product. The 5000 series will now be phased out.
Here’s a table showing some basic product model differences:
The VSP One Block 26 to 28 QLC arrays are traditional dual-controller systems, whereas the 85 is a high-end, multi-controller system. It starts as an 18 RU appliance and scales out to 50 RU. Fully configured, the VSP One Block 85 TLC supports 346.7 TB of raw capacity per rack unit.
It scales out in Node-pairs, with each node having two controllers. It can have 2, 4, and 6 node-pair configurations. Each node is 4 RU, and each node-pair connects to an 8 RU drive chassis. Additionally, the first node-pair comes with 2×1 RU switch boxes, each containing two PCIe switches. Every controller is connected to all four PCIe switches to provide a tightly-coupled, scale-out design.
We note that, from the spec sheet, the top end VSP One Block 85, with the highest max capacity – 18.68 PBe – and the highest IOPS – 50 million – only supports 21,753 LUNs whereas the smaller VSP One Block 26, 26 QLC, 28 and 28 QLC systems support 32,768 and 49,152; many more.
Asked why that is, a Hitachi Vantara spokesperson said: “Adaptive Data Reduction (ADR), the VSP One family’s data reduction technology, has evolved through the last several generations. VSP One Block 2x models support two “versions” of ADR. The older version supported more volumes, but it came with limitations addressed in the later version. VSP One Block High End utilizes the latest ADR technology, supporting the highest performance and coupled with scalable immutable snapshots.”
This VSP One Block product range will compete with enterprise block-based, dual-controller and monolithic storage arrays from Dell (PowerStore, PowerMax), IBM (DS8000, FlashSystem), Infinidat (vs 85), NetApp, and Pure Storage. It may also be competing for AI workload storage with the disaggegated storage systems from HPE (Alletra MP) and VAST Data.
VSP One Block High End will be available globally in early 2026 through Hitachi Vantara and its partners. Get more information about the new VSP One Block range here.
