| Q1. |
Can't I do the same thing with Windows 2000 dynamic disks? |
| A1. |
Dynamic disks are not the answer. While dynamic disks do offer some advanced volume management capabilities they are not supported in a high availability clusters that predominate enterprise environments. This is where our mid-range and high end arrays such as the Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) are sold. Another disadvantage of dynamic disks is the volume management burdens the server system with unnecessary overhead that is better and more efficiently managed within the array. In fact that is one of the key value propositions of HP's storage systems. |
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| Q2. |
Doesn't "diskpart" address this limitation in the Windows 2000 operating system? |
| A2. |
The diskpart utility does allow the user to expand volumes at the file system level. Diskpart for Windows 2000 is included in the Microsoft Resource kit and can be downloaded from the web. On Windows 2003 diskpart is part of the OS. However diskpart is strictly a command line interface that is not intuitive does not provide the user meaningful information on the specifications and location of the disks and is not even supported by Microsoft. With Storage Volume Growth customer get a complete, end to end solution from a single vendor. This solution is fully supported by HP's world class customer services organization with an extensive breadth of technical expertise around the globe. |
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| Q3. |
Is the volume growth capability limited to a single expansion instance? |
| A3. |
No. The engineers in HP's labs understand that the user's capacity requirements are unpredictable and constantly increasing as their business grows. Storage Volume Growth provides the end user the flexibility to expand any volume partition multiple times as storage hungry applications demand more capacity to consume. The user is only limited by the amount of free space available onto which the volume can be expanded. |
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| Q4. |
Is Storage Volume Growth storage hardware dependent? |
| A4. |
Yes. Storage Volume Growth is a host based application. The product is user installable on any industry standard server system and requires an EVA. |
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| Q5. |
How is Storage Volume Growth positioned in the HP portfolio? |
| A5. |
Every order for an array with virtualization capabilities (such as the Enterprise Virtual Array) deployed in a Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 server environment or SAN where the customer requires assured high availability through non-disruptive volume growth should include Storage Volume Growth software as a line item. Each server system in the SAN that is drawing storage capacity from one of these storage devices and requires end to end volume growth should have Storage Volume Growth installed on it. |
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| Q6. |
Does this product also run on Windows Server 2003? |
| A6. |
Yes, although initially targeted to Windows 2000 server environments Storage Volume Growth will also operate on Windows Server 2003. |
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