An HCP system includes multiple nodes that are networked together, where each node is either an individual server, a blade in a Hitachi Compute Blade 320 (CB 320), or a virtual machine. Each physical node can have multiple internal drives, connect to SAN storage, or both. Each virtual node emulates a server that has only internal drives..
By default, HCP stores all objects on primary running storage, which is the physical storage that’s managed by the nodes in the HCP system and consists of continuously spinning disks or SSDs. However, HCP can be configured to use HCP S Series Nodes as an alternative to primary running storage or for tiering purposes.
HCP can also use additional storage for tiering. These devices, like Amazon S3 or Microsoft Azure, are called extended storage, and are managed outside of the HCP system.
An HCP SAIN system can also be configured to use additional storage that’s managed by the nodes in the HCP system and consists of disks that can be spun up or spun down as needed. HCP uses this additional storage, called primary spindown storage, for tiering purposes.
The physical storage managed by a node maps to logical volumes. Logical volumes on storage managed by HCP are local storage volumes. Logical volumes can also be NFS volumes (also called external volumes). These are volumes that are stored on extended storage and are accessed using NFS mount points.