What is hyperconverged storage?

Traditional storage arrays and components used in data centers require separate storage management, often resulting in over-partitioning and inefficient resource allocation. Alternatively, hyperconverged storage integrates all storage directly into the HCI stack, along with compute and networking functions. Through virtualization, HCI untethers storage resources from individual pieces of hardware, making hyperconverged storage far more flexible and scalable than traditional storage solutions.

To better understand hyperconverged storage, it helps to compare the differences between converged infrastructure (CI) and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI).

Data centers built on a converged infrastructure methodology integrate various components like servers, storage and networking into singular, pre-engineered solutions. These systems use modular hardware appliances to incorporate compute, networking and storage features into one manageable system. Actual data storage is handled by storage area networks (SAN), network-attached storage (NAS) and direct attached storage (DAS) modules.

CI systems do simplify deployment and management compared to non-converged systems but fail to take full advantage of software virtualization as the storage of any given appliance is still bound to the underlying hardware.

Hyperconverged systems take convergence a step further. By not only integrating hardware components but also abstracting them into software-defined storage (SDS), hyperconverged infrastructure can more efficiently pool and share hyperconverged storage resources across the entire virtual storage area network (vSAN). This abstraction effectively untethers storage to create a shared storage pool that’s flexible, cost-effective and agile.

A hyperconverged infrastructure solution provides admin access and resource automation through a software layer known as a hypervisor, a single system capable of integrating all available storage across all data center components into one hyperconverged platform.

Since HCI software does not require specialty HCI appliances and runs on common commodity hardware with high availability, both HCI vendors and IT teams recognize hyperconverged storage as a cost-effective way to scale out data storage resources.

Hyperconverged storage is one element of a hyperconverged system. To understand how hyperconverged storage fits into a hyperconverged data center, let’s take a look at the key components of hyperconverged infrastructure.

Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) offers several cost-saving and performance-enhancing advantages:

• Scalability: Hyperconverged storage is extremely simple to scale, allowing organizations to start with any number of nodes and seamlessly add or subtract additional nodes as their workload demands evolve.
• Data protection: HCI solutions typically offer improved resiliency and data security through automated snapshot backups and redundancies. In the event of hardware failure, HCI can quickly repartition hyperconverged storage to restore lost data and reduce downtime.
• Simplified management: HCI simplifies data center management for IT teams and admins by combining full system control into a single, unified dashboard.
• Cost savings: Hyperconverged systems offer a variety of savings benefits, from utilizing high-availability commodity hardware to streamlining operational expenses.
• High performance: Hyperconverged storage systems are competent at leveraging high-speed storage devices, such as solid-state drives (SSDs), for fast and responsive resource allocation during even highly demanding use cases like the operation of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

Although hyperconvergence is typically an effective way to streamline IT operations for efficiency and scalability, there are a few drawbacks to unpack when considering hyperconverged storage:

• Vendor incompatibility: While HCI does not require specialized hardware and can run on industry-standard x86 servers, many HCI vendor solutions tend to lock consumers into their own specific, walled ecosystems. However, there are also many vendors whose products aren’t locked off if compatibility is a priority when considering an hyperconverged solution.
• Specialized performance: Improved performance is generally considered to be a major benefit of hyperconvergence, however for some particular workloads like high-performance computing (HPC) and generative artificial intelligence (AI), hyperconverged storage may not be the best choice. Some HCI vendors offer uniquely tailored solutions better engineered to accomplish certain demanding tasks, but these specialized solutions often come with higher costs.
• Migration: Hyperconverged storage offers a lot of flexibility within a hyperconverged system. However, organizations that may want to migrate away from a HCI later may encounter specific challenges migrating to a different type of architecture.
• Capacity: While not true for all hyperconverged nodes, some nodes are only able to scale up and are not designed to be scaled out. Practically speaking, adding more storage may also require adding more compute and networking as well, as many HCI solutions do not support additional traditional storage arrays.

The following are just a few of the main uses cases for hyperconverged storage.