17.54 GB/S Backup Throughput: HPE Alletra X10000 with DPAN

Why It Matters

DPAN’s ultra‑high throughput can shrink backup windows and recovery times, but realizing those gains requires modern network and application architectures, making it a strategic upgrade for data‑heavy enterprises.

Key Takeaways

• DPAN offloads backup processing from HPE Alletra X10000 storage.
• Linear scaling allows up to ten DPAN nodes per backup cluster.
• 25‑GbE ports deliver up to 200 Gbps fabric bandwidth.
• Applications must adapt to NVMe flash performance limits.
• HPE claims fastest market backup and recovery speeds.

Summary

HPE introduced the Data Protection Accelerator Node (DPAN), a dedicated appliance that sits in front of the Alletra X10000 storage array to handle backup and recovery workloads.

DPAN offloads StoreOnce and Catalyst code, allowing the X10000 to function purely as storage. The nodes scale linearly, with up to ten units forming a single backup cluster, each equipped with 25‑GbE ports that aggregate to roughly 200 Gbps of fabric bandwidth.

In testing, the team observed that when a full server was restored, the speed was capped by the target server’s SSD write capability, not the DPAN. The company’s white paper cites throughput of 17.54 GB/s, positioning DPAN as the market’s fastest backup solution.

Enterprises must ensure their network fabric and application stacks can consume NVMe‑level speeds, otherwise the performance gains may be throttled. Successfully deploying DPAN can dramatically shorten backup windows and RTOs, offering a competitive edge in data‑intensive environments.

Original Description

HPE's Data Protection Accelerator Node changes the backup math. We fed three backup servers into a single DPAN and sustained 17.54 GB/s of aggregate throughput, backing up 144 VMs in 26 minutes. That's 63 TB/hour from one node. Scale to 30 backup servers and the projected rate hits 0.63 PB/hour. The DPAN offloads dedup and encryption so the X10000's all-flash object layer does what it does best: absorb data at speed.

Full review and benchmarks on StorageReview.com.

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