P49746-001 HPE 1.6TB SSD SAS 12GBPS SFF Mixed Use

HPE 1.6TB Mixed Use SAS SSD Optimized Storage Solution

Advanced Design and Build Quality

• Engineered as a high-performance Solid State Drive (SSD) with a 1.6TB capacity, delivering superior reliability and endurance.
• Utilizes Triple-Level Cell (TLC) NAND flash memory for a balance of speed, cost-efficiency, and durability in enterprise workloads.
• Compact 2.5-inch Small Form Factor (SFF) that ensures compatibility with dense server environments.
• Features a hot-swap design to simplify replacement and maintenance without system downtime.
• Equipped with digitally signed firmware for enhanced data integrity and security compliance.

General Information 

• Manufacturer: HPE
• Manufacturer Part Number: P49746-001
• Product Type: 1.6TB Solid State Drive

 Specifications

• Drive Type: Solid State Drive – Hot Swap
• Storage Capacity: 1.6 Terabytes
• Interface: SAS 12Gb/s with dual-port architecture for redundancy and high throughput
• Data Transfer Rate: Up to 1.2 Gbps external bandwidth
• Physical Height: 0.6 inch profile, fitting standard server bays
• Included Accessory: Bundled with HPE Smart Carrier for simplified installation and monitoring

Performance and Endurance

• Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD): 3 – ideal for balanced read/write intensive operations.
• SSD Endurance: Rated at 8760TB total bytes written, ensuring long-term sustainability.
• Sequential Data Rate: Delivers 1080 Mbps read and 1030 Mbps write performance.
• Random 4KB Read: Up to 115,000 IOPS for responsive application performance.
• Random 4KB Write: Up to 120,000 IOPS, supporting demanding data center workloads.

Enhanced Connectivity and Compatibility

• Supports SAS 12Gb/s interface for rapid communication between storage and server components.
• Compatible with 2.5-inch SFF drive bays, suitable for enterprise-grade environments.
• Designed specifically for HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen10 and DL380 Gen10 servers, ensuring seamless integration and optimal performance.
• Dual-port capability allows for fault-tolerant connections and uninterrupted data access.

Technology Highlights

• TLC NAND architecture ensures a cost-effective yet durable solution for mixed-use workloads.
• Digitally signed firmware safeguards against unauthorized alterations and ensures consistent firmware validation.
• Smart Carrier technology provides quick identification, health monitoring, and LED indicators for system management.
• Optimized for enterprise-grade applications such as virtualization, database management, and online transaction processing.

Enterprise-Grade Reliability

• Manufactured under strict quality standards to meet HPE’s rigorous enterprise criteria.
• Reduces power consumption compared to traditional spinning drives, contributing to improved energy efficiency.
• Hot-swappable functionality minimizes downtime during replacements or upgrades.
• Backed by HPE’s robust reliability and service assurance for mission-critical systems.

Ideal Use Cases

• Perfect for data-intensive applications requiring consistent high throughput and reliability.
• Excellent for virtualized environments and cloud data centers managing diverse workloads.
• Recommended for database servers, transactional systems, and performance-critical enterprise storage arrays.
• Ensures dependable data access and minimal latency in both read and write operations.

Takeaways

• Capacity: 1.6TB SAS SSD with TLC NAND and dual-port support
• Interface: 12Gb/s SAS delivering 1.2Gbps transfer rate
• Performance: Up to 120,000 IOPS for rapid data access
• Compatibility: Ideal for HPE ProLiant Gen10 server systems
• Durability: High endurance with 8760TBW rating and 3 DWPD

 Choose the HPE 1.6TB SAS SSD

• Combines enterprise-level speed, endurance, and efficiency for dynamic workloads.
• Improves overall system responsiveness and storage reliability in data-heavy infrastructures.
• Provides secure, verified firmware and HPE Smart Carrier advantages for easy deployment.

HPE P49746-001 1.6TB SAS Mixed Use SSD Overview

The HPE P49746-001 1.6TB SAS 12Gbps Mixed Use 2.5-inch SFF solid state drive (SSD) with tray, manufactured for ProLiant Gen10 environments and compatible with multi-vendor systems thanks to digitally signed firmware, belongs to a specialized category of enterprise-class storage devices. This category targets data center and enterprise IT teams who need robust, high-performance, and highly reliable block storage for transactional workloads. The category includes mixed-use SAS SSDs in 2.5" small form factor (SFF) with 12Gbps host interfaces, variants of capacity tiers (from lower TB sizes up to multiple TB), vendor-signed or vendor-specific firmware options, and accessory trays/carriers for seamless hot-swap installation into HPE ProLiant chassis.

Category and Subcategory Definitions

To clarify structure, the main category may be titled Enterprise SAS Mixed-Use SSDs for HPE ProLiant, and subcategories include:

• Capacity Tiers: 400GB, 800GB, 1.6TB, 3.2TB and higher.
• Endurance Profiles: Mixed-use (balanced endurance/performance), Read-intensive (lower DWPD), and Write-intensive (higher DWPD).
• Interface Types: SAS 12Gbps (primary for ProLiant Gen10 compatibility), SATA variants where legacy systems are supported.
• Form Factors & Carriers: 2.5" SFF with hot-swap trays, 1.8" and M.2 variations for different server lines.
• Firmware & Security: Digitally-signed firmware options, self-encrypting drives (SED), and FIPS-compliant features.
• Compatibility Profiles: HPE-certified, multi-vendor compatible, and custom firmware for storage arrays.

Key Technical Characteristics

Interface and Form Factor

The HPE P49746-001 is a 2.5" small form factor drive that uses the Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) 12Gbps interface. This interface provides low-latency, higher throughput and better command queuing compared with legacy SAS 6Gbps and SATA interfaces, making it suitable for enterprise-class transactional applications and mixed workloads.

Capacity and Endurance

With a 1.6TB capacity, the P49746-001 falls in the mid-capacity tier ideal for balancing usable storage and endurance. Mixed-use SSDs in this family are designed to handle a balanced ratio of read and write operations — typically suitable for virtualization hosts, database log/boot volumes, and general-purpose server volumes where neither reads nor writes completely dominate.

Power, Thermal, and Reliability

Enterprise SAS SSDs are engineered with power and thermal considerations for dense server environments:

• Power efficiency: Designed to minimize draw during idle and active states. Power-loss protection features (PLP) are commonly included to protect in-flight data.
• Thermal behavior: SFF SSDs tolerate higher rack ambient temps and include dynamic thermal throttling to prevent data loss while maintaining reliability.
• MTBF and AFR: Higher mean time between failures (MTBF) and lower annualized failure rates (AFR) compared with commodity drives.

Compatibility & Firmware Considerations

Digitally Signed Firmware — What It Means

Digitally signed firmware is increasingly standard for enterprise SSDs and serves two principal purposes:

1. Security and Integrity: Signing ensures the firmware image is authentic and unmodified — critical for supply chain security and preventing malicious firmware injections.
2. Server Compatibility and Certification: HPE ProLiant servers often require drives with firmware signed by HPE or certified partners to maintain supported configurations and to enable full feature sets via server management tools (iLO, Array Controllers).

Multi-Vendor Interoperability

This category emphasizes drives that are engineered to work across multiple hardware ecosystems. Multi-vendor digitally-signed firmware ensures that SDS platforms, storage enclosures, and ProLiant servers can validate and accept the drive without triggering compatibility warnings. For procurement teams, multi-vendor compatibility reduces vendor lock-in and simplifies spares inventory management.

Certification Matrix & Firmware Updates

• HPE certification confirms that the drive will be supported in specific ProLiant firmware stacks and RAID controllers.
• Firmware updates should be performed with vendor-supplied tools (HPE Service Pack for ProLiant, vendor flash utilities) to preserve signatures and validations.
• Always verify cross-compatibility: firmware intended for one OEM’s distribution may be cryptographically bound to that OEM.

Use Cases and Workload Suitability

Primary Use Cases

SSDs of this class are well-suited to several enterprise scenarios:

• Virtualization Hosts: vSphere and Hyper-V datastores for mixed guest VMs — the drive balances read/write for boot, swap and application IO.
• Databases: OLTP databases where low latency and sustained random IOPS are crucial.
• Hybrid Storage Tiers: As a performance tier in a hybrid array combining SSDs and HDDs, or as cache/metadata storage in scale-out clusters.
• Boot / System Volumes: Server OS volumes and critical system images that benefit from fast boot times and predictable I/O.
• Edge & Remote Sites: Enterprise remote/edge servers that need enterprise reliability without excessive capacity cost.

Workload Patterns and Optimization

Understanding workload patterns will help IT operators size and select the right SSD variant:

• Read-heavy workloads: May prefer read-optimized variants with lower DWPD but higher read amplification tolerance.
• Write-heavy workloads: Require higher endurance (higher DWPD), larger over-provisioning, and stronger power-loss protection.
• Mixed workloads: The P49746-001 mixed-use profile provides predictable performance across balanced read-write mixes without overspending on write-intensive drives.

Comparisons: SAS Mixed-Use vs Other Storage Options

SAS Mixed-Use SSDs vs SATA SSDs

SAS SSDs provide enterprise-grade features (dual-port options in some cases, better command handling, and higher IOPS/QoS) while SATA SSDs are often lower cost and better suited for read-heavy or less latency-sensitive workloads. For ProLiant Gen10 with SAS backplanes, SAS 12Gbps is the recommended path for enterprise workloads.

SAS Mixed-Use SSDs vs NVMe SSDs

NVMe SSDs deliver superior raw performance and lower latency due to PCIe/NVMe protocol advantages. However, SAS mixed-use drives retain advantages in mature management ecosystems, wide compatibility (many legacy architectures), and often simpler integration into existing RAID controllers and server infrastructures. For environments still standardized on SAS backplanes and SAS HBAs/RAID controllers, a mixed-use SAS SSD may be the pragmatic choice.

Deployment Best Practices

Pre-Deployment Checklist

• Verify server firmware (BIOS/UEFI) and RAID controller versions are compatible with the drive and any required firmware validations.
• Confirm the drive tray model matches the server bay design.
• Test firmware update procedures on a staging host to avoid production disruptions.
• Confirm RAID and storage policies (rebuild speed, hot spare assignment) to prevent excessive wear during rebuilds.

Regulatory, Environmental & End-of-Life Considerations

RoHS & WEEE Compliance

Ensure the product listing states compliance with RoHS restrictions and WEEE disposal regulations. Proper environmental labeling and disposal guidance support procurement compliance and corporate sustainability goals.

Data Sanitization & Decommissioning

Document secure erase options and approved decommissioning practices. If the drive supports SED, describe cryptographic-erase procedures and recommend protocols for returning or reselling drives.