Hitachi Content Platform Data Recovery
Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) is Hitachi's object storage system for fixed-content archiving, built around multi-tenant namespaces, metadata-annotated objects and compliance retention controls. A recovery evaluation on HCP needs to work with its tenant/namespace hierarchy and object metadata model rather than treat it as a simple file share, and to account for retention settings that can restrict how objects are handled.
Platform Lineage and Naming
Hitachi developed HCP as a purpose-built object storage platform for regulated and long-term archive workloads, organising content into tenants and namespaces rather than a flat file share. HCP appliances span the G-series and S-series hardware generations, and Hitachi later added HCP S Node as an erasure-coded, dense back-end tier for HCP-managed content.
Around the core HCP platform, Hitachi built complementary products: HCP Anywhere provides file sync-and-share and endpoint backup on top of HCP storage, and HCP for Cloud Scale extends the object storage model to more cloud-native, S3-focused deployments. All of these share HCP's underlying tenant, namespace and metadata-annotated object concepts.
- Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) G-series and S-series appliances
- HCP S Node — erasure-coded back-end storage tier for HCP
- HCP Anywhere — file sync-and-share/endpoint backup built on HCP
- HCP for Cloud Scale — cloud-scale object storage variant
Generations and Models We Evaluate
| Generation / family | Models |
|---|---|
| HCP appliances | HCP G-series, HCP S-series nodes |
| Back-end tier | HCP S Node — erasure-coded dense object storage |
| Related products | HCP Anywhere, HCP for Cloud Scale |
Architecture and Data Layout
HCP organises data hierarchically: a tenant represents an administrative division (often a department or customer), and within a tenant, one or more namespaces provide logically separate object stores each with their own access and policy settings.
Objects stored in HCP are fixed-content — written once and thereafter typically read-only — and are stored alongside rich metadata annotations describing custom properties, retention class and other attributes, accessible via HCP's own APIs as well as standard protocols.
HCP S Node provides the erasure-coded storage layer beneath HCP-managed namespaces, distributing object data and parity across nodes in a way that tolerates node or drive loss up to the configured erasure-coding scheme, which must be understood before reconstructing objects from a partially damaged S Node cluster.
Protocols and formats: HTTP/HTTPS (HCP native API), S3, NFS, SMB/CIFS, WebDAV
- HCP S Node protects object data with erasure coding distributed across nodes rather than conventional RAID, so the tolerance for concurrent node or drive loss depends on the configured erasure-coding scheme.
- Retention and compliance settings on a namespace can enforce that objects are immutable until their retention period expires, which affects what operations are possible during an evaluation and must be respected rather than bypassed.
- Object metadata (custom metadata annotations, retention class, disposition) is stored alongside the object data and must be reconstructed together with it — metadata loss can make an otherwise intact object unusable.
Failure Scenarios
Logical failures
- Accidental deletion of namespaces, tenants or objects where retention did not prevent it
- Corrupted or lost object metadata separate from the underlying object data
- Failed HCP software upgrade affecting namespace or tenant configuration
- Replication or migration errors between HCP systems or to HCP for Cloud Scale
- Retention or compliance misconfiguration affecting expected object availability
Hardware failures
- Multiple node or drive failures within HCP S Node beyond the erasure-coding tolerance
- Appliance controller or storage node hardware failure on HCP G/S series
- Network fabric failure isolating nodes within a multi-node HCP cluster
- Power or environmental events affecting a full HCP cluster or S Node pod
Encryption and credentials
Where HCP namespaces use encryption at rest, key manager state must be preserved alongside the storage nodes, since encrypted object data cannot be interpreted without it.
What Not To Do Before an Evaluation
- Do not run rebuilds, reconstructions or re-initialisations against an array that has already lost more drives than its protection level allows.
- Do not recreate pools, aggregates, disk groups, storage pools or clusters — these operations write new metadata over the structures a recovery needs.
- Do not swap drives between slots, and do not reorder shelves. Record the original slot and shelf positions before removing anything.
- Do not run file-system repair tools against production volumes before the underlying storage layer has been evaluated.
- Do not restore a backup or replication set over the affected volumes until the recovery scope has been assessed.
- Do not eradicate deleted volumes or empty recycle/destroyed states on platforms that hold deleted data for a retention window.
Our Evaluation and Recovery Process
- Intake and platform identification — array model, generation, firmware, protection layout and the sequence of events that led to the failure.
- Read-only evaluation of the media and array structures, including assessment of drive health and the extent of any physical damage.
- Forensic imaging of all contributing media, with cleanroom work where drives require it. Originals are preserved unaltered.
- Reconstruction of the storage layer — pools, aggregates, parity groups, chunklets, extent groups or objects — from the images.
- Extraction of the layers above: file systems, virtual machines, databases, mailboxes and shares.
- Verification against a file list and customer-nominated critical data, followed by secure return on encrypted media.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can individual objects be recovered without the whole namespace?
Often the evaluation can target specific objects, but because objects and their metadata are managed together within a namespace, the surrounding namespace and tenant context is usually needed to interpret them correctly.
Does retention prevent recovery of deleted content?
Retention and compliance settings are designed to prevent early deletion in the first place; where content was removed despite retention, or after retention expired, the evaluation looks at what remains in the underlying storage layer.
How does HCP S Node differ from HCP's earlier storage model?
HCP S Node adds an erasure-coded, node-distributed back-end tier beneath HCP-managed namespaces, which changes how object data is physically distributed and protected compared with earlier HCP appliance-attached storage.