Storage Effect

SAS drives are thriving outside the data center, despite SATA’s cost advantage 

Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) was created to replace SCSI, the long-standing enterprise hard drive interface.  It has done that, but there have been sightings far from the datacenter.  Places like Ravelry, a seemingly  home-hosted knitting website: 

Rather than shrink in the face of lower priced SATA drives, SAS drives are expanding into SATA’s domain.  What’s going on here? 

• SATA compatibility.  SATA drives interoperate with SAS, so many entry server backplanes and PC motherboards are switching to SAS to cover both interfaces.  This has created a virtual “Storage Foreign Exchange Program” as SATA drives are adopted in the enterprise, and SAS drives are tried in homes and small businesses.
• Cost.  New 1 TB 7200 RPM SAS drives like the Seagate Barracuda ES.2 cost about $50 more than their SATA equivalents. 
• Capacity.  The newest SAS enterprise-class drives like Seagate’s 450GB Cheetah 15K.6 offer more capacity than past enterprise drives.  This makes them more affordable on a cost-per-GB basis.
• Physical size.  The server market has adopted 2.5″ SAS drives en masse, and the storage system market will follow.  These drives use a lot less power and space than conventional enterprise drives without sacrificing performance.  There are no reasonable SATA 2.5″ alternatives today.

If you’re still stuck in a SCSI/SATA mindset, consider a crash course on SAS. 

Who’s replaced SATA or IDE with SAS recently?

The world’s biggest drives just got 50% bigger

Though not near as sound-bytable as 1 TB, Seagate’s announcement of the world’s first 1.5 TB drive is big news.  The newest Barracuda  7200.11 adds 500 gigabytes to each drive in one fell swoop. It’s the biggest capacity jump in the history of disk drives. 

Expect to see 1.5 TB and 3 TB solutions start popping up in all those high-capacity hot spots: high end destop PCs, backup drives and home entertainment systems. 

UPDATE: What others are saying:Engadget, ZD Net, Daily Tech, Blocks and Files and PC World.

Next: the exabyte drive

(more…)

Content comes first, opening up new uses and usefulness

Seagate announced Maxtor CentralAxis today, a really cool New Thing in home storage.  Until now, external storage devices have mostly been storage add-ons for a PC.  Even the NAS devices out there have focused on providing a “PC drive for the home”.  It’s shareable storage, but shackled to the PC model.

CentralAxis puts the content first, rather than the PC.  That opens up uses that until now have been reserved for the techies among us:

• OS-independent content sharing. Content doesn’t have to decide to be Windows or Mac OS X, and can be used by either one.
• File sharing with DLNA-compliant devices like Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 systems.  Easily watch videos and view photos on TV screens instead of a PC.
• Access content directly via the web. CentralAxis allows this with a simple username and password, without going through a PC or compromising a network firewall. 

CentralAxis does all the “home storage” basics as well: 1 TB capacity, centralized backups from PCs on the network, etc.  But it’s the new approach to content that makes it a game changer. 

Cool, but encryption is a kindler and gentler way to retire disk drives

Blocks and Files highlighted this very physical solution to a data management problem: how to be sure sensitive data on retired disk drives never again sees the light of day.  It’s a do-it-yourself version of industrial disk crushers.

Verity’s quite excited about the Hard Drive Destroyer, and I know it fills a desperate need.  But it’s not very resource-efficient nor environmentally friendly.  That’s a perfectly good drive!  Can’t someone else use it? 

The renewable alternative: self-encrypting hard drives like the Momentus FDE and BlackArmor.  When it’s time to retire, throw away the AES-grade encryption key, and Poof! - what was once written will never be seen again.  Certifiably so. 

Momentus FDE is a notebook drive. The first enterprise FDE drive will be the Seagate Cheetah 15K .  Stay tuned.

Who’s destroying drives out there?  Anyone willing to admit they’re ignoring this problem and reusing drives?  

Content drives storage, but the reverse is partially true

There’s no doubt the developments I listed in Friday’s post are enabling storage growth.  But they are mostly just removing the speed bumps impeding the real driver. 

With apologies to Bill Clinton, “It’s the content, stupid.” 

Without a purpose, all that impressive technology would sit on the shelf.  Here are the real reasons storage demand will continue unabated:

1. Broader use of content.  Hundreds of millions of additional people are using digital content in their daily lives due to developing global economies and new all-digital infrastructures.
2. Richer content.  Each file, video, image and message continues to grow in size.  High definition video is single-handedly transforming storage in the home by quadrupling the storage space required by digital collectors.
3. Increasing value of content.  Content is now worth real money to businesses and consumers alike.  This changes everything, as digital content is now bought, sold, collected, protected, and produced as evidence in legal matters, just like other financial instruments.

It’s tempting to think that the storage industry is luring new customers with dazzling storage technology.  The truth is they’re scrambling to keep up with customer demands for a good place to keep all their stuff.

Storage “arms dealing”, the recession and the content revolution

Robert’s conducted a great interview with Seagate CEO Bill Watkins.  He really got Bill to open up, share what was on his mind.  Well, I guess that’s not that unusual…but it’s a great interview nonetheless!

Check it out 

Maxtor Safety Drill automates the complex PC recovery process

No, I’m not going to get all technical. 

I don’t have to, because there’s now an out-of-the-box Bare Metal Restore solution for almost anyone.  Seagate’s Maxtor One Touch external drives have a feature called Safety Drill, a system-level recovery capability that does all the messy work for you. 

Why should you care?  You (or your customer) can now bring a crashed PC back to its original state (image) without getting dirty. 

• No manual rebuilding of files, directories, or software applications piece by piece. 
• No wondering if you remembered everything that was on your PC before it died. 

Reseller Advocate Magazine recently posted a video on how Safety Drill works.

This is a big step forward for backup - and recovery in particular.   Look even smarter with your customers (or family) without having to take another technical how-to class.

More room to save all those movies - and your cable company is happy too

Seagate just announced Showcase, add-on storage for DVRs.  This is great news for movie hoarders like you and me, but also a big plus for the service providers.

Think about it: your cable company gives you a set-top DVR free or at a discount with their service.  They’re not motivated to fill it up with lots of capacity that adds cost for them.  Yet HD movies take a lot of room, and more and more consumers want to keep it all.

Showcase will let service providers give their packrat customers what they want - a way to add space to save all those HD TV shows and movies - without adding terabytes of storage as a fixed cost for every customer.

Whatever the media, storage marches on

Here’s a fun read from Maximum PC: David Murphy’s interview of Seagate’s Bill Watkins.   He tells it like it is - which is a refreshing change from your average CEO.  Bill covers a lot of ground - worth the time if you’ve got it.

Takeaways for solution providers

• 1 TB sounds like a lot of storage, but it’s no larger than 5 MB was in 1979.  Like then, people will surprise themselves with how easily they fill it up.
• Your biggest storage opportunity is helping your customers use all of their data - not just what’s on their PC. 
• Your customers don’t care if it’s flash or disk or optical or green goo from Mars - they want storage that works for them.  Don’t get distracted. 
• DVDs and CDs are dinosaurs.  Electronic distribution is the new species, and demands lots of storage to enable it.

Answer the question “How much storage do you need?”

Seagate has a simple tool on seagate.com (under Useful Links on this page) that helps you figure out how much storage you or your customers need for desktop PCs, notebooks and home servers.  Plug in your content usage, and out pops some recommendations. 

Give it a try and report back on how much storage YOU need.  Also, any feedback on the tool?  What could make it more useful?

Increased competition in wifi and broadband is accelerating the need for storage

I’m writing this in a Caribou Coffee shop, a surprisingly large chain in Minneapolis that’s matched Starbucks store-for-store here.  Until recently, I would have had to get a passcode from the barista for free wifi - for an hour.  Now, it’s straight to the web, no hotel-esque stop at Caribou’s corporate web page. All free, all the time.

While I greatly appreciate the gesture, it’s no coincidence that Minneapolis just turned on its city-wide wifi service.  Not to mention the local cable company’s launch of the nation’s highest speed cable broadband package at 50Mbps.  Competition is a wonderful thing!

What does this have to do with storage?

If you’ve read my blog much, you already know the connection.  The easier it is for consumers to access content, the more they will keep.  And the more they will be offered. And so on.

There’s no slowdown in sight.  Frankly, I think we’re still in first gear.  Solutions that scale and simplify management of vast vats of content - for you and me, as well as for a Google or Amazon - will win big in the next few years. 

Content storage is now a core need for business

For solution providers, in between the consumer and the corporation there is a desperate need to do “business content” right.  For companies of all sizes it’s no longer about IT, it’s about satisfying customers.  What a chance to be a hero!

Are you seeing this in your company or home?  How’s your access?