Entries tagged as ‘storage’
December 30, 2008 · 1 Comment
Storage will make the biggest impact of any technology in the 2010’s
Think I’m crazy? Think again.
Information and energy drive today’s world. The internet has re-invented life and work for the digitally enabled parts of the world, and the electrical grid and gas-powered transportation systems are what make our physical economy go round.
Batteries and bytes will change the world
Storage is the prime enabler of both of these infrastructures. And storage innovations for both will revolutionize both of these infrastructures over the next few years.
Energy storage is better known as fuel. Conventional energy media - coal and gas – are finally giving way (partly) to more efficient media. Notably, battery technology is at an inflection point, poised to transform automobiles and (yet again) information technology.
The U.S. government is even considering a Sematech-like consortium to collectively catch up on battery manufacturing capability.
Information storage is also going through a media transition. Solid state flash is finally ready to stand with disk drives and tape. In the next decade, the new storage media ecosystem will transform personal and business computing in ways we can’t even know today.
Information doesn’t get the headlines that software or processors or networking does, but none of these technologies would be usable without today’s storage technology. More than ever before, information is the mother of all technology, and storage is where that information resides.
Categories: Datacenter · Industry trends
Tagged: alternative energy, Batteries, disk drives, Flash, infrastructure, internet, SSD, storage
You can live forever digitally for a “nominal price”.
Here’s another contributor to the growth of content in the world: information immortality.
nEternity is offering to keep your digital life – photos, music, your blog – alive and available online forever – independent of your domain or the photo sharing service you’re using.
nEternity may or may not take off. More significant is the trend it points towards: the extension of the lifetime of digital data. Businesses will continue to lengthen their data’s life from here on.
The rules for data retention are changing as digital copies are increasingly the only copies that exist. This will create a new set of businesses focused on extending the life of digital records beyond the current technology on which they are stored. It makes today’s digital archives look downright transitory.
And you thought those backup tapes were troublesome…
Categories: Backup · Data Security · Digital Home · Industry trends
Tagged: archive, Backup, content, data, forever, insurance, nEternity, storage, tape
December 17, 2008 · 1 Comment
Bucking economic trends as recently as September
Storage Station noted that Gartner and IDC are seeing about 10% growth in storage revenue in the third quarter of 2008. That’s pretty recent evidence that storage continues to resist macroeconomic momentum.
While it’s clearly not a boom time given the layoffs announced by EMC, Pillar, WD, Hutchinson and others, it’s a relatively positive trend.
These days we take what we can get.
Categories: Industry trends
Tagged: economy, EMC, Gartner, Hutchinson, IDC, Pete Steege, Pillar, storage, storage effect, Storage Station, WD
December 15, 2008 · 1 Comment
Servers would give them the third leg of the data center “stool”
Chris Mellor interpreted Cisco’s recent body language around servers. Will they jump into the server business?
It’s not that much of a stretch. It’s only fair, as HP and others don’t shy away from dabbling in Cisco’s networking space.
And Cisco has already crossed into the storage realm.
Used to be that IT was all about processing. Today servers, storage and networking are the three legs of the data center stool. They’re the Mind, Stomach and Voice of the digital body of business.
The smartest of the big players in all three spaces will look for ways to corner them all.
Categories: Datacenter · Industry trends · Servers · Storage Systems
Tagged: Chris Mellor, Cisco, Dell, HP, networking, Servers, storage, The Register
Cisco’s medianet will transport the content, but who will store it?
Cisco’s medianet initiative is a network response to the video-rich world that is evolving at break-neck speed.
I’ve posted on this trend frequently because the effect on storage surpasses the network transformation Cisco sees coming.
Cisco will be temporarily touching the bytes of content as they move around, but where will they come to rest? The storage industry will need to step up to the plate to ensure this wave of new content has a place to land.
Categories: Datacenter · Industry trends · Storage Systems
Tagged: Cisco, medianet, networking, storage, video
More evidence that storage is special.
I’m not saying the storage industry is not going to be impacted by these hard times. Pillar and others already have been. We all will be.
But these hard times are forcing people to make hard choices. And they are often choosing in favor of their data, which often means more storage.
Storage solutions that help people get by will remain a hot commodity.
Categories: Industry trends · Storage Systems
Tagged: Byte and Switch, Pillar, recession, storage
December 3, 2008 · 1 Comment
Could technology be moving beyond Geek Chic?
We’ve all seen quirky thumb drives that turn heads. But there are signs that storage and technology in general are moving into the fashion mainstream.
The Bejing Times recently reported on a fashion show at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology that presented outfits inspired by technology accessories. From the caption: “Designer Lyla introduced her designs based on Seagate’s fashionable digital products.”
Is technology fashion moving beyond Geek Chic? Not for a geezer like me. But my 20ish neices carry their cell phones like my mom carried lipstick.
UPDATE: more photos from the event here.
Categories: Random
Tagged: Beijing, Beijing Institue for Fashion Technology, China, fashion, FreeAgent Go, storage, thumb drive
Solid state drives shine in the company of disk drives
SSDs are crazy fast but very expensive. Compared to SSDs, disk drives seem slow – but are very affordable. Which should you use?
Digitar’s experience shows the magic of blending the two technologies in an enterprise system. System speed resembles the SSD, while system cost looks more like the disk drive. Processing cost dropped from $6 per IOPS for disk only to $1 per IOPS in their blended system.
A little flash thoughtfully placed goes a long way.
Categories: SSD · Storage Systems
Tagged: Digitar, Flash, SSD, storage, Sun, SunFire
November 20, 2008 · 1 Comment
An up-and-comer for the data-rich crowd?
Chris Meiller over at The Register highlights IQstor’s new storage array, the IQ5200. 52 1 TB drives in 4U. That compares favorably with the Equallogic PS5500’s 48 drives in the same space.
First to qualify 1.5 terabyte drives in these boxes wins the next capacity density crown.
IQStore has been a quiet small OEM supplier up to now. If the IQ5200 pans out in terms of reliability and performance, that may be changing.
Categories: Products · Storage Systems
Tagged: 1 TB, 1.5 TB, Dell, density, Equallogic, IQ5200, IQstor, storage
