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Three reasons we’ll see strong US IT growth in 2010

Forrester says we’re entering a global tech recovery that will spark significant growth for the US IT industry, for three reasons:

  1. Sustained economic recovery in the U.S., even stronger in China and India
  2. A weaker dollar adds to global measured in dollars
  3. A new tech cycle driven my Smart Computing

Forrester sees this Smart Computing wave as an outcome of the coming together of recent innovations in Business Intelligence, virtualization and cloud computing.  They hit their stride in 2010 and combine for some highly productive solutions.

Happy New Year!

January 15, 2010 - 9:21 am | By Pete Steege | Posted in Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Speed Heads rejoice! USB 3.0 for Seagate BlackArmor PS110

ba_ps110_leftangle_320x340Amidst the annual CES tidal wave of product announcements is this juicy one: USB 3.0 on a Seagate BlackArmor PS110 portable drive. 

It comes as an add-on kit, so current and new BlackArmor owners can imbide in this ulta speed experience.

The wait for USB 3.0 is over!  Enjoy.

January 8, 2010 - 7:59 am | By Pete Steege | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Ten things that won’t change in 2010

2010 2In the wacky Change-O-Rama that is the technology industry, what’s not changing is in some ways more interesting than what is.

  1. Moore’s Law - no end in sight.  The reason 2020 phones will be more powerful than today’s PCs.
  2. Kryder’s Law - the disk drive “Moore’s Law” that drives storage capacity growth. No end in sight.
  3. Data growth – we need a law about this, since it’s got the staying power of #1 and #2.  Something like “The volume of data in a system is limited only by the ability to manage it.” Proof points: The internet and a Google data center.
  4. Consumer spending – no matter how cool new technology is, consumer spending will remain pretty constant compared to technology changes.  It’s a zero sum game – the best products will displace the others. 
  5. Consumer time – ditto #4. Who will win the battle for discretionary time – phones, PCs or TV?  Twitter, Google or Tivo?  This is probably the biggest battlefield of all.
  6. IT budgets – despite revolutionary business benefits, IT spending as a percent of revenue hasn’t changed that much for mainstream companies. No change in 2010.
  7. Google will continue to dominate search.
  8. Microsoft will continue to dominate browsers and OS.
  9. Solid State Drives will still be too expensive for most applications.
  10. The most common blog post in December 2010 will be a Top 10 list.
December 16, 2009 - 2:03 pm | By Pete Steege | Posted in Random, Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Momentus Thin changes the rules for netbook storage

momentus thinWhen it comes to new technology, it’s easy to get stuck in “black and white” thinking.  Something is either totally new and paradigm-shifting, or obsolete and out-dated.

The truth is that the best ideas are those that are both incremental and innovative, a change to existing technology that changes the rules. 

The Rise of Slim Computing

Take laptop storage, for example.  Since MacBook Air was announced, industry pundits have said the future of mobile computing is Thin, and therefore disk drives are obsolete.  For netbooks and ultraportables in particular, the future is SSD, and it starts now. Right?

Nope. Too expensive.

Then we must need a totally new hard drive form factor.  1.8″ drives are a dramatic miniaturization and will replace today’s 2.5″ drives in mobile applications, right?

Nope. Can’t hold enough content.

As a matter of fact, most thin notebooks and netbooks use standard 2.5″ hard drives, because they are the only solution that provides enough capacity at a price point that works for mobile computing. If only they were thinner…

Introducing Momentus Thin

Rather than give up on today’s technology, Seagate has transformed it with the launch of Momentus Thin.  Momentus Thin preserves the best of 2.5″ drive technology – namely reliability, high capacity and affordability – while squeezing the drive width 26% to 7mm.   

Relentless improvement of existing technology often bests exciting but immature new technology.  Seagate should know.  The half-century-old hard drive industry has been built on just such focused innovation.

December 14, 2009 - 3:03 pm | By Pete Steege | Posted in Consumer Storage, Notebook PC, Products | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

7200 rpm drives will dominate laptops by 2011

7200 transition

Conventional wisdom is that the next big transition in laptop storage will be SSD. 

Not so.

According to Seagate, 5400 rpm laptop disk drives, the standard for years, will be knocked from their perch in 2011 by…7200 rpm disk drives. 

What about SSD?

Faster disk drives close a good chunk of the performance gap between hard drives and SSD, without the astronomical price. 

And new technology means that 7200 rpm disk drives use about the same power as 5400 rpm drives.

Read DailyTech’s and Maximum PC’s two cents’ worth on Seagate’s data.

SSD, where is thy zing?

December 10, 2009 - 1:52 pm | By Pete Steege | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Seagate Pulsar: the first enterprise-ready SSD

PulsarIt’s official!  Seagate’s new SSD is called Pulsar, and is shipping to enterprise OEMs.  Pulsar is targeted at the enterprise blade server and general server market. 

Pulsar is the first truly enterprise-ready SSD from the world’s leader in enterprise storage devices.

The specs you might expect:

  • Up to 200 Gigabytes
  • SLC technology
  • 3 Gb/s SATA interface
  • Improved IOPS per Watt (vs. hard drives)
  • 2.5″ form factor with 7mm height

These make a lot of sense given the needs of today’s enterprise server market – 3Gb/s SATA, 2.5″, etc.  The 7mm height provides some great density opportunites for blade server manufacturers in particular. 

It is the first of many SSD strorage devices from Seagate.

The specs that make Pulsar uniquely enterprise-ready:

  • Stable data rate performance across the device’s multi-year useful life
  • Power Loss Protection – logic to protect data in volatile buffers long enough to write to non-volatile memory at power loss
  • Balanced perfomance between reads and writes
  • 0.44% Annual Failure Rate (AFR) in enterprise applications
  • 5 year warranty

SSD is not just flash media.  Extensive pre- and post-sales support is needed for true enterprise drives. Pulsar’s enterprise-ready capabilities come from Seagate storage device IP applied to solid state media and validated with extensive testing that enterprise customers require. 

For example, Power Loss Protection – achieved by the integration of a super-capacitor in Pulsar’s data architecture - protects enerprise data, enabling customers to use Pulsar with the write cache enabled. 

“Where’s Seagate?”

Some in the industry have been asking “Where’s Seagate?” as other companies have launched SSD products into the enterprise market over the past year or so. 

The answer is “In the lab and meeting with customers, building a true enterprise SSD.”

December 8, 2009 - 6:02 am | By Pete Steege | Posted in SSD, Servers, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (11)

What to buy your flat screen TV for Christmas

FA theaterQ: What do these lists have in common?

A:  Seagate FreeAgent Theater + .  A pretty cool, very easy way to get all of those videos and phots onto your new flat screen TV.

It’s not too late. Get yours wherever hip electronic gadgets are sold.

December 7, 2009 - 10:19 am | By Pete Steege | Posted in Consumer Storage, Products, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Laptop performance doesn’t have to cost an arm or a leg – or battery life

 

I asked Seagate’s Joni Clark what to think about when choosing a laptop hard drive.  It’s more than just the obvious capacity choice.  Things like performance, encryption and drop protection.

Check out Joni’s response in the video. 

Sometimes you can get something for nothing.  The Seagate Momentus 7200 rpm drive runs faster but uses no more power than a Momentus 5400 rpm drive.  It’s just as quiet, too.

December 3, 2009 - 3:54 pm | By Pete Steege | Posted in Consumer Storage, Notebook PC, Products | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Barracuda XT is a 6Gb/s SATA screamer

bjorn3dBjorn3D reviewed the brand new Seagate Barracuda XT drive.  2TB, 64MB cache and 6Gb/s SATA.  Here’s an excerpt:

“We like the transfer speed the Barracuda XT provides, we like the huge 2TB storage it offers. We love the 64MB cache it has. For all intents and purposes the Barracuda XT is just as Seagate advertised it.”

What’s not to love?

Another thing they liked about the Barracuda XT was its first-ever 6Gb/s SATA interface - also known as SATA 3 as it is the 3rd generation of the SATA interface standard.  6Gb/s SATA is a big deal.  The Barracuda XT gains some speed today because of it, but once systems are built to take full advantage of this new standard, watch out!

Seagate is proud to be a technology leader with 6Gb/s SATA.  Thanks for noticing Bjorn3d!

November 30, 2009 - 3:45 pm | By Pete Steege | Posted in Desktop PC, Products, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

A tech fable: Flash and the Three SSD Applications

Once upon a time

 

Once upon a time there was a technology named Flash. 

Flash was shiny and very exciting. Everyone had high hopes for her. 

Flash wanted to Make a Difference, so she went to the Wizard of Applications for advice.

“You are very fast and sparkly,” said the Wizard.  “I’m sure you will Make a Difference for the Laptop.” So he put Flash in a magic cloak called SSD and sent her to the Laptop. 

Sadly, the Laptop couldn’t see how Flash could Make a Difference.  She was fast and sparkly, but Notebook couldn’t afford Flash’s high wages. She returned to the Wizard a second time.

“If you are too expensive for the Laptop, I’m sure you will be just right for High End Storage”, said the Wizard. He sent her and her SSD to visit High End Storage.

High End Storage said, “Flash, you are fast and sparkly.  And I can pay your wages.  But you’re too young to be trusted with much.  Come back when you’ve had more experience.”

Dejected, Flash returned to the Wizard a third time.

“You are too expensive for Laptop and too young for High End Storage,” said the Wizard.  He pondered things for a while. ”You will be just right for the Blade Server,” he decided.  And off she went.

The Blade Server was happy to see Flash and her SSD. “You are fast and cool! And your small size is just fine with me,” said the Blade Server.  “You can Make a Difference here.”

Flash worked hard with the Blade Server and went on to learn all about Enterprise. She tried new things, but only when she was ready.  She grew and grew until one day she became a Mature Technology and lived happily ever after.

November 25, 2009 - 11:44 am | By Pete Steege | Posted in SSD, Technology, Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)