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Creative marketing - A USB Flash Drive the Size of a Truck: http://bit.ly/bUW2I6 via @addthis

IT Storage

Cache is king, but the masses still rule.

crowdsEnterprise SSD has its place, and undoubtedly one place is caching.  LSI seems to think so given their recent announcement around FastPath and CacheCade software enhancements to their MegaRAID line of 6Gb SATA/SAS controllers.

LSI’s  says the new offerings “help to optimize application performance in direct-attached storage environments configured with solid-state drives“… and “enables SSDs to be configured as a secondary tier of cache to maximize transactional I/O performance to deliver up to a 50X performance improvement in read-intensive applications.”

What read intensive applications:

  • On-line transaction processing (OLTP) perhaps eCommerce applications
  • File servers used for compute intensive database applications seen in  finance and banking.
  • Web servers perhaps with the exponential growth of on-demand online video.

What does LSI’s software really do?  “The solution is designed to accelerate the I/O performance of HDD-based arrays while minimizing required investments in SSD technology.”

Okay…so it gives your traditional hard drive based storage more power while making your initial investment in SSD more cost effective. Sounds political… no need to make dramatic changes to policy, just economically sensible tweaks to please the masses (the independents).

Long live the hybrid model… it always seems to work out best.

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Seagate Pulsar: the first enterprise ready SSD
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How SSD will emerge from the Trough of Disillusionment
The death of the hard drive has been greatly exaggerated

Check out everything SSD on Storage Effect

March 11, 2010 - 3:22 pm | By Mark Wojtasiak | Posted in IT Storage, SSD, Storage Systems, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Pent up demand…45 Terabytes worth

US45_signSearchStorageChannel.com ’s annual IT Spending Survey indicates storage manager will add an average of 45TB per company this year alone. 6TB more than anticipated last year….talk about pent up demand.

  • Companies with >$1B in revenue a whopping 80TB
  • Companies with <$100M in revenue 25TB

Looking at these numbers, companies 10x bigger are only 3x bigger in terms of capacity needs.  What does this say about where the growth is coming from?  Once again, small to medium sized (SMB) companies, and face it, there’s many more of them than the $1B+ companies.

Seagate_Terabyes_per_Million

Given the study also indicates that storage budgets will grow roughly 3.2%, that’s a lot of bang for your buck.   What are they planning to spend money on? No surprise…

  • Data Backup
  • Capacity
  • Data Recovery

All 3 being “nearline” applications, meaning these guys will be investing much of their dollars in lower performance (7200RPM)  higher capacity Tier 2 solutions meant to best address data growth.  Looking at the entire picture, the number one priority is to get a grasp on data growth and play catch up from a year of getting by with what you got.

Once under control, you can bet the push for higher performance solutions will begin to surge. Good thing enterprise SSD is on the rise, and the Tier 1 drives keep getting bigger and faster.

The future looks bright for enterprise storage.

Related Posts

Three reasons we’ll see strong US IT growth in 2010
10 things that won’t change in 2010
Storage fights back
2010 predictions or premonitions?
SMB IT plans – how refreshing

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March 3, 2010 - 10:30 am | By Mark Wojtasiak | Posted in Business Storage, IT Storage, Storage Systems, Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

The real story behind Seagate’s Constellation ES 2TB

Seagate_Constellation_ES_6Gb_SASYesterday, Seagate announced availability of it’s 4th generation enterprise nearline drive (Constellation ES) with up to 2TB of capacity.

The 2TB milestone on this drive is not necessarily the headline grab.  The real story with Constellation ES is the 6Gb SAS interface.  For the past few years, Seagate and others have worked to transition the enterprise market from SCSI and Fibre Channel to SAS, and by in large the transition has been a success, except for the burgeoning market for low cost nearline storage solutions that utilize SATA drives.

Seagate hopes to change that. Leading the way, Seagate brought 3Gb SAS to the nearline space with the previous 3.5-inch version Barracuda ES2, and it’s 2.5-inch brother Constellation. Today, the envelope gets pushed further with Constellation ES boasting twice the interface speed with 6Gb SAS.   Of course, Constellation ES is also available in a  SATA 3Gb version, but judging from Seagate’s announcement, 6Gb SAS is more ready for primetime in the nearline space and thus first to market.

Perhaps the enterprise ecosystem is just not ready to take advantage of SATA 6Gb. All that work transitioning the market to SAS has paid off. The market is conditioned to take advantage of 6Gb SAS today, and once again, Seagate is attempting to lead the way.

I am not going to go into the virtues of SAS over SATA. You can get that here.

Instead, let’s bring light to the real story here… Seagate wants the market to go  SAS.   It’s just a matter of time before the others sing the same tune.

Related Posts

Seagate Constellation is much more than 2TB
SAS gains steam with Dell PowerVault
The SAS 6Gb/s ecosystem is here. Where are you?
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Virtualization is a killer app for 6Gb/s  SAS

February 23, 2010 - 10:13 am | By Mark Wojtasiak | Posted in Business Storage, IT Storage, Servers, Storage Systems, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Code blue! Storage is an afterthought for healthcare

stethoscope1This report by SearchStorage reveals some unique dynamics in healthcare IT that are not healthy for the future of our collective digital healthcare records.  Technical decisions made primarily by non-technical doctors about software, with storage hardware diecisions made as an afterthought.

Healthcare IT folks, is this true where you work? 

This doesn’t sound good, not good at all.  Considering the incredible volumes of incredibly sensitive and important data these solutions will contain, storage needs a seat at the table up front as they are architected.

The saving grace could be the system integrators that are bridging the gap, making sure that the PACS software and the infrasctructure to support them will work well together over time.  Compliance demands are also helping to brace up this somewhat scary IT decision making process. 

Still, efficiency and cross-organization record compatibility could be compromised. 

Doctors, focus on your patients and empower your IT staff to keep your growing digital data happy and healthy.

June 11, 2009 - 8:01 am | By Pete Steege | Posted in IT Storage, Technology, Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

SSD and deduplication: turbocharger and trash compactor

272499_datadomain_logoIn StorageMojo’s analysis of the EMC bid to take Data Domain from NetApp, Robin Harris quoted Chuck Hollis of EMC on why the deal makes sense:

From a storage perspective, the real action is at both ends of the storage media spectrum: making storage capacity go really fast (think enterprise flash drives) – and making storage capacity really cheap (think data deduplication, spin down, etc.).

SSD and deduplication exemplify all that’s valuable in storage these days. IT has to do more with less;  SSD both accomplish this, but in entirely different ways. 

SSD is all about leverage.  A little flash turbocharges a much larger disk-based storage investment.

SSD overcomes the long-standing imbalance between capacity growth and I/O speed on disk drives. Capacity has grown a million-fold over a few decades.  I/O speed: not so much.   The rise of SSD is a repeat of what happened when linear-access tape was replaced by random-access disk as King of the Storage Media a couple of decades back.    

Deduplication has emerged as the most efficient and implementable data compression advance in a decade.  It’s the trash compactor of data, but not just for trashy data; it’s a equal opportunity opportunity for companies to greatly reduce their data storage without throwing away data.  (IT hates to throw away data.)

It’s no surprise to see Data Domain in play.  And the SSD story has only just begun! Just wait till more mature, enterprise-ready SSD devices hit the market later this year.

June 2, 2009 - 8:55 am | By Pete Steege | Posted in IT Storage, SSD, Technology, Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

How disk drives are like light bulbs

light-bulbGreen IT and energy efficiency are all the rage. But they’re not just topics for large data centers, and not just about saving the planet:

  • There are schools that have used up all of the power allotted to them by their local utility.   They need lower power PCs or they can’t add any more computers to their classrooms.  Nortech has made a business out of this.
  • Businesses have used up their power allotment as well. They’ve got to fit more gear within the same power envelope.
  • Plain old cost savings are motivating companies to reduce their electric bill. Cooling costs for their IT equipment have a multiplier effect on core equipment power costs.

How can storage help?

Replace normal drives with low-power alternatives where they can get the job done.  For example, Seagate’s Constellation drive is a lower power alternative for some server applications. These drives have sophisticated power management features that allows them to get more done with less power.

It’s very much like replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact flourescent light bulbs.  Where appropriate, you can save alot of power and barely notice the change.

April 13, 2009 - 8:06 am | By Pete Steege | Posted in Green, IT Storage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Encryption management across Mac and Windows

winmagic_final

A few weeks after the disk drive community published encryption standards, self-encrypting disk drives take another step towards broad enterprise adoption: WinMagic announced that SecureDoc now manages encryption keys across Mac and Windows PCs.

The ability to manage encryption passwords and recovery across all of an organization’s PCs is a requirement to fully implement disk encryption.  This is critical because self-encrypting drives are so secure that a lost password means unrecoverable data.

March 23, 2009 - 5:43 am | By Pete Steege | Posted in IT Storage, Notebook PC, Security | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

The recession finally catches up with storage

idc

IDC’s numbers show IT storage revenue is down for the first time in five years.  Seems the economy finally trumped data growth.  Data is still growing; revenue is down, not capacity. 

EMC is still on top by a large margin, followed by IBM, HP and Dell.

Byte and Switch summarized the IDC report succinctly here.

March 10, 2009 - 6:08 pm | By Pete Steege | Posted in Data Center, IT Storage, Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Five ways the stimulus package will help storage

capitol1

The economic stimulus plan working its way through Congress recalls the New Deal in some ways, but the results will be felt in many industries that weren’t even a glimmer in Roosevelt’s eye.  Like storage.

How the stimulus package will stimulate storage consumption:

  1. Healthcare digitization – dramatic increase in digital records created and archived
  2. Public & private sector construction – “smart” sensor data recording & analysis will drive surprisingly large IT investments.
  3. Broadband investment - fatter pipes mean more data to store
  4. Direct IT investments – government modernization, like a $400 million computer for the Social Security Administration.
  5. Direct storage purchases by stimulated consumers – home storage is becoming a mainstream consumer electronics category.

IDC says smart technology will drive an infrastructure management industry worth $122 billion by 2012. 

Most importantly, these storage stimuli are annuitized – they create steady state data creation that keeps giving year after year.

Storage is creeping into every important and productive investment in our society.  It should be no surprise that stimulating our economy gooses the storage industry.

February 11, 2009 - 5:53 am | By Pete Steege | Posted in Business Storage, IT Storage, Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Seagate Constellation: CFO-friendly storage

crn_logo

CRN UK reports that Seagate’s new Constellation family of enterprise drives brings a much-needed storage media price point to cost-conscious CFOs.  The timing is right.  These days storage expansion is a fiscally painful but necessary business expense.

From the article:

Demand for greater storage capacity will expand in all directions, said Gartner analyst John Monroe, a research vice president. But storage system purchases will come under increasing scrutiny, he warned. Storage managers are going to have to justify themselves, and their cost per gigabyte figures had better be good.

Praveen Asthana, director of Dell Storage, told CRN that Dell is on board.  They will be putting Constellation “on the rack.”

February 10, 2009 - 6:40 am | By Pete Steege | Posted in Green, IT Storage, Products | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)