the SSD Buyers Guide - click to see article
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storagesearch.com

storage search
11 years - "leading the way to the new storage frontier"

Teralyte removable disk to disk backup for SMBs
ejectable disk to disk backup for SMBs
Teralyte from Idealstor
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Disk to disk backup / virtual tape

Disk duplicators
Disk to Disk Backup versus Tape
Optical Storage Libraries / Jukeboxes
Tape Libraries (of the non virtual kind)
History of Enterprise Disk to Disk Backup
Virtual Tape: Can You Afford to Ignore It?
Data Integrity Challenges in flash SSD Design
Is Deduplication of Data Safe? & More Dedupe FAQs
Should your backups to disk consume more disk than you use for production?
d2d ad - click for more info
History of Disk to Disk Backup
STORAGEsearch.com has been reporting on the enterprise D2d market since the concept first began.

This article plots the main events and market milestones in the 10 year market transition from the heady days when tape backup was at its height - through to the situation now where most corporate data is backed up using disk to disk backup. ...read the article
click to read the article - a Short History of  Disk to Disk Backup
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Editor's pick of D2d and VTL companies
If I listed all the companies with a claim to being in the disk backup market - then you'd get a long list of over 500 vendors - and that would be simply from data mining the backup software ISVs, hard disk makers and disk array oems already listed on other pages here on storagesearch.com

That wouldn't be very useful.

So, instead, I've looked back at the last 6 years of news stories which actually made it to this D2d page (out of the many thousands of storage news stories we published (and that was distilled down from over 100,000 storage news stories in my email or which I saw on the web.)

Out of all that brew I've chosen less than 20 companies which seemed to say something worthwhile or consistent about this subject and they appear below as a useful starting point for your continuing storage search.
Arkeia

Audavi

Bus-Tech

Data Domain

Double-Take Software

EMC

ExaGrid

FalconStor Software

Idealstor

Iomega

Nexsan Technologies

Olixir Technologies

Overland Storage

ProStor Systems

QSAN Technology

Quantum

UniTrends

WD
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"the average web page weighs 80 micrograms" - from info about the Internet Archive
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Are MLC SSDs Safe in Enterprise Apps?
Backing up your data to a solid state disk (or SSD RAID Array) may sound like a crazy idea today...

...but no more so than the idea - 10 years ago - that disk to disk backup would one day replace tape.

I've been backing up my data to flash storage (in rotation with hard disk storage) for about 5 years. There have been less failures in the flash backup media than the hard drives - which translates to a lower TCO. But I'll keep using more than one type of media - because I'm paranoid about losing data.

SSDs cost more per gigabyte than hard drives, but that cost gap is closing fast.

New generations of MLC SSDs offer 2x the capacity at the same silicon price, and some companies are talking about 4x devices - with 8x maybe just a year or so away.

Most SSD oems claim that flash SSDs have much better MTBF than hard drives. While that may be true - the uncorrectable data corruption rates in some types of SSD may be orders of magnitude worse than SLC SSDs, and worse than HDDs.

And the theoretical operating life of SSDs varies by 100 to 1 between different brands and technologies of SSD.

Storage reliability is more than the longevity of the storage media. It's about survival of the data.

This article shows the technical reasons why multi level cell flash SSDs may work OK in notebooks and PDAs - but may not work satisfactorily in a rackmount datacenter environment. ...read the article
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Is Deduplication of Data Safe? - and More Deduplication FAQs
One of the problems with disk backup is scalability.

For small and medium sized companies the speed and convenience of disk backup outweighs any other considerations - and in most cases is cheaper than the alternatives. But if you're backing up data associated with tens of thousands of internal users - then eventually the cost of the disk media (compared to traditional tape - even with tape's intrinsic lumbering speed, high service costs and unreliability) may start to become an important feasibility issue.
dedupe faqs article
In theory that's where deduplication comes in - because (moving beyond that other must-have D2d technology - compression) it offers the promise of saving more unique data to less disks.

But is dedupe scalable? Is it safe? And what about performance?

The ultimate dedupe faqs is a good starting point to learning more. ...read the article
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Disk to disk backup
"I'm impressed by your new hotSTOR disk to disk backup"
said Megabyte. "Does it make coffee too?"
"The more you drink, the faster it goes."
The SSD Backup Roadmap - new article coming soon

Editor:- February 1, 2010 - in the next 7 days StorageSearch.com will publish a new article which describes the roadmap for the barely nascent SSD Backup Market to replace the enterprise hard disk backup market by the close of this decade.

There will be many technology and marketing challenges along the way. It will require entirely new types of SSD products and new ways of thinking about what the purpose of backup really is. You may be thinking - "SSD backup... This can't be serious! Is it April 1st already? " You too will be serious - and may add it to your own roadmap - after you read the new article.


$10 million Funding for AoE Pioneer

Editor:- January 25, 2010 - Coraid today announced that it has closed a $10 million Series-A financing round with Allegis Capital and Azure Capital Partners to accelerate the development and adoption of its AoE compatible storage.


New Image for Cloud Storage

Editor:- January 13, 2010 - a new article on PCWorld.com discusses on-low cost and no-cost cloud storage offerings from Google.

The author David Coursey (and his commenting readers) make some interesting comparisons with Microsoft 's SkyDrive.

Personally I loathe the term "Cloud Storage". But I have to admit we're stuck with it. So today I changed the graphic on the online backup and storage page.

The old one - with the tag about "Spellerbyte was cooking up a new business plan which involved online web backup" - was appropriate when it was first published 10 years ago - but no longer fits this market's image today. I resisted the temptation to use an image compatible with the business metaphor of "sad losers" or "big black hole for VC investors."


ioSafe Launches Disaster Proof Backup SSD

Editor:- January 5, 2010 - ioSafe launched the ioSafe Solo SSD - an ultra rugged USB / eSATA external flash SSD with upto 256GB capacity ($1,250) designed to provide data protection against disasters such as fire, flood, and building collapse.

ioSafe offers a "no questions asked" Data Recovery policy to help customers recover from any data disaster including accidental deletion, virus or physical disaster.

"The new ioSafe Solo SSD is the world's most rugged and versatile desktop external hard drive. It can be used alone or in conjunction with any offsite or online backup strategy to add real time, zero data loss, synchronous disaster protection to any data that sits vulnerable," said ioSafe CEO, Robb Moore.


NC chooses NearPoint to archive 1 million daily emails

Editor:- December 16, 2009 - Mimosa Systems today announced that the State of North Carolina has selected Mimosa NearPoint to archive emails for 41,000 state employees.

Mimosa was selected as the archiving vendor of choice from a pool of 29 other archiving vendors who responded to an open state bid.


$9 million Funding Round for flash SSD Enabled SAN Backup

Editor:- November 18, 2009 - Axxana announced it has secured $9 million Series B investment led by Carmel Ventures.

Axxana's existing investors, Gemini Israel Funds and the serial entrepreneur Moshe Yanai, also participated in the round.

The funds will be used to accelerate the adoption of The Phoenix System - the first "Black Box" Enterprise Data Recorder which was demonstrated at EMC World in May 2009.

"Axxana's EDR brings a disruptive solution that is well poised to transform the entire storage replication market and create a whole new category within it," said Ronen Nir, Partner at Carmel Ventures. "We are impressed with Axxana's strong founding team and their achievements so far, including impressive endorsement by leading storage vendors worldwide."

Editor's comments:- Axxana's solution is a lossless data recovery system which sits on the SAN and records data into a rugged flash SSD-enabled, locally situated, data survival box. Although Axxana talks about it "complementing" other types of data protection - such as offsite / online backup my gut feel is that if the product shows itself to be usable and reliable in a wide range of environments - it will set a new standard for backup which will supercede anything possible with rotating disk backup systems or tape.

The clearest explanation is in Axxana's datasheet (pf).


Storage Market Outlook 2010 to 2015

Editor:- November 9, 2009 - this is a time of year when many readers are thinking about their storage marketing plans for 2010.

This planning process takes place against a background of long range assumptions which are more confusing than at any time since September 11, 2001.

I've collected together a few ideas which you might find helpful - even if you don't entirely agree with them - on the home page of StorageSearch.com


WD Ships 2.5" 10K SAS HDDs

Editor:- November 3, 2009 - Western Digital announced volume shipments of its 1st 2.5" 10K RPM SAS hard drive.

The WD S25 provides up to 300 GB of high-performance storage suitable for both mission-critical enterprise server and enterprise storage applications, such as high-I/O-driven applications and configurations, as well as data centers and large data arrays.

Editor's comments:- 15K RPM hard drives are obsolete for new designs - because if you want acceleration - you get more server bang per buck using 2.5" SSDs. But in the 10K area HDDs can still deliver high capacity with tolerable performance and lower cost than SSDs.

In order to optimize overall economy, reliability and performance - the well architected enterprise storage systems of the near term future will lean towards using more 10K RPM (and slower) hard drives - for bulk content - and towards using various levels of SSDs for performance. In the long term it will all be solid state - but that's still 10 years away.


RDX QuikStor Now 640GB

Editor:- October 27, 2009 - Tandberg Data now offers a 640GB model in its RDX QuikStor cartridge "10 year data life" removable disk archive product line.

This is 28% more than the previous maximum 500GB capacity model. Tandberg Data has shipped more than 150,000 RDX QuikStor drives and more than 450,000 compatible cartridges worldwide. disk to disk backup

Editor's comments:-
You may not be impressed by the capacity - but reliability is more important than density for backup applications.

Originally launched in November 2005 - "RDX uses a patent-pending error correcting format, which makes the data 1,000x more recoverable than in a standard hard drive. This means that RDX-stored data will be readable even after the cartridge has been archived and non-operating more than a decade."

In comparison - if you use standard hard drives for removable disk archiving my own experience is that 50% are unreadable after 4 years and 80% are unusable after 6 years.


40 Years of Data Archiving

Editor:- October 13, 2009 - KOM Networks today celebrated 40 years of secure archiving.

"We may not be a household name" said Kamel Shaath, CTO of KOM Networks "but our customers are, and they rely on us to protect, preserve, secure, store and retrieve their most critical data."

KOM Networks is credited for the creation of the first software to manage optical disks in 1983, the first optical storage management software for Windows NT in 1995, and the first virtual file system with electronic file lifecycle management in 2001. storage history

Editor's comments:-
if KOM Networks makes 50 - they'll be supporting SSD archiving too. It will offer 20x faster recovery time than HDD or optical archiving. A few issues to sort out first though.


Dedupe Makes SSD Affordable - says WhipTail's CTO

Editor:- October 12, 2009 - WhipTail Technologies became the 1st SSD appliance company to market integrated in-line deduplication.

At SNW WhipTail announced it will ship its newly renamed Racerunner (6TB) NAS SSDs with Exar's Hifn BitWackr deduplication and compression solution in Q4 2009. Racerunner has demonstrated deduplication performance in excess of 1Gbps.

James Candelaria, CTO of WhipTail Technologies said "Once again, we're proving Tier 0 storage doesn't have to be expensive. By providing in-line de-duplication, customers can save money by investing only in the storage they need."


BakBone Wakes Up to Disk Backup

Editor:- September 16, 2009 - BakBone Software today announced it will change its focus from traditional tape-based data protection solutions to disk-based technology with new products to be launched soon.

Editor's comments:- BakBone is already years behind the curve in its reaction to the market's shift to disk backup. It's really surprising therefore that the company has unwisely erected the information block of a sign-up web form ahead of saying anything useful about what it plans to do.

What can we learn from this? Don't employ any marketers who have had anything to do with this product launch. (Check for "Open Data Protection platform" on the CV.)


OEMs Qualifying Virtual RAID Adapter Software

Editor:- September 15, 2009 - Dot Hill today announced that several tier #1 OEMs are evaluating its virtual RAID adapter software.

VRA-based solutions enable server OEMs to offer built-in, high-end RAID functionality in multi-core Intel compatible servers without the expense of a dedicated RAID-on-chip acceleration device.


HDS will Remarket InMage's Appshot

Editor:- September 1, 2009 - Hitachi Data Systems will co-brand and resell InMage's Appshot replication technology the 2 companies announced today.

InMage supports rapid, reliable recovery for various key enterprise applications including Microsoft Exchange, SQL and SharePoint as well as Oracle, MySQL, BlackBerry Server, SAP, and any Windows, Linux or UNIX file system.


Hitachi Ships "Enterprise class" 2TB HDD

Editor:- August 11, 2009 - Hitachi started shipping the Ultrastar A7K2000 - a 3.5", 2TB, 7,200 RPM, SATA hard drive for applications such as data warehousing, disk-to-disk backup, cloud computing and massive scale-out storage.


TB/hr NAS Indexing

Editor:- August 11, 2009 - Ever wondered how long it would take to index your corporate data to make it easily searchable?

Index Engines today published a useful benchmark answering that question.

They sustained 1 Terabyte per hour on a NAS system from BlueArc. Base price for the software is $85,000, and they say you should allow 4% to 8% of the target storage as an indexing overhead.

I thought it would be interesting to see how this compares to Google's hardware search appliance .

Google has published lots of case studies here - but I couldn't find a single magic number in the brief time before my attention span moved on to the next thing ambushing my to-do list.


New Disk Backup Article

Editor:- July 14, 2009 - a new article is published today on StorageSearch.com called - "Aspects of Disk Backup".

Written by Andrew Brewerton - Technical Director (Europe) - BakBone Software - the new article comprehensively reviews the why? how? and where? of today's modern enterprise disk backup techniques.

StorageSearch.com has had a decade long affinity with enterprise disk backup - tracking changes in the market since the concept 1st began. This overview article brings that coverage right up to date - from the perspective of a leading company in the backup software market. ...read the article
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