Viterbi joins Link_A_Media
board
Editor:- September 2, 2010 - Link_A_Media Devices
recently announced that Dr.
Andrew Viterbi has joined its
board of directors.
"I
have followed Link_A_Media's progress for some time and find its culture of
innovation compelling. The company has already emerged as the technology leader
in the data storage application with its introduction of Low Density Parity
Check SoC products in the mobile
hard disk market,"
said Dr. Viterbi. "With its strong financial backing, customer traction,
technology leadership and executive team, the company is well positioned to
deliver compelling SoC solutions to the broad data storage market."
The LAMD LDPC data
recovery architecture can tolerate significantly more noise on the recording
medium at the expense of increased complexity relative to
Reed
Solomon decoders. LAMD's current LDPC-based SOC device reduces the number
of errors read from a disk from 1 in 100 to 1 in 100 Million bits of data,
relative to the previously-used concatenated coding schemes. This enables more
efficient utilization of the available disk surface to store more data and
reduce the cost per gigabyte of storage.
see the storage future at Storage Visions 2011
Editor:-
September 1, 2010 - StorageSearch.com
today confirmed it is a media sponsor for the 10th annual Storage Visions conference
taking place January 4 - 5, 2011 at the Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, NV.
The
event theme is - New Dimensions Drive Digital Storage.
In this
context those dimensions are spatial - as more pixels need to be stored and
manipulated to support increasing video content resolution and stereoscopic
imagery.
I couldn't remember how many of these past events we've
sponsored. Then I found the answer - since 2003.
The storage market
has changed a lot in that time but nothing like it's going to change in the
future. Vendors and oems have to anticipate the future and lay down plans to
adapt and thrive in new emerging markets. If they get it right - they get
another chance to compete and evolve. If they get it wrong...
sianara. |
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| Above is the Storage Visions
event banner which we ran here in 2003. If you click this one you'll go back in
time to the old web site. Below is the Storage Visions event banner for 2011.
If you click that one (and attend the event) you'll race forwards in time. |
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|
why the notebook SSD
crystal ball is still murky
Editor:- September 1, 2010 -
yesterday a reader (Andrew Hancox) sent me a list of 10 key questions
about the future of the SSD market.
His 1st question was - "How
long do you think it will be before the pricing of SSDs comes down to a level
where they are a viable option to be used as primary drives in portable devices
for mainstream consumers?"
Although I've been posing and
answering that same question since before the SSD notebook market existed - I've
come up with a better answer.
0 to 100 - rear view mirroring the SATA SSD market
Editor:-
September 1, 2010 - if you're a newcomer to the SSD market you might get the
impression that SATA SSDs ARE the SSD market!
I've updated my
introductory article on
the SATA SSD page to reflect how this segment of the SSD market got from
zero to where it is today - with 100 active oems.
Why the headline "rear
view mirroring"? - As well as being a retrospective article on how we got
here - this month is the
1st anniversary
of PCIe SSD search
volume overtaking that of 2.5"
SSDs.
law firm says WhipTail's SSD capacity 4x better than HDD
Editor:-
August 31, 2010 - WhipTail
Technologies today announced that a law firm customer - Finkelstein & Partners (350
attorneys and staff distributed across 17 locations) had achieved a 4x
capacity reduction when using their SSD instead of HDDs in virtualized server
apps - due to
dedupe and faster
IOPS.
PCIe SSDs enable 512 virtual desktops on a single vSphere
Editor:-
August 31, 2010 - Fusion-io
today showed how its PCIe
SSDs can enable users to run
512
virtual desktops on a single
vSphere
host in a demo at VMworld .
"Fusion-io is changing the way customers think about data-center
architecture, driving further efficiency, consolidation and scalability into
virtual platforms," said Neil
Carson, CTO of Fusion-io. "Fusion's ability to efficiently handle
the highly random access patterns prevalent in virtualized workloads, aids
customers in reducing the cost and complexity of adding multiple virtual
machines."
SSD searches 33% higher than a year ago
Editor:-
August 31, 2010 - StorageSearch.com
revealed today that searches for "SSD" this month were 33%
higher than a year ago.
We're now 2/3 of the way through the calendar
year that I christened the
Year of the SSD Market
Bubble - so how's it going so far?
It's clear from looking at
interim financial data from across the industry - and matching that up with
unpublished data from private companies that 2010 will easily end up being the
1st multi-billion dollar year in this market. That's peanuts compared to
where the market is
headed - but it's a significant milestone in
SSD market
history.
I do hear a few gripes from vendors that the SSD market
isn't doing as well as they expected - these mostly arise from vendors with weak
technology whose product managers didn't understand the market when they made
their product plans. Customer expectations in the SSD market are being set by
the top 10 SSD companies
- and not the bottom 10.
StreamStor optical option sustains 3GB/s
Editor:-
August 30, 2010 - Conduant
announced new optical options for its
StreamStor
mezzanine data recorders enabling upto 800MB/s per port and 3GB/s for a 4 port
confguration and cable lengths upto 16 miles.
Conduant's founder and
CEO Ken Owens said -
"Our Optical High Speed Serial Mezzanine Board can be upgraded and
customized in the field as requirements demand and allows for recording from
multiple devices simultaneously in any environment. With our StreamStor
technology, all packet formation and management is performed by the hardware so
there is no latency or other delays to affect data transmission performance."
SEPATON article on tape dinosaurs
Editor:- August
30, 2010 - Jon Mills, Director of European operations at SEPATON recently
published an article -
Tape
- the T Rex of backup? - which provides anthropological comparisons between
tape libraries and these
popular creatures.
I guess it takes one soon-to-be-extinct dinosoar to
recognize another. My own view is that
hard disk based backup will
eventually be replaced by solid
state backup. So enjoy chewing the spinning magnetic leaves while they
last.
Microsemi 's new 16GB PBGA PATA SLC SSD
Editor:-
August 27, 2010 - Microsemi
now offers a 16GB SLC NAND version of its
PBGA SSDs - which
are designed specifically for use in the rugged and demanding environments of
defense and aerospace
applications.
The surface-mountable
PATA SSD has an
integrated 32-bit RISC flash
controller which
manages wear
leveling, error
correction and power interruption protection.
Imprinting the brain of the SSD - MarketingViews case study
Editor:-
August 26, 2010 - StorageSearch.com
today published a new article -
Imprinting the brain
of the SSD - which describes how the
SSD market went from:-
what's an SSD controller?
to "SandForce Driven SSDs".
...read the
article
10,000x more reliable than RAID?
Editor:- August 26,
2010 - Amplidata
claims that its
BitSpread
technology is 10,000x more reliable than current
RAID based technologies
and requires 3x less storage.
Is another new way of fixing
reliability
problems in hard disk
arrays worth the effort just as we approach the end of the
hard disk market's life?
- I doubt it. See why in -
this way to the
petabyte SSD.
WhipTail un-races to the datacenter
Editor:- August
25, 2010 - in an effort to improve its prospects in the datacenter market -
WhipTail Technologies
today
announced
a new name for its NAS
SSDs - Datacenter XLR8r instead of Racerunner - and also unveiled HA
options which involve dual failover systems.
The little lizardy
creatures are still on WhipTail 's site. Serious SSD buyers aren't scared by
animal brands.
pushing the SSD testing rock farther up the hill
Editor:-
August 25, 2010 - I'm mostly resistant to the idea of rehashing recent news
stories - but yesterday while talking about new SSD technologies a reader
asked me to take another look at
SNIA's SSD
performance testing guidelines - which I reported on
a month ago.
I
said I had been surprised it took
ORGs like
SNIA so long to look at
these issues - because I had been aware of "Halo effects" in
flash SSD benchymarks for years - and commented - "But I guess member
led ORGs have a built in lag factor and only move at the speed of the
slowest exec members."
The reader - Neal Ekker -
whom I knew from his
time
at
Texas Memory Systems -
put up a spirited defense for this particular ORG's opus and said...
""...We've
all known about the fishy-ness of SSD performance claims for years. But I'd like
to draw attention to what an impressive accomplishment the SNIA SSS PTS
represents, no matter its technical merits or ramifications. I watched it
happen, and I can tell you it was an amazing POLITICAL achievement. And
I don't mean that in a negative way. Any time there's more than one person in a
room, there's politics. For a collection of engineers representing both their
own egos and the interests of their employers to finally agree on even this
rather bare-bones beginning standard was just remarkable to observe. I can't
begin to give enough credit to some of the chief movers and shakers.
Neal Ekker added - "This is why I want more attention focused on
the SSS PTS right now, so we don't lose momentum entirely. There's still plenty
of work to be done. We need additional companies and fresh faces and energies to
step up and push this rock
a little farther up the hill."
Editor's comments:- During the majority of the SSS PTS development Neal
Ekker served as the SNIA SSSI Education Committee Chair. He's now a for-hire
independent SSD marketing consultant. ...Neal's bio,
...SSS
PTS (pdf), Storage
People
OCZ dusts off memory flour to bake more SSD cake
Editor:-
August 24, 2010 - OCZ
today announced plans to wind down its commodity
DRAM business and focus
more resources on
SSDs.
Ryan
Petersen, CEO of the OCZ Technology Group, Inc. said - "Our R&D
driven SSD business is performing well and is anticipated to be the majority of
our revenue going forward..."
Editor's comments:- Once you've got a market acceptable
recipe - the profit margins for cake can be much better than those for flour.
So if you have a choice it's better to make cake.
The SSD market
isn't big enough yet for huge memory makers like
Samsung to make the
grind or bake decision. They have to do both. But in the distant future
it may be
different.
STEC
made the SSD bake
decision in Februray 2007.
HP and Dell battle over unavailable 3PAR
Editor:-
August 23, 2010 - 3PAR
has become part of a billion dollar acquisition tussle between Dell and
HP.
But would you buy software from a company whose home page
showed this message today? - "Site
Temporarily Unavailable Thank you for visiting www.3PAR.com. This site is
currently undergoing maintenance and is temporarily unavailable. We apologize
for the inconvenience."
...Later:-
3Par-ty
tonight – hangover tomorrow? - is a thoughtful analysis of the 3PAR
tug of war written by market analyst Robin
Harris. |
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other
storage news on this
page
Viterbi joins Link_A_Media board
see the storage future
at Storage Visions 2011
why the SSD crystal ball is murky
0 to
100 - rear view mirroring the SATA SSD market
law firm says WhipTail's
SSD capacity 4x better than HDD
PCIe SSDs enable 512 virtual desktops
vSphere
SSD searches 33% higher than a year ago
StreamStor
optical option sustains 3GB/s
SEPATON article on tape dinosaurs
Microsemi 's new 16GB PBGA PATA SLC SSD
Imprinting the brain
of the SSD
10,000x more reliable than RAID?
WhipTail un-races
to the datacenter
pushing the SSD testing rock farther up the hill
OCZ
will bake more SSD cake
HP and Dell battle over unavailable 3PAR | |
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| SSDs - the big picture |
| Editor:-
StorageSearch.com was the
world's 1st publication to provide continuous editorial coverage and analysis
of SSDs (in 1998) and in the 12 years which have followed we've led the market
through many interesting and confusing times. |
 |
If you often find yourself
explaining to your VC, lawyer or non technical BBQ guests why you spend so
much time immersed in SSD web pages - and need a single, simple, non very
technical reference to suggest - this may be the link they need. | | | | |
