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Storage news - 2007, October week 3

. Megabyte's selection of storage news
Megabyte loved reading news
about the storage market
the fastest SSDs
the SSD Buyers Guide
the Top 10 SSD Companies
SSDs - reaching for the Petabyte
Branding Strategies in the SSD Market
SSD Myths and Legends - "write endurance"
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Open-E integrates Adaptec's Remote RAID Service

Puchheim, Germany - October 18, 2007 - Open-E announced today it has integrated Adaptec's Remote Access Service for RAID in its Open-E OS.

The solutions developed in collaboration by both companies are intended to deliver an "All-around-No-Worry-Package" for iSCSI SANs. Customers benefit from easy RAID management functions that can be done remotely instead of locally at the storage server. Open-E delivers its storage software preconfigured on a USB flash module. ...Adaptec profile, ...Open-E profile


Proavio Signs Benelux Distributor

Santa Fe Springs, CA - October 18, 2007 - Proavio announced today a strategic partnership with optical system leader Duplidata.

This alliance will establish a new European distribution point for Proavio's popular video products within the Benelux creative markets. ...Proavio profile, ...Duplidata


Memoright Launches Fastest 2.5" Drive

Shenzhen, China - October 18, 2007 - Memoright today launched its 2.5" 64GB PATA / SATA flash SSDs on the international market.

The new products were demonstrated recently to enterprise partners at the company's headquaters in China. Memoright's patented technology enables their SSD to deliver 100MBytes/sec sustained read and write transfer rates - which is the fastest throughput in a currently available 2.5" flash SSD. Memoright says its random access performance is typically 5x faster than a hard disk. The company is looking for sales agents worldwide and says it will launch 1.8" and 3.5" models soon. ...Memoright profile


DataCore Simplifies HA Virtual iSCSI for SMBs

DALLAS, Texas - October 17, 2007 - Coinciding with Storage Expo (UK) and SNW (US), DataCore Software today announced a range of bundles designed to enable users to affordably implement iSCSI Virtual SANs and fault tolerant shared storage for virtual server systems.

Ranging from $1,000 to $20,000 these SANmelody-based, bundled solutions make it possible for any business to get started with virtualization backed by a DataCore virtual SAN.

"Our VIF and DR packages are value rich offerings aimed at solving the real world storage problems faced by smaller businesses. The bundles provide a solid stepping stone for SMBs considering affordable shared storage for virtual server deployments, iSCSI storage networking and/or disaster recovery solutions for the first time and for the long term," said DataCore's CEO and president George Teixeira. ...DataCore Software profile


Spectra's Upgrades Target Wrinkly Tape Libraries

SNW, DALLAS - October 17, 2007 - Spectra Logic expanded its T-Series tape library line today.

Spectra preserves data storage investments in its new midrange Spectra T200, T380 and T680 tape libraries by offering a seamless growth path from 1 to 24 tape drives, 50 to 680 slots of tape media, and up to 136TB of disk storage in a single rack mount unit. Spectra's TranScaleT architecture enables customers to complete an upgrade and return to backing up in half a day or less-guaranteed.

"World-wide, there are literally tens of thousands of libraries installed that have reached the end of their economic service life" said Jeb Bolding, a product manager for Spectra Logic. "In our analysis, customers will often have a payback period of less than a year when replacing an obsolete library with our new T200, T380 or T680." ...Spectra profile, SSD backup


Live Storage Patents Auction

CHICAGO, IL - October 16, 2007 - Ocean Tomo Auctions, LLC today announced it will sell several lots of patents relating to data storage at its Live Intellectual Property Auction on October 25th at The Palmer House Hilton in Chicago.

One patent addresses a self-destructing document or email messaging system that automatically destroys documents after a predetermined period of time.

Another Lot in the Data Storage category, which includes a substantial portfolio of U.S. patents, generally relates to data storage devices, disk drives, and other aspects of storing digital information by magnetic and optical data storage technologies.


QNAP Introduces 3.5" USB / eSATA Backup Station

Taipei, Taiwan - October 16, 2007 - QNAP Systems, Inc. today introduced the QBack-35S to its external hard drive enclosure QBack series.
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What Lies Beneath the Storage News?
Editor:- October 11, 2007 - You'll often see storage news on other sites which you don't see here on STORAGEsearch.com. When the news item sounds significant, you may be wondering why?

Is the editor asleep? Or is there a more Machiavellian reason for the news drop out?

For example is the editor suppressing news from some companies - because they compete with an advertiser?

Not guilty! That kind of publication wouldn't last more than a few months for 2 reasons.

1 - most new advertisers become advertisers because they've already had a lot of inquiries coming from editorial. The pressure from that direction would be to run and hype all press releases (which is the opposite to excluding them).

2 - the most important asset that a publisher has is readers. Advertisers may come and go - but without high quality readers who really care about the subject and work hard to find out what they need, and are people who make a difference to the market by what they do - a publication is just fodder for search-engine robots - and has no value whatsoever.

Sadly a common reason for a news story not appearing is that the core statements in the press release are simply not true.

Every week I get press releases from vendors making bold claims such as:-
  • first company to launch this type of product
  • fastest product (in its class)
  • lowest cost storage product (in its class)
  • biggest customer installation for this technology
  • highest market share in market segment
Unlike a robot, or software news aggregator, I actually read all the press releases which come into this publication.

I've probably read more than 100,000 press releases related to the storage market in my 16 years as editor, and I've seen thousands of web sites in this industry. But because I care a lot about the progress of this industry and because readers are the most important resource for any publisher, I always check the facts before running this type of news story.

The simplest way is for me to search our archived storage news pages. But I can also search email going back 10 years and if that doesn't give me a good confidence level - I'll search the web for previous examples of similar claims.

When I don't run a story for this reason - I always reply to the sender of the press release saying why. That often starts a dialog which pins down the root cause as being the writer didn't know about the earlier published example.

Back in 2000 I wrote an article to help news contributors understand how to interface better with editors. I called it Why I won't publish your press release? - Press Release Errors I see every day. Then 5 years later - I added some more notes to that.

One thing I never thought I'd have to say explicitly in that PR guide is that I will never run a news tory which I know in advance is untrue.

Human nature being what it is - most of us aren't so interested in news stories about the 2nd or 3rd fastest/newest products - even though that's what usually sells in the most volume. I guess the reason may be because we like to know where the boundaries are. If something shifts the boundaries - such as a 10 terabyte 3.5" hard drive - then we're more interested to read about it than the 3rd or 4th terabyte drive.

When the incorrect claim stories come in - I always try to find if there is anything else interesting in the story that I can run with - while leaving the suspect claim itself out.

As a general rule I remove adjectives like "fast" or "leading" (company) unless they are supported by figures or hard market data in the text. So if you see those words in this publication - their value has not been diluted.

A more common reason for not running a news story is that "it's not newsworthy" or it has already been mentioned here before - and not much has changed since. Or it's the latest in a long line of me-too announcements.

Another reason for not running a news story is that the idea behind it is just complete nonsense. In this category are many product comparisons, benchmarks and badly designed surveys which are as useful as measuring the speed of a Porsche 911 driving across a freshly plowed field.

I get a lot of queries from PR writers about why I didn't run something. If I really did miss it - and if it's significant enough - I'll go back and look again.

What's important is that you should be able to rely on the information you see in these pages. And that when you see a claim about some record breaking product - someone has actually done some simple checks before making the words appear on your screen



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The titanium black QBack-35S supports a single 3.5" SATA hard drive, up to 1TB storage capacity, and USB and eSATA interfaces. QBack-35S is aimed at users who require fast and secure low cost data backup. With QBack-35S, users can experience handsfree automatic synchronization backup, AES 256-bit encryption, and e-mail (Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Mail) backup.

The award-winning backup software QBack is enclosed - which provides 4 backup modes. In addition to the auto-sync backup, one touch backup is supported.
QNAP news image on  STORAGEsearch.com
Users can back up data immediately by pressing the one touch button on the device. QBack also provides instant and schedule backup modes. ...QNAP Systems profile, Storage Boxes


QLogic Shows Faster SAN Glue at SNW

SNW, DALLAS - October 16, 2007 - QLogic Corp today announced several new high-performance storage networking products.
  • First end-to-end family of 8Gbps Fibre Channel adapters and switches.
  • Low cost 2U 20Gbps InfiniBand switch - the SilverStorm 9020 .
  • The industry's first FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) network adapters.
The technology is designed for "the new data center" - which consists of densely consolidated servers and storage resulting from the deployment of virtualization, blade servers and multi-core processors. QLogic says its new technology will provide the performance, quality-of-service and green networking needed in these "High RPM" data centers. ...QLogic profile

Editor's comments:-
I like the phrase "High RPM data center." But the fastest disks are "zero RPM".


Texas Memory Systems Demos 8GFC SSD

Houston, Texas - October 16, 2007 - Texas Memory Systems today announced that its RamSan-400 solid state disk is part of the FCIA's demonstration of 8 Gigabit Fibre Channel at this week's Storage Networking World conference in Dallas.

8GFC technology will double the data transfer rate between servers and storage in Fibre Channel SANs. SNW attendees can view the 8GFC SAN demonstration at the FCIA booth P1, and they can visit Texas Memory Systems at booth C21. The 8GFC specification is scheduled for ratification in December 2007 and will be backward compatible with 4GFC and 2GFC.

The RamSan-400 solid state disk subsystem from Texas Memory Systems is ideally suited to complementing 8GFC as it can deliver up to 3,000 megabytes per second of bandwidth, and sub-15 microsecond response time. ...Texas Memory Systems profile, Storage Events


Hitachi Technology will Deliver 4T Hard Drives

TOKYO - October 15, 2007 - Hitachi Global Storage Technologies announced today they have developed the world's smallest read-head technology for hard disk drives, which is expected to quadruple current storage capacity limits to 4 terabytes on a desktop hard drive.

Hitachi's new technology is expected to be implemented in shipping products in 2009 and reach its full potential in 2011. Hitachi will present these achievements at the Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Conference this week in Tokyo....Hitachi profile, Hard disk drives


ProStor Shows InfiniVault at SNW

BOULDER, Colo - October 15, 2007 - ProStor Systems today unveiled its new InfiniVault archive appliance for the first time at Storage Networking World in Dallas.

By leveraging RDX removable disk technology, ProStor has created an easy-to-deploy archiving solution that combines the performance of fixed-disk archive solutions with the scalability and disaster recovery protection of removable disk media, in a design that is more reliable than tape and much lower cost than fixed disk archive systems.

"Our research shows that SMEs have the same archive and compliance requirements as large enterprises, but don't have the budgets to afford enterprise solutions or the resources to manage complex solutions," said Steve Georgis, CEO and president of ProStor Systems. "The InfiniVault archive appliance provides those enterprises with the same level of data preservation and compliance without the complexity and high price tag." ...ProStor Systems profile


Emulex Working on Fibre Channel over Ethernet

COSTA MESA, Calif - October 15, 2007 - Emulex Corp today announced it has signed a technology agreement with Nuova Systems to utilize Nuova technology in the development of a family of Emulex Fibre Channel over Ethernet products.

Emulex products are currently undergoing development testing and the Company will begin delivering samples to OEMs for qualification in the first half of 2008, followed by production shipments in the second half of 2008. Designed to natively transport Fibre Channel traffic over the Ethernet network, FCoE will take advantage of the proposed enhancements to 10Gb/s Ethernet. The proposed enhancements to 10Gb/s Ethernet will provide the level of performance and reliable delivery of data required for enterprise storage environments. ...Emulex profile


Aristos Logic Samples Multi Interface RAID Chip

Foothill Ranch, California - October 15, 2007 - Aristos Logic announced today availability of the AL3450 UltraSlice-MPx - 3rd generation RAID storage processor chip.

The AL3450 integrates the multi-processor RSP engine, 3Gb/s SAS and 4Gb/s Fibre Channel host and disk interfaces and a PCI-X interface on a single chip. Developed in response to some of the fastest growing segments of the market such as blade servers, the AL3450 features enterprise class performance and reliability while delivering low power consumption in a small footprint. It is available immediately in sample quantities to Aristos Logic's OEM partners. ...Aristos Logic profile, storage chips, RAID controllers
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