The Greener
Side of Defrag?
Editor:-
February 21, 2008 - Diskeeper Corp Europe claims that the use of its
Diskeeper 2008 does not only improve systems performance but can also make your
company greener by enhancing its power consumption.
Diskeeper
says that its disk
defragmentation software can not only make reading files from a
hard disk twice as
fast (compared to the fragmented state) but also gives a proportional increase
in energy savings. Unlike
Microsoft's dog of a
utility (my words - not theirs) Diskeeper's software maintains your PC
performance at its peak while operating on the background on idle resources.
Defragmentation thus runs automatically while you work.
Saving
electrical power has got to be the nuttiest argument I've ever heard for defrag
and based on my estimates I don't believe you'd ever recover the cost of
buying this software from the energy saved. ...Diskeeper profile
Qualstar expansion module MEM ll holds 856 terabytes
SIMI VALLEY,
Calif - February 20, 2008 - Qualstar Corp today announced that the MEM
ll (Memory Expansion Module), is now available on its popular XLS-812300 tape
library.
Each MEM ll delivers 535 tape storage slots in just 5.3
square feet of floor space. Using LTO 4 tape technology with typical
compression, a single MEM ll holds 856 terabytes, one of the highest storage
densities in the industry. One or two MEM ll's can be added to each XLS-812300
Library System, raising its total capacity to 1,365 slots, or 2.2 petabytes of
data.
XLS-812300
libraries hold up to 12 LTO 4
tape drives, delivering
data throughput rates of over 5 terabytes per hour to meet ever-narrowing backup
windows. Adding capacity or drives is readily accomplished in the field with
minimal interruption to on-going operations. The MEM ll can be intermixed with
the XLS-812300 Expansion Pods to provide granular solutions to meet a broad
range of data protection and archival storage growth requirements. ...Qualstar profile,
Tape Libraries &
Autoloaders
iSuppli Says Flash Prices Are Dropping Below Costs
Editor:-
February 20, 2008 - iSuppli Corp. is cutting its outlook for global
NAND flash revenue growth in 2008 to the single digit percentage range, down
from their previous outlook of a 27% rise.
In an early warning
sign of consumer weakness, Apple
has slashed its 2008 NAND order forecast significantly and has informed
suppliers that its demand growth will slow in 2008 compared to 2007, according
to iSuppli sources. This is expected to have a huge impact on the NAND market.
With its extremely popular flash-memory based
iPods, Apple was the world's
3rd largest OEM buyer of NAND flash
memory in 2007.
On the supply side, slower NAND demand will have a
major impact on suppliers' financial results. Capital spending on NAND
production will rise by more than 20% this year, ensuring easy availability of
parts. This will cause prices to decrease. iSuppli believes that NAND prices
already are below suppliers' fully loaded costs.
...iSuppli profile
Editor's comments:- buyers in the fast growing
flash SSD market
will be the beneficiaries of this downturn. As I predicted last year
overcrowding in the notebook SSD market means that prices are already well below
previously forecast levels.
Traditionally the big memory chip makers
switch fab production between RAM
and flash to whichever
reaps the highest price. But many
analysts already
predicted this would not be a good year for RAM oems either.
Fantom's New eSATA+USB Desktop MegaDisk
TORRANCE,
CA - February 20, 2008 - Fantom Drives today announces its new G-Force
MegaDisk eSATA + USB external storage systems.
Now available in
1TB ($319.95), 1.5TB ($459.95) and 2TB ($649.95) capacities , the MegaDisk
storage system includes both
eSATA (300MB/S) and
USB 2.0 (60MB/S )interfaces
and also includes
NTI Shadow Backup.
Fantom Drives' new offering has
RAID built in and is
housed in a desktop aluminum enclosure.
...Fantom Drives profile,
Firewire Storage
IBM Chooses LSI RAID
MILPITAS,
Calif - February 20, 2008 - LSI Corp today announced that its MegaRAID
technology was selected for integration into IBM's System x server
line.
The ServeRAID-MR10M
SAS/SATA controller is a
high performance x8 PCI Express RAID Controller for external DAS storage. This
RAID adapter utilizes the LSI SAS1078
ROC and provides
investment protection by supporting SAS and SATA
hard drive
configurations and providing performance enhancements enabled by a standard
battery. The battery provides cached data protection during unexpected power
outages for ServeRAID-10M when operating in its higher performance, write back
mode.
The ServeRAID-MR10k SAS/SATA adapter enables full
ROMB for LSI
1078-based subsystems on high performance servers, including the IBM System
x3950 M2 and x3850 M2 servers. The System x3950 M2 is ready for virtualization
right out of the box by eliminating software setup and installation time and
enables four times the amount of memory to be hosted on a single chassis
compared to the previous system for more virtualization workloads.
The ROMB solution is ideal for space-limited server environments. The
adapters offer external connectivity with the ability to cascade up to 10
EXP3000s per port. It also features removable Battery Backed Cache and a RAID
activation key along with RAID 6 Protection.
...LSI profile,
RAID controllers
Editor's
comments:- the
MegaRAID
brand has been around for a long time. LSI acquired it along with 200 RAID
employees from AMI in
September 2001
the week before 9/11.
Introducing Another Enterprise SSD Player - Pliant Technology
Milpitas, Calif -
February 19, 2008 - Pliant Technology today announced that it has
received $8 million in Series A funding to drive the development of SSD storage
devices for enterprise computing markets.
Pliant's new
Enterprise Flash Drive devices are being designed to deliver dramatically
higher levels of performance while meeting the growing need for increased energy
efficiency and reliability
in enterprise computing environments.
Pliant Technology was formed by
several of the foremost experts and innovators in the data storage industry
including:- Jim McCoy (co-founder of
Maxtor and
Quantum), Amyl Ahola
(former CEO of
TeraStor
and Mike Chenery (former VP of advanced product engineering at
Fujitsu). Pliant's
solution is expected to be available to OEM and data center customers in the 4th
quarter of 2008.
...Pliant Technology
profile, SAS SSDs
Editor's
comments:- over 20 oems currently make products for what Pliant calls the "new"
enterprise SSD market. This will be as big a market in revenue as the consumer
notebook SSD market - but with (mostly) different players.
Some of
Pliant's founders have worked together before on the same concept (replacing
hard drives) at
TeraStor
which went through more than $85 million in the 1990s working on an
unsuccessful optical storage technology. Computer architecture, applications
experience and marketing are the key factors needed to make a successful
enterprise SSD business today. There are plenty of companies who will sell you
cheap memory chips. The enterprise
SSD market in 2009
will be an exciting area to watch. See also:-
RAM SSDs versus
Flash SSDs - which is Best?
Avnet to Distribute BridgeHead's Archiving Products
Woburn,
MA - February 19, 2008 - BridgeHead Software today announced a
distribution agreement with Avnet Technology Solutions in the U.S.
"BridgeHead Software has experienced rapid growth in the North American
healthcare market, largely as a result of its long-established relationship with
MEDITECH" said Ryan Witt, senior
VP, sales & marketing, BridgeHead Software. "Our new relationship with
Avnet will allow us to build on that market success and to expand into other
verticals."
"Healthcare is a highly specialized market that
requires a deep level of expertise and knowledge which can take years to acquire"
said Tony Vottima, VP of vertical market solutions at
Avnet Technology Solutions. "To
address the needs of Avnet's channel partners, we launched our
HealthPath
practice in 2006 (which) provides in-depth pre- and post-sales support, along
with comprehensive sales training and market-specific technology solutions..."
...BridgeHead
Software profile, Backup
Software, Storage VARs
Data Domain's 1U Deduper and D2d Aims at Remote Offices
SANTA CLARA, Calif.
- February 19, 2008 - Data Domain today announced it is shipping the
DD120 - a scaled down full-function deduplication and disk backup system
for remote offices.
The $12,500 list price unit provides up to
150GB/hour of inline deduplicated storage throughput and up to 18TB of logical
capacity in a 1U chassis.
"The DD120 offers a low cost way to
simply and automatically backup and recover locally as well as replicate
remotely, for less than was possible before," said Brian Biles, VP of
Product Management at Data Domain. "This is a great new option for
distributed enterprise sites who would normally consider a
tape autoloader but hate
the hassle. They no longer have to make sure they have an administrator to
replace the tapes and get them on a truck on time. Those days are over. With the
DD120, storage and transport are automated, and management can be centralized."
...Data Domain
profile
Kirk Roller Joins iSCSI Wannabe Wasabi
Norfolk, Virginia - February 19, 2008
- Wasabi Systems today announced that Kirk Roller
has joined its ranks as Senior VP, Worldwide Sales and Marketing.
Formerly President and COO of
Emulex, Kirk's extensive
background in the storage industry helped put Emulex on the map while boosting
Fibre Channel HBA
revenues from $3M to over $400M.
Kirk brings more than 20 years of
executive management expertise to Wasabi's executive team and is excited about
the opportunities in the iSCSI
market and is looking forward to partnering with leading resellers to reach
a market that is presently growing over 100% each year.
Prior to Emulex, Kirk held various sales and management positions
with Compaq, Interconnections, and Thomas-Conrad. He is presently based in
Wasabi's newly opened Dallas sales office. ...Wasabi Systems profile,
Storage People
IDC Reports on Storage Replication Technology
FRAMINGHAM, Mass
- February 19, 2008 - Dynamics in the storage replication software market are
shifting, according to a new study from IDC.
While
array-based replication accounted for close to 84% of worldwide market revenues
in 2007, the highest annual growth came from smaller segments, including
host-based methods (+25.4%) and network and appliance-based replication
approaches (+20.6%).
"Future opportunities for replication
suppliers are numerous," said Laura DuBois, program director,
Storage Software at
IDC. "To succeed, vendors need to increase their focus on heterogeneous
replication and replication/recovery management, and integrate replication
services with other high availability services and virtualized server
environments. They should also expand into data reduction approaches and offer
replication-as-a-service to reach new market segments."
...IDC profile,
Market research
New SSD Article from BiTMICRO
Editor:-
February 19, 2008 - BiTMICRO Networks has recently published a new
article called - SSDs: Carving a Niche in the Consumer and Enterprise Markets.
The author
Joanne
De Peralta observes that "Nobody is pushing us to jump into the SSD
bandwagon. The only reason why all these talks have surfaced is because we have
been presented with something that can elevate our computing experience to a
higher level, something that will enable us to thrive in previously impossible
situations and perform really well." ...read
the article, ...BiTMICRO
profile, 83
more Articles, FAQs, Case Studies about SSDs
Heise Article Shows HDD Encryption Flaws
Editor:-
February 18, 2008 - an article today on Heise Online reveals that the so
called 128 bit hardware encryption in some hard disk products is ineffective -
because it hasn't been implemented properly.
Mtron's Notebook SSD will be 6x faster than Hard Drive
SEOUL,
South Korea - February 18, 2008 - Mtron Technology Co. Ltd - announced
today that they have completed the development of a new 1.8" ZIF-type SSD
family for laptop PCs and will begin production in April.
Mtron's
new SLC flash SSD has a maximum reading speed of 120MB/s and writing speed of
100MB/s, which is more than 6x faster than a typical 1.8" HDD.
Therefore when it's used in a laptop PC and
UMPC
it delivers much faster performance than a desktop.
Mtron also
released a 1.8" MLC Flash SSD with up to 128GB capacity along with a
maximum reading speed of 110MB/s and writing speed of 40MB/s.
Steve
Jeon, CEO of Mtron, said, "With our new 1.8 inch SSD, Mtron has added
another great product line as a leader in the SSD market, which is expected to
grow into $10 billion in 2012. Our new product is a result of careful market
analysis and research of consumer needs."
...Mtron profile
HD DVD Takes Early Retirement
Editor:-
February 18, 2008 - industry rumors speculate that Toshiba may pull the
plug on its HD DVD standard conceding to Blu-ray.
Blu Ray
marketers will be rejoicing - but this media war is a side issue. 4 years ago
in an article called
Do CDs and DVDs Have a Long
Term Future? I warned that the 20 year long run of removable consumer
optical media which started with the CD - would come to an early end because
eventually internet downloads would replace physical disks as the primary form
of non broadcast movie distribution.
...Later:- next day in a
press
release commenting about this market shift
Strategy Analytics opined...
Blu-ray
Disc's victory over HD-DVD is the first battle in a much longer struggle. A
major challenge lies ahead if the industry is to persuade hundreds of millions
of DVD owners that they should switch to a completely new format. DVD players
costing less than $100 can already offer HD-like video quality through upscaling
techniques. The industry must now unite behind a major promotional campaign to
push Blu-ray Disc as the preferred optical disc standard for the high definition
age.
"Blu-ray Disc has passed its first real test by beating HD-DVD,"
says David Mercer, Principal Analyst at Strategy Analytics. "But a much
bigger challenge now lies ahead if BD is to become as successful as DVD, and
content owners, retailers and manufacturers must now demonstrate that they can
work together to promote BD effectively."
Strategy Analytics predicts that cumulative sales of stand-alone
Blu-ray Disc players excluding games consoles, PCs and other devices will reach
more that 100 million units worldwide by 2012.
Sans Digital Introduces 3.5" InstaRAID
Santa Fe
Springs, CA - February 15, 2008 - Sans Digital today introduced the
InstaRAID IR12TB - a a 3.5" SATA hard drive module which houses 2
internal 2.5" drives with RAID support.
The
IR12TB has a
built-in hardware RAID engine to support RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 0
(stripping) allowing data redundancy or performance increase, while only
occupying the space of a single 3.5" hard drive.
...Sans Digital
profile, Storage Boxes
Editor's
comments:- the idea is not entirely new. A few years ago
Adtron used to market
the
I35MB
Diskpak which included 2x PATA mirrored disks.
Samsung Ships Faster 64GB SSDs
Seoul, Korea -
February 15, 2008 - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd announced today that
it has begun mass producing 64GB solid state drives with its new SATA II
interface.
Aimed at the premium
notebook PC
market the new SSDs can read data at 100MB/s and write at upto 80MB/s while
consuming 75% less power than typical
hard drives.
"While there will always be a market for HDDs, we see growing
demand for our new SSDs, especially now that they are available with the SATA II
interface," said Jim Elliott, director, flash marketing, Samsung
Semiconductor. "SSD technology is especially viable for the business and
high-end consumer notebook markets because of its outstanding performance, as
well as the added value gained from virtually no downtime and faster operating
speeds."
...Samsung profile
Editor's
comments:- my first reaction on seeing this press release was "how many
times are Samsung going to launch their 64GB products?" There was a samey
feel to it (and some companies do relaunch the same products every 3 months or
so in the hope that editors will forget). But on closer scrutiny I realized this
is not the same lack-luster 64GB SSD they talked about in March 2007 - but an
improved go-faster model. That new improved speed is still a long way behind
the fastest SSDs
which are aimed at servers, however. |
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