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Storage news - 2008, January week 2

. Megabyte's selection of storage news
10 years editing the storage news on
STORAGEsearch.com hadn't aged Megabyte.
He looked just the same as when he started.
Teralyte removable disk to disk backup for SMBs
ejectable disk to disk backup for SMBs
Teralyte from Idealstor
Squeak! - the Fastest SSDs
Squeak! - the 2.5" SSD Guide
Squeak! - How Solid is Hard Disk's Future?
Squeak! - the Top 10 Solid State Disk OEMs
Squeak! - the Solid State Disks Buyers Guide
Squeak! - RAM versus Flash SSDs - which is Best?
Squeak! - SSD Myths and Legends - "write endurance"
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Storage news
STORAGEsearch.com Reports Top Storage Searches

eDiscovery Companies Find Mutual Interests

Intel and Micron Unveil Fastest Flash Memory

Asempra's BCS Validated by IBM

PQI's Traveling Disk

Sun will Distribute CommVault's Data Management Suite

Solid Data Expands SSD Services

Promise Ships New SAS RAID Controllers

HyperIP Acceleration Software Scales to Wire Speeds

RAIGE Company Gets $24 million Additional Funding

TMS Sets New SPC Records

StorageMaster Offers Real-time Content Delivery

WD Reports 46% Hard Drive Revenue Growth

Brocade Unveils the Brocade DCX Backbone

Alacritech Promises 10GbE iSCSI Accelerator 1H08

Nanochip Aims to Trash Flash

Memoright Says 128GB 2.5" flash SSDs Now Available

QNAP Includes Enterprise Features in 4 Bay NAS

the Top 10 SSD OEMs in Q4 2007

Seagate Reports 14% Revenue Growth

Elpida Doubles Mobile RAM Bit Width

Disk Backup Pumps ExaGrid's 30% Quarterly Growth

Jim Wayda Joins iStor Networks

Introducing the 1.3" Hard Drive

SeriTek Ships 5 Bay Hot-Swap SATA PM Enclosure

AMCC Demo at Macworld

EMC Re-enters the SSD Market

Goodbye to the Power Cable for eSATA

ATTO Ships New FastStream RAID

CRU-DataPort Acquires WiebeTech

Tandberg Data Launches 100 Slot Tape Library

Mad Media Replaces Sneakernet with Sonnet RAID

P.A. Semi's Processor will be Inside NEC Storage Arrays

New CLARiiON Aims at VMware SMBs

Microsoft Buys Storage Search Company

earlier news (archive)
Disk to disk backup
Disk to disk backup on
STORAGEsearch
"I'm impressed by your new hotSTOR
disk to disk backup" said Megabyte to
Cheaperbyte . "Does it make coffee too?"

Idealstor
Idealstor is the leading manufacturer of
removable disk to disk backup solutions.
.
Top 20 Storage Searches
The top 20 most popular storage categories on STORAGEsearch.com in January 2008 were as follows... Figures in brackets (n) indicate rank the month before.
  1. Disk to disk backup (2)
  2. Hard drives (1)
  3. Solid state disks (3)
  4. 2.5 inch SSDs (4)
  5. RAID systems (8)
  6. Flash - based SSDs (6)
  7. NAS (5)
  8. RAM based SSDs (7)
  9. 3.5 inch SSDs (10)
  10. iSCSI (11)
  11. Market research (13)
  12. Flash memory (12)
  13. SAN (9)
  14. Removable Storage (14)
  15. Serial Attached SCSI (15)
  16. Acquired, dead, renamed etc (17)
  17. Backup software (18)
  18. Data Recovery (19)
  19. RAM (20)
  20. JBODs - new to top 20
.
Squeak! - the Fastest Solid State Disks

Speed isn't everything, and it comes at a price.
But if you do need the speediest SSD then wading through the web sites of over 55 current SSD oems to find a suitable candidate slows you down.

And the SSD search problem will get even worse.
the Fastest Solid State Disks
I predict there will be over 100 SSD oems in 2008.

I've done the research for you to save you time. And this page is updated daily from storage news and direct inputs from oems. ...read the article,
.
4U 100,000 IOPs 2 terabyte flash SSD from TMS
RamSan-500 - 2 terabytes flash SSD
2 gigabytes / sec sustained storage throughput
from Texas Memory Systems
.
Editor:- January 11, 2008 - STORAGEsearch.com today updated its monthly list of the top subjects viewed by storage searchers in December. There was no change in the top 5 subjects which were:-

(1) - Hard drives
(2) - Disk to disk backup
(3) - Solid state disks
(4) - 2.5 inch SSDs
(5) - NAS

Overall pageviews grew 13% compared to the year ago period.

2008 will be our 17th year as a publisher and the 10th anniversary for STORAGEsearch.com. All the signs point towards an exciting year in which users will surprise vendors in the new ways they think about and use storage technologies. ...click to see top 20


LegalTech, New York - February 5, 2008 - Mimosa Systems and Index Engines today announced a joint partnership. Together Mimosa and Index Engines address the many challenges of eDiscovery by enabling organizations to implement a powerful, litigation-ready, eDiscovery solution to rapidly, discover and retrieve time-sensitive data stored in email and offline tape repositories.

"The December 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for Electronic Discovery ushered in the use of email archiving for legal document retention and preservation," said Vivian Tero, Senior Research Analyst, IDC. "The eDiscovery rule changes eliminated the need of emails to pass the hearsay test; hence, more companies are deploying email archiving applications to manage critical email as business records and to address future discovery burdens, as opposed to just meeting mailbox management and storage optimization needs."

Courts are getting tougher on companies that fail to provide documents, especially email. One of the main problems stemming from compliance and electronic discovery mandates is companies' failure to find documents and email because they've been deleted. However, the deletion of documents is often not a reasonable defense when a company is faced with a discovery request. ...Index Engines profile, ...Mimosa Systems profile


Editor:- February 4, 2008 - You're never more than 20 feet away from a rat (or hard drive). To read my blog just scroll down this page.


SANTA CLARA, Calif - February 1, 2008 - Intel Corp and Micron Technology Inc. today unveiled a jointly developed new NAND flash technology that is 5x faster than before. It can sustain speeds up to 200MB/s for reads and 100MB/s for writes.

"The computing market is embracing NAND-based solutions to accelerate system performance through the use of caching and solid-state drives" said Pete Hazen, director of marketing, Intel NAND Group. "At up to 5 times the performance over conventional NAND, the high speed NAND from Intel and Micron, based on the ONFi 2.0 industry standard, will enable new embedded solutions and removable solutions that take advantage of high–performance system interfaces, including PCIe and upcoming standards such as USB 3.0." ...Intel profile, ...Micron profile

Editor's comments:-
although you can already buy flash SSDs from STEC which deliver the same R/W throughput that Intel and Micron are claiming is the "fastest" flash throughput - it's a mistake to confuse chip performance with system performance.

A flash SSD is a complex sub-system which can deliver many times the intrinsic flash memory speed through its host interface using parallel architecture. What Intel and Micron are saying here is that you can soon expect a new generation of faster dumb flash storage using their new technology. It follows that SSD products which amplify raw flash chip performance will get faster (and cheaper) too.


Santa Clara, Calif - January 31, 2008 - Asempra Technologies announced its Business Continuity Server has been validated as Ready for IBM Tivoli software. The BCS has also been certified by IBM as System Storage Proven. Asempra's BCS solution protects SQL, Exchange, and Windows File Server applications and data through a patented approach that captures and indexes all data events, creating a virtualized data store that allows instantaneous recovery to any point-in-time. Using Asempra's virtualized recovery and data protection technology Exchange and SQL can be available as fast as 30 seconds after a storage failure. ...Asempra Technologies profile


Taipei, Taiwan - January 29, 2008 - PQI today launched the Traveling Disk U173. The key-chain form factor 8GB USB flash disk has a gliding case design which is lid-less. The blue / black or silver / white case has a sandblasted polished surface. The integrated management software includes outlook synchronization and PC-Lock security. ...PQI profile


OCEANPORT, N.J. - January 29, 2008 - Sun Microsystems Inc. will distribute CommVault's Simpana 7.0 data management software suite on its x64 server and storage systems. According to Art Licht, chief technologist for Storage at Sun "The partnership with CommVault furthers our commitment to providing customers with comprehensive solutions for the Microsoft enterprise, including Exchange Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007..." ...CommVaultSystems profile, ...Sun Microsystems profile


SANTA CLARA, CA- - January 29, 2008) - Solid Data Systems, Inc. today announced the expansion of its professional services organization. This group helps users optimize the use of SSDs in high transaction rate applications and is aligned by vertical industry expertise. Solid Data's services program offers free initial phone consultation, on-site architectural assessment and evaluation, and technical and cost analysis on proposed SSD-based architectural solutions.

"In the past SSDs were often used as quick fixes, only replacing key hot files," said Mark Hayashida, CTO of Solid Data Systems. "The mission of Solid Data Professional Services is to introduce architectures specifically designed around solid state disk storage. These architectures bring more than performance to high transaction rate environments. Once the limitation of mechanical disk drives is removed, the resulting systems are simpler, use much less power, and reduce the number of servers required. In addition, peak transaction capacity is dramatically increased, virtually eliminating server crashes due to overload. In properly architected systems the savings more than compensate for the additional cost of the SSD..." ...Solid Data Systems profile

Editor's comments:-
this is a welcome move because as new vendors enter the enterprise SSD market - there will be many examples of the technology being mis-sold for applications which get no real benefit because the SSDs have been deployed incorrectly. That's like hitching a Porsche to plow your field. It may have the horsepower - but it's not going to go any faster than the John Deere... There's no substitute for expertise when deploying this technology.


MILPITAS, Calif - January 28, 2008 - Promise Technology Inc. today announced immediate general availability of its SuperTrak EX and FastTrak TX host-based SAS RAID controllers.

Promise's SuperTrak EX offerings are 4- and 8-port internal, hardware-based SAS and SATA RAID controllers using Intel's 81348 IO processor. They support RAID 5 and RAID 6 and are designed for data protection needs based on entry-level and midrange server platforms running all popular Linux distributions as well as Windows. Target applications include disk-to-disk backup, video capture, post production and database applications.

Promise's FastTrak TX offerings are software-based SAS RAID cards designed for workstation applications. ...Promise Technology profile


MINNEAPOLIS, MN - January 28, 2008 - NetEx today announced a new faster version of its HyperIP software technology that deliver near-native wire speed performance of 800Mb/s on a COTS Intel appliance. NetEx customers can purchase the HyperIP data acceleration solution on an industry standard platform at 1.5 Mb/s and then add performance as needed up to 800Mb/s all in the same appliance with no hardware upgrades required. ...NetEx profile


Spring, Texas - January 28, 2008 - Pivot3 Inc today announced that it has received $24 million in series C venture funding led by Mesirow Financial Capital Partners IX. "Storage costs can be up to 50% of a video surveillance installation," said Dilip Sarangan, research analyst for Frost & Sullivan. "We see this new round of funding as a testament to the significant market opportunity that Pivot3 has as a solid, innovative data storage company, with IP-based products designed to meet its customers' physical security requirements."

Bill Galloway, Pivot3 co-founder and CTO said "Our block-level virtualization RAIGE (RAID Across Gigabit Ethernet), gives customers 5x or more the performance of traditional solutions at a lower cost. RAIGE performance exceeds Fibre Channel or 10GbE performance without requiring upgrades to a new network infrastructure." ...Pivot3 profile


Houston, Texas - January 28, 2008 - Texas Memory Systems, Inc. today announced that it has broken the world data storage performance record and price-performance record again. The new records were achieved using standard server and storage network hardware and the TMS RamSan-400 solid state disk. Based on audited results submitted to the vendor-neutral Storage Performance Council the RamSan-400 SSD delivered a record 291,208.58 SPC-1 IOPS with a record average response time of just 0.86 milliseconds. It also set a new SPC-1 Price-Performance record by delivering that performance at just $0.67 per SPC-1 IOPS. ...Texas Memory Systems profile

...Later:-
a few days later IBM's storage blogger Tony Pearson, a self proclaimed SSD skeptic, published some interesting comments about the TMS news story and SPCs in general.


ATLANTA, GA - January 24, 2008 - Concurrent Computer announced today the launch of its new StorageMaster product line. The target market includes broadcasters who need very high-speed storage and retrieval, critical data I/O capability and advanced data prioritization. The StorageMaster regional file server allows service providers to centrally house and rapidly transport specific content (faster than real-time) to remote locations, even down to the node level.

"Concurrent's on-demand platforms must store and stream thousands of hours of video content for hundreds of thousands of end-users, but, in the end, you are still dealing with digital data," explains Bob Chism, Concurrent's CTO. "We will launch StorageMaster within the cable community first; we know those customers well and have the sales infrastructure in place to specifically target them. Our plan is to next adapt the content storage product to provide versatile, scalable, high-density storage products for that portion of the IT market handling critical data, with a need for resiliency and fast storage and retrieval." ...Concurrent profile

Editor's comments:-
fast content dispersion can be viewed as the opposite process to fast disk backup. But the same technology can be applied to other applications and Concurrent plans a general version of the product line too.


LAKE FOREST, Calif - January 23, 2008 - Western Digital Corp. today reported that hard drive revenue grew year on year by 46% to $2.084 billion for the 2nd quarter ending Dec. 28, 2007. In addition WD got $120 million of revenue from media and substrate sales. Overall net income was $305 million. WD shipped over 34 million hard drives in the quarter. One fast growing application segment was the PVR/DVR market which took 8.7 million 2.5" drives and 4.1 million 3.5" units.

WD's president and CEO John Coynesaid "Our operational flexibility and our technology leadership in 2.5" mobile hard drives enabled us to quickly react to a number of attractive market and product mix opportunities throughout the December quarter." ...Western Digital profile

Editor's comments:-
WD's impressive results (and Seagate's 14% growth reported last week) account for most of the hard disk revenue worldwide and suggest that my article last year How Solid is Hard Disk's Future? was correct in saying that the hard disk market revenue could sustainably grow at double digits at the same time as the solid state disk market grows at triple digits. That article includes a market model which explains why the simplistic "replacement of HDDs by SSDs" - often cited by part time storage commentators is nowhere near describing the full picture.


SAN JOSE, Calif - January 22, 2008 - Brocade today introduced the DCX Backbone, the first in a new class of high-performance data center networking products. It provides comprehensive and flexible deployment options, including the capability to support Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), Data Center Ethernet (DCE), Gigabit Ethernet, and iSCSI protocols. ...Brocade profile, SAN , SAN switches


SAN JOSE, Calif - January 22, 2008 - Alacritech Inc. announced today that it has successfully taped-out its 10GbE ASIC design. Working in conjunction with Open-Silicon, a fabless ASIC company, Alacritech met its scheduled tape-out target date for this 5th generation TCP/IP Offload 10GbE ASIC. Alacritech targets the first half of 2008 to have 10GbE accelerators, incorporating the new ASIC, in the hands of the Tier 1 server OEMs. All of the industry's major OEMs have agreed to evaluate Alacritech's 10GbE technology on the merits of the company's history and leadership in TCP/IP Offload Engines (TOE). Accelerators will also be placed in the hands of strategic end-customers in early 2008. ...Alacritech profile


Fremont, Calif - January 22, 2008 - Nanochip, Inc. today announced the completion of a $14 million series C financing round. It will allow Nanochip to complete development of its first prototypes later this year to support design verification testing and limited customer sampling in 2009 followed by full commercialization in 2010.

Nanochip is developing a new class of ultra-high-capacity non volatile storage chips. Nanochip says its first products could exceed 100GB per chip set, reaching terabytes in the future, and at a substantially lower cost compared with flash memory solutions.

"Flash has become the technology of choice for a variety of consumer and business applications where cost-effective, non-volatile solid-state storage is a must," said Keith Larson, VP and director of investor Intel Capital. "However, as flash process technology scaling begins to approach its limits, Nanochip's technology is well positioned to provide memory capacity with exponentially higher storage densities at a cost per gigabyte significantly below that of flash technology. New memory components, such as Nanochip's, will enable new, innovative electronics devices and increase the performance of existing computing and other devices." ...Nanochip profile

Editor's comments:-
I'm used to waiting years between the time I first mention a company on these pages to the time that their first product apears. Nanochip is a good example. The company was founded in 1996 and was listed here in 2001. But it doesn't expect to sample its first commercial products till 2009. That's a 13 year gestation period!

Although the company looks and talks like a chipmaker - it aims to compete head to head in the solid state disk market and I predict it will have to design make and market demonstration SSDs in order to prove its concept to the oems it hopes will one day use its technology, or license it or (more likely) acquire the company.


Shenzhen, China - January 22, 2008 - Memoright today announced availability of 64GB and 128GB versions of its 2.5" SATA flash SSDs. Burst Read/Write throughput is 133MB/sec (100MB/sec sustained).

Memoright's Sales Manager, Jasmine Hong said "Maybe we are the first one who actually has 128GB TODAY. Everyone else predicts February." ...Memoright profile

Editor's comments:-
as I know from reader emails about recent announcements from other vendors - availability of new models sometimes depends on who you are. Priority tends to be given to bigger oem customers.


Taipei, Taiwan - January 21, 2008 - QNAP Systems, Inc. today unveiled its 4-bay TS-409 Pro Turbo NAS for business users. The TS-409 is a hot-swappable HDD design with RAID 0/ 1/ 5/ 6/ 5+spare disk redundancy and remote replication functions.

According to QNAP's VP Shawn Shu, "The hot swap design and the advanced RAID are the dominant features of TS-409 Pro that are rarely provided by other entry-level NAS suppliers. The RAID 5 and RAID 6 support, Online RAID Level Migration and Capacity Expansion features are an important breakthrough in NAS for business and SOHO users." ...QNAP Systems profile


Editor:- January 18, 2008 - STORAGEsearch.com today published a new edition of - "the Top 10 Solid State Disk OEMs." Covering the quarter ending December 31, 2007 - there's a new #1, and a newcomer to the list. The article also looks at market milestones and changes since the previous quarters.

If you're choosing SSD suppliers or strategic partners - this is the must-see predictive list of the top companies that matter - based on hundreds of thousands of readers searching for SSD content on the site rated most highly by SSD companies themselves. ...read the article


SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.-January 17, 2008- Seagate Technology today reported 14% year on year revenue growth for the quarter ended December 28, 2007. Seagate shipped approximately 50 million disk drives in the quarter. Revenue was $3.4 billion and GAAP net income was $403 million.

"During the quarter, Seagate achieved record shipments and experienced some capacity constraints..." said CEO Bill Watkins. "...We entered the March quarter in a position of strength. The storage industry remains one of the world's most important and exciting industries. We are confident Seagate's vision, technology, and operational excellence will drive us to continued strong financial and operating performance in the March quarter and double-digit year-over-year growth." ...Seagate profile


TOKYO, JAPAN - January 16, 2008 - Elpida Memory, Inc. announced the release of a new x64-bit wide I/O 256-megabit Mobile RAM dubbed the "ECK2664JACN." It achieves twice the bandwidth of existing 32-bit products while operating at an ultra-low voltage of 1.2V I/O (VDDQ). It features Elpida's unique product characteristics: enabling the highest possible performance for mobile phones and other mobile products and low-power consumption.

In recent years, mobile phones have gone beyond music downloads and Internet connections to offer video recording, video output and a number of other high-performance multimedia functions. Since HD video will be widely adopted soon, the need now exists for solutions that support the processing of high-resolution graphics and other high-density data in digital video cameras and other home electronic products. ...Elpida Memory profile


Westborough, Mass - January 16, 2008 - ExaGrid Systems, Inc today announced record sales for the 4th quarter ending December 31, 2007. 4th quarter sales for the company increased 30% compared to the previous quarter. ExaGrid is targeting a 30% or higher quarter-over-quarter sales growth rate going forward. ...ExaGrid profile


IRVINE, Calif - January 16, 2008 - iStor Networks, Inc. today announced that Jim Wayda, a 20 year veteran in the data storage industry, has assumed the role of VP of Software Engineering.

Prior to joining iStor, Jim (who has 12 patents pending in the areas of snapshot and data replication) held positions as Chief Software Architect and VP of Software Engineering with Dot Hill Systems. There, he was responsible for the architecture of high performance Snapshot, Volume Copy, Data Replication and Disaster Recovery services. In this role, he managed the delivery of embedded and host-based storage subsystem software to OEM customers such as Sun Microsystems. Wayda was also responsible for the delivery of SVApath multi-path fail-over software to StorageTek.

Jim's experience also includes senior level positions for the architecture of storage products for DEC, Distributed Logic Corp, Plessey Peripheral Systems, and Transitional Technology.

"I'm excited and honored to be joining iStor as the company is well recognized in the industry as one of the leading iSCSI storage vendors," said Jim Wayda. "IT managers are faced with real challenges in managing their storage environments and I am looking forward to building the next generation of network and storage management capabilities for iStor's integraStor product family." ...iStor profile, Storage People


January 15, 2008 - LaCie and Samsung announced today the end results of their collaboration in implementing 1.3 inch hard disk format for LaCie micro storage devices. Available in 30GB or 40GB USB versions, LaCie will be offering its smallest Little Disk yet. The devices come preloaded with LaCie's '1-Click' Backup Software for PC and Mac and SilverKeeper Backup Software for Mac to regularly back up data. ...LaCie profile, ...Samsung profile


San Francisco, Calif - January 15, 2008 - FirmTek, LLC announced availability of the SeriTek/5PM SATA enclosure with port multiplier technology. Housing up to 5 hot-swappable 3.5" drives in a $539.95 desktop aluminum enclosure it can deliver aggregate hard drive performance beyond 220MBps with just one cable. When configured with 3 additional SeriTek/5PM enclosures (for a total of 20 drives), RAID 0 performance can exceed 700Bps. An interesting feature is a front-panel power switch that carries a multi-second delay to prevent accidental power-down. The enclosure is system independent, and will work with any Mac or Windows PC with a controller that correctly follows the eSATA II specifications for Port Multiplication. ...FirmTek profile


SUNNYVALE, Calif - January 14, 2008 - AMCC is showcasing support for Mac OS X Leopard at this week's Macworld. An in-booth product demo will feature Apple's Time Machine automatically backing up data to a 3ware Sidecar desktop RAID. ...AMCC profile


SANTA ANA, Calif - January 14, 2008 - STEC, Inc. today announced that EMC Corp has selected STEC's Zeus-IOPS line of SSDs for deployment in its Symmetrix DMX-4 high-end networked storage systems.

"We believe that flash-based solid state storage is a game changing technology and that STEC is at the forefront of the SSD market," said Brian Gallagher, senior VP and general manager, EMC Storage Division. "Over the past year, EMC and STEC have collaborated to ensure that the Zeus-IOPS Fibre Channel drive meets the stringent quality, availability and reliability requirements of the enterprise storage market. The resulting integration of enterprise-class SSDs with the full breadth of Symmetrix DMX-4 features, capabilities and traditional disk drives will provide our customers with unprecedented levels of performance and energy efficiency for their most demanding applications."

"This is strong validation of our leadership position in providing SSDs to the Enterprise storage market, and we are delighted to partner with EMC in delivering the highest performance enterprise storage solutions," said STEC's CEO Manouch Moshayedi. ...EMC profile, ...STEC profile

Editor's comments:-
You may not realise that EMC was an SSD pioneer 20 years ago (in 1987) but got burned at that time. In today's market EMC's introduction of an SSD option in its product line fills an important gap. Without this step - I doubt if the company could maintain its market position - as solid state storage will become a bigger part of server spending in the next 5 years.

In a separate communication about this today EMC said that flash SSDs use 38% less energy than traditional mechanical disk drives and that a single (high speed) F-SSD could replace 30x 15,000 RPM Fibre Channel hard disks in transaction intensive applications. None of this is news for STORAGEsearch.com readers who have been following the SSD market's progress in recent years. But what is news is that it's EMC saying it.


BEAVERTON, Ore - January 14, 2008 - SATA-IO today announced its Power Over eSATA initiative. The new specification will provide power to external SATA (eSATA) devices without the need for a separate power connection. Led by the organization's Cable and Connector group, the specification is targeted for completion in the second half of 2008. ...SATA-IO


Macworld Expo, San Francisco, CA - January 14, 2008 - ATTO Technology, Inc. today announced the general availability of its new line of FastStream storage controller appliances. These deliver up to 1,200 Megabytes per second access to data with parity RAID protection and are suited for applications in DVA and IT infrastructures including 4K and 2K digital film production, high-definition video post-production, digital prepress, disk-to-disk backup, audio production and transaction-based environments. The FastStream SC 7500 uses a 4Gbps Fibre Channel interface for the host connection and a SAS interface for drive connectivity. The FastStream SC 7700 uses Fibre Channel for both the host and drive connections. ...ATTO Technology profile


Vancouver, WA - January 14, 2008 - CRU-DataPort has purchased WiebeTech. James Wiebe, CEO of WiebeTech has joined CRU-DataPort as VP of product development. Operations for the WiebeTech brand of products will remain in Wichita , Kansas.

"We are pleased to add WiebeTech employees and their highly respected product line to our organization. WiebeTech will become a fully supported brand of CRU-DataPort," said CRU-DataPort's president & CEO Randal Barber. ...CRU-DataPort profile, ...WiebeTech profile


Oslo Norway - January 14, 2008 - Tandberg Data today introduced the StorageLibrary T40+ 4U rackmount tape library The StorageLibrary T40+ allows users to stack up to 5x T40+ libraries together, offering from 24 to 188 slots, with capacities ranging from 9.6TB to 150TB (native). Avaialble interfaces include LVD SCSI, Fibre Channel and SAS. MSRP starts at $10,495.

"The 20 to 100 slot LTO tape library segment is the growing segment in the tape automation market," says Hamish Macarthur from Macarthur Stroud International. ...Tandberg Data profile


IRVINE, Calif - January 10, 2008 - Sonnet Technologies' desktop Fusion D800RAID has been adopted by design and post-production house Mad Media. It provides Mad Media with reliable storage of its unique high definition video not only for use in Web content, but also for national television ad campaigns, feature-length film projects, and new mobile technology platforms like the iPhone. The dual GbE Fusion D800RAID system replaced the company's "sneakernet" storage scheme that was comprised of a series of 1TB external drives from various manufacturers.

"I have very closely monitored the progression of 'low-cost' data solutions for professional video applications for the past few years, and Sonnet's Fusion D800RAID product was the first to offer RAID 5 redundancy with a storage capacity of more than 6TB and throughput exceeding 500 MB/sec," said Joshua Martelli, director of TV/film at Mad Media. "...We've been thrilled with the result. The Fusion system gives us a central repository from which our editors can access the same data simultaneously, and it's allowed us to organize footage more effectively, safeguarding content from future loss while increasing our productivity." ...Sonnet Technologies profile


SANTA CLARA, CA - January 10, 2008 - P.A. Semi, Inc. today announced that the System Storage Products Division of NEC has selected P.A. Semi's processor for use in its storage-array products. "We are very pleased with the results of our evaluation of the P.A. Semi 1682M processor," said Mr. Tsuyoshi Kishino, First Engineering Dept, System Storage Products Division, NEC. "In our application, we found that the 1682M delivers the highest application performance at very low power dissipation." ...NEC profile, ...P.A. Semi, storage chips


HOPKINTON, Mass - January 8, 2008 - EMC Corp today introduced the new CLARiiON AX4 networked storage system for SMBs. It scales to 60TB and supports either iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN connectivity. With built-in advanced information management and protection features, it can store, manage and protect data from up to 64 Windows, Linux, Unix, NetWare and VMware Infrastructure hosts simultaneously. Starting price is $8,599. ...EMC profile


REDMOND, Wash - January 8, 2008 - Microsoft Corp. today announced that it will make an offer to acquire Fast Search & Transfer ASA, a leading provider of enterprise search solutions based in Norway. The offer values the fully diluted equity of FAST at approximately $1.2 billion. FAST's board of directors has unanimously recommended that its shareholders accept the offer which is expected to be completed in the 2nd quarter of 2008.

"Enterprise search is becoming an indispensable tool to businesses of all sizes, helping people find, use and share critical business information quickly," said Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division. "Until now organizations have been forced to choose between powerful, high-end search technologies or more mainstream, infrastructure solutions. The combination of Microsoft and FAST gives customers a new choice: a single vendor with solutions that span the full range of customer needs." ...Microsoft profile, Storage Software, 453 Acquired, renamed etc storage companies

Editor's comments:-
when you think of searching the web - the #1 brand which comes to mind is Google. But even though Google has been marketing storage search appliances for over 5 years only 10,000 or so companies were actually using them as recently as last October. Microsoft's acquisition in this market at 42% above the closing price of the shares last Friday - signals that Microsoft regards this as a much bigger potential market than it has been until now.

Or - if you are feeling cynical - maybe it's just a move that will slow down and kill off the whole segment for a couple of years. Especially if Microsoft embeds free search into its OS.
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