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
Most Secure USB Memory Stick
Editor:- July 13, 2009 -
IronKey today
announced the launch of its S200 USB flash drive for government and enterprise
customers.
IronKey's CEO David
Jevans said: "The IronKey S200 is the first and only
USB flash drive to achieve
the demanding FIPS 140-2, Level 3 security validation from NIST, giving even
more proof that IronKey is the world's most
secure flash drive. We
are also releasing a suite of new enterprise remote management capabilities,
available over the Internet from the IronKey managed service, or from our
enterprise server software that companies can install and operate themselves."
Seagate Ships 600GB 15K HDD
Editor:- July 13, 2009 -
Seagate
announced today it's shipping its
Cheetah
15K.7 600GB 15K RPM hard drives.
Editor's comments:-
according to our news
archive Seagate shipped the world's 1st 15K RPM hard drives 9 years ago in
June 2000.
Ever since then servers using "so called tier 1"
storage have been slugged by the slow access times of Millenium vintage hard
drives.
It was the lack of a
rotating
disk technology roadmap that led to the
SSD revolution - which
despite its steep learning curve and pitfalls (for the unwary) offered the
only viable escape route for performance smothered applications.
Editor Disaster Recovery
Editor:- July 10, 2009 - the
stereotype articles on our
backup and
data recovery pages
are about dozy sys admins who hit the wrong button and delete all their critical
files.
Well - about 10 minutes ago that was me.
I launched a
delete from inside an application I shouldn't have - and my aim was wrong.
I watched in horror as my html editor, ftp package (and all its
settings for all my sites) and web stats analyzer disappeared without trace.
It's the 1st time I've done such a silly thing in many years. But no
doubt I will have flashbacks - and my finger will hover over the mouse button
whenever I do such a deadly delete.
It took 5 minutes to fetch a
backup disk and reload the apps. It's only when I restored the 1st app that I
found the others needed to be restored too. How to avoid doing this again? More
cups of tea and coffee at more regular intervals. Water may be healthy but
doesn't have the same effect.
1.8" SLC SSD from Foremay
Editor:- July 10,
2009 - Foremay
has recently announced a new 1.8"
SLC flash SSD.
The SATA compatible
SC 199 Cheetah
has sustained R/W speeds of 250MB/s and 220MB/s respectively. Capacity options
range from 16GB to 64GB.
Endurance
for the 16GB device is rated at 87 years assuming 50GB sequential writes per
day.
SSD Education - Scale of the Problem
Editor:- July 9,
2009 - One of the recurring themes in my 1 on 1 dialogs with
SSD vendors and users alike
is the importance of better education about this important subject.
One
of my frustrations has been my own inability to convey the idea of how much
needs to be known - compared to what is.
So I make no apology for
recycling this text below - which I wrote in an email today.
"User
education about SSDs is the most serious problem the industry faces. Users need
to make local decisions about which info to filter in or out for their own
needs and at what level to engage with this technology. It's as if users had to
learn all about the microprocessor from the
4040 and
microcontrollers
up to today's dense
64 core processor chips
in 2 years instead of 30 years."
...Later:- If it's any
consolation to those of you out there - struggling to build a solid mental
pyramid out of SSD's shifting sands - some SSD product managers - who have been
parachuted into new roles - don't understand the technology or market they're
talking about either. Which just adds to the
total confusion.
...And
by coincidence - I got this email in my inbox soon after publishing the above. |
| ... |
Are you struggling with
crucial (and expensive) SSD decisions?
Are you deciding whether to
use SSDs, make your products work with them, or build them into your systems or
applications?
The SSD Basics tutorial at Flash Memory Summit offers
the vendor-neutral insight you need! Monday, August 10, 1 to 5 pm. (Yes, this is
the day before the main Summit program starts.) |
... | |
|
6TB Tier 0 SSD
in 2U from WhipTail
Editor:- July 8, 2009 - WhipTail Technologies
today
announced a
6TB version of its 2U SSD appliance.
WhipTail's CEO, Ed Rebholz
said "One of
Tier 0 storage's
downfalls to date has been the perception within the industry that it's too
expensive. Since WhipTail's introduction earlier this year, we've already made
significant strides in helping our industry peers to gain a new perspective. And
in introducing the 6TB capacity, not only is WhipTail setting the bar for
performance, footprint and affordability, but now we're the SSD capacity leader."
Editor's
comments:- it's certainly the highest density server acceleration SSD I'm
aware of. But you should be aware that the internal flash is MLC (and not
SLC) which is
a bird of a
different feather. The memory type wasn't stated in the original text of
the press release.
A company spokesperson assured me that WhipTail
manages the write cycle to ensure that the MLC disks last a minimum of 7 years
when under load.
Other competing 2U SSDs in this capacity range
include:- the
RamSan-620 a 5TB SLC
flash SSD from Texas
Memory Systems and the Violin
1010 a 4TB SLC flash SSD from
Violin Memory.
VoD and Streaming Content Server Revenue to Triple by 2013
Editor:-
July 8, 2009 - Infonetics
Research announced a
new
edition of its IPTV market report.
"All eyes are focused
on video on-demand and streaming content servers as more and more programming
moves to on-demand. ...Revenue for VoD and streaming content servers (are
expected) to triple between 2008 and 2013," said Jeff Heynen, directing
analyst for broadband and video at Infonetics Research.
Infonetics predicts that by 2013, telco service providers are expected
to derive about $56 billion worldwide from IPTV services offered (not including
mobile IPTV services). storage
market research & analysts
Editor's comments:-
the IPTV industry may be good for
SSD sales too. IPTV
server designers have asked me many probing questions about the characteristics
of different SSD technologies for use in such systems. |
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other
storage news on this
page
New Disk Backup Article
Most Secure USB Memory Stick
Seagate
Ships 600GB 15K HDD
Editor Disaster Recovery
1.8" SLC
SSD from Foremay
SSD Education - Big Problem
6TB Tier 0 SSD in
2U
VoD Server Revenue to Triple
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1.0" SSDs
on
StorageSearch.com |
"He's
probably just as scared of us"
said Megabyte, not very convincingly.
"Shut
up! And keep peddling" said his niece. | |
| SSD Pricing -
where does all the money go? |
SSDs are among the most
expensive computer hardware products you will ever buy.
Understanding
the factors which determine SSD costs is often a confusing and irritating
process... |
 |
...not made any easier when
market prices for identical capacity SSDs can vary more than 100x to 1!
Why is that? ...read
the article | | | |
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|
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the fastest SSDs
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 180 current SSD oems to
shortlist products slows you down.
And the SSD search problem will
get even worse as we head
towards a market
with over 1,000 SSD oems. |
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6 Years Ago - July 2003
- from
Storage
History
Promise Selects
Ramtron's FRAM Memory for RAID Controllers
|
Colorado Springs, CO - July
8, 2003 -Ramtron
announced that Promise
Technology. has selected the company's ferroelectric random access
memory (FRAM) for use in its stand-alone RAID controllers.
Promise
Technology has chosen Ramtron's 3-volt, 256-kilobit, FM18L08 for its fast write
capability, small footprint and cost effectiveness. In the application,
FRAM
stores RAID transaction logs and other non-volatile data, writing virtually
non-stop and preserving its data state even if the power goes out a feature
inherent to all FRAM products. Promise Technology holds 87% of the world
market for IDE/ATA and
RAID controller
solutions according to Dataquest.
"Ramtron's FM18L08 addresses our need for rapid re-writes and
iron clad nonvolatility in the event of power loss, which ultimately enhances
data protection in our RAID solutions," said Chi-Chen Wu, vice president of
engineering for Promise Technology, Inc. "FRAM provides us with a unique
combination of high-performance features while reducing our system cost and
lowering our component count."
The FM18L08 is the world's first
commercial nonvolatile memory to feature virtually unlimited
endurance,
eliminating the reliability
concerns, functional disadvantages and system design complexities of
battery-backed SRAM. With its unlimited access cycles, FRAM provides any
combination of volatile and nonvolatile storage, replacing both SRAM and EEPROM
in the end system without the typical disadvantages.
...Later:-
over the years there have been many design approaches to replace battery
backed RAM in RAID controllers - including the use of supercapacitors, FRAM and
flash.
In a related context commentators have been talking about the
possibility of emerging nv ram technologies replacing flash in SSDs for nearly
10 years. I've
never
given much credence to such stories - because the alternative technologies
offered too low capacity - or were unproven in reliability. And flash is a
technology with a strong enhancement roadmap.
But that may change in
the next 3 years - and we'll cover the new nv memory products in more details on
these pages. | | |
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