Let’s end this terrifying week on a positive note by exploring the many fun things you can do with old dead hard drives. LED Display Clock First up is this LED display/clock. It consists of a series of colored LED lights which flash on and off below a slot cut in the hard drive platter. The [...]
Symantec’s Thin API Is A Step In The Right Direction
October 16, 2008 By 21 Comments
Symantec announced that their widely-used Veritas Storage Foundation software (more commonly known as Veritas Volume Manager and filesystem) will now include thin provisioning, migration, and a new API which allows it to directly communicate with thin-capable storage arrays. This is a smart step, certainly, and ought to be useful, but storage managers should still try [...]
Is the FCoE Starting Pistol Aimed at iSCSI?
October 16, 2008 By 23 Comments
To hear this week’s storage industry news reports, one might think that Wagner’s fat lady came to Storage Networking World (SNW), singing her song as the iSCSI world collapses. Storagebod wonders what iSCSI’s death will look like. Chris Mellor at The Register says “Game Over” as NetApp, QLogic, Emulex and VMware join EMC and Cisco in singing the [...]
SSD: So Close and Yet So Far
October 15, 2008 By 6 Comments
Solid state (NAND flash) storage is all the rage right now, but there are many lingering questions regarding its true performance, reliability, and cost. But no question is more important in determining its ultimate usefulness than that of location: Where should flash storage be placed to maximize return on investment? Storage companies have argued that [...]
Buy Apple For Chic, Not Green
October 14, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Apple just introduced their new MacBook and MacBook Pro, so far amping up the chic-meter that only Jony “Dramatic Stutter and Pause” Ive could do the product justice in their promo video. Yet, despite the company’s environmentally-friendly pronouncements, I’m unconvinced. They continue to pull a time-honored sleight-of-hand, touting their products as recyclable while ignoring the massive waste [...]
Apple’s New Notebook Line: My Predictions
October 13, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Since everyone and their brother is weighing in on on perhaps the most predictable Apple product unveiling event in history, I thought I would share with my readers the following news. This list has been absolutely guaranteed and confirmed by 110% reliable Apple sources! Apple is redoing their entire notebook line – rather than the [...]
Compellent Does Enterprise SSD Right
October 13, 2008 By 8 Comments
Yes! Compellent has just announced at Storage Networking World that they’ll be adding enterprise solid state drives (SSDs) to their excellent fully-virtualized storage arrays. Why is this worth shouting about? Simply because their automated block-based tiered storage architecture ought to be able to really take full advantage of the performance offered by SSDs. If you’ll [...]
Storage Decisions New York 2008 Presentations Now Available
October 13, 2008 By 2 Comments
My pal, Greg Schulz, just pointed out that TechTarget has posted the presentations from Storage Decisions New York 2008. If you were there, you might have tried to figure out how to download the presentations at the kiosk/table in the lobby. I couldn’t figure it out, myself, though! So you might want to head over [...]
The Future of Home Storage
October 12, 2008 By 10 Comments
Consumers demand friendly, flexible solutions. They don’t want to fuss with their media, and they don’t want simple shared storage. They want integration with multiple devices and flexibility to access their content on any device.
My Carbon Footprint
October 10, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Sitting in a jumbo jet five miles above the Sierra Nevada, I got to thinking. Now that I work at home and fly to work rather than drive to an office every day, has my carbon footprint increased or decreased? Let’s lay down some facts for comparison: I rarely got on a plane for work [...]
