Like clockwork, VMware has cranked out another update to their flagship enterprise product, ESX 3.5. The last update came out in early November, 2008, and included some major new functionality. What’s in store this time to intrigue storage folks? Not much. For more information on earlier updates, see my articles: Storage Fixes in VMware ESX [...]
Consulting Is A Perilous Business But Credibility Is What Matters
March 26, 2009 By 4 Comments
I’ve called myself a “vendor-independent storage consultant” for more than a decade now, but my good friend, Greg Schultz, recently challenged me on that statement. Sure, I haven’t worked for a vendor of tin boxes and spinning rust, or the software that runs the stuff, but I’m firmly rooted in the supply side of things. [...]
Is There A Real ROI For Email Archiving?
March 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Are you trying to build a business case for email archiving? Worried that the return you expect from your investment might not be real? I’ll be presenting a webinar on the topic on Thursday, March 26, 2009. Join me for a discussion of the real ROI for email archiving! What: Is There a Real ROI for [...]
Two New Storage Decisions Sessions for 2009: Capacity Management and Radical Tiered Storage!
March 24, 2009 By 2 Comments
I’m pleased to announce that I will be presenting at all four of TechTarget’s excellent end user-focused 2009 Storage Decisions conferences in North America! I’m also very excited to be developning two entirely new sessions for the show: Tools and Tricks to Manage Capacity – Knowing how much disk capacity you have allocated, how much [...]
How Far Can You Push a Mac Mini?
March 23, 2009 By 37 Comments
Last week I reported my progress upgrading my Mac Mini’s RAM and hard drive to extract much more performance out of Apple’s little desktop. And indeed, adding a 7200 rpm high-performance laptop hard drive did make a noticeable difference in system responsiveness. But a question came in via email asking, will Western Digital’s killer 10,000 [...]
Sun Launches Their Own Cloud, But For Which Market?
March 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment
While the bulk of Sun-related news this week relates to reported talks of a buyout by IBM, the company took a break from negotiations to introduce their own cloud computing and storage infrastructure, challenging Amazon, Google, Rackspace, and perhaps VMware, Microsoft, and Nirvanix.
Will Snow Leopard Finally Bring iSCSI To The Mac?
March 18, 2009 By 7 Comments
ZFS wasn’t the only AWOL storage technology in Apple’s OS X 10.5 – early builds of Leopard included a built-in iSCSI initiator. When the operating system was finally released in October of 2007, both ZFS and iSCSI were quietly dropped, making room for 300 other features Apple felt were more prime-time-ready. With the next major [...]
Upgrades Give New Mac Mini a Whole New Attitude
March 17, 2009 By 19 Comments
It may seem odd to buy a computer intending to upgrade it right out of the box, but so it was with me when I snapped up a new 2009 Nvidia-powered Mac Mini. I had been waiting for Apple to update the aged Mini line, saving up my pennies, but the out-of-box specs for RAM and hard drive space were underwhelming.
Handy Gadget: USB to IDE/SATA Adapter
March 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment
I imagine every home computer hacker one day finds they have one too many hard drives to deal with. Maybe you are migrating to a new system or installing a new OS. Or maybe you’re upgrading the disk in your new Mac Mini. Whatever the reason, a universal way to connect any hard drive to [...]
