The most exciting enhancements in VMware vSphere 4.1 is the addition of vStorage API for Array Integration (VAAI). This new API allows VMware ESX to offload storage processing functions to capable storage arrays, reducing the workload on the server hardware in introducing new and exciting possibilities for performance and efficiency. VAAI in ESX 4.1 includes three separate capabilities: block zeroing, full copy, and hardware assisted locking.
Meet the Enterprise IT Superpowers
August 24, 2010 By 1 Comment
After years spent focusing on personal technology, businesses are increasingly turning back to the enterprise. The corporate IT market is much more dynamic and competitive, with a few very large “superpower” companies discovering their power to drive purchasing decisions. If a supplier can create an integrated “stack” of hardware and software, they can push product purchases that might otherwise be overlooked or postponed. This is the main reason that enterprise IT acquisitions work so well: Where a small company must fight to sell their product, a large one can hitch it to a much more strategic sale and have it pulled along.
New Mac Mini Is A Diamond In The Rough
March 10, 2009 By 7 Comments
After a very, very long wait, Apple has finally updated their entry-level “bridge” Mac, the Mac Mini. It’s amazing that, after 19 months without an update, Apple’s new Mini looks exactly the same as the old Mini. But what’s under the hood matters, and Apple delivered a mixed bag there. The new Mini is an excellent home server, which is how mine will be used, but some poor choices limit its abilities out of the box.
Does Hitachi+SimpleTech = EMC+Iomega?
February 24, 2009 By 5 Comments
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) just bought Fabrik (SimpleTech and G-Technology). So is Hitachi’s combination with SimpleTech a response or challenge to EMC’s acquisition of Iomega? In a word, no.
Western Digital + Fujitsu = More Competition for Seagate and Hitachi
October 2, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Western Digital may purchase Fujitsu’s hard disk drive development and manufacturing assets, getting closer to market-leader, Seagate, with greater manufacturing capacity and access to the laptop OEM market
Xen 3.3 Update Brings Paravirtualized SCSI
August 28, 2008 By Leave a Comment
One of the new features in Xen 3.3, released this week, caught my eye: Paravirtualized SCSI (PVSCSI), which allows a guest OS to directly interact with a SCSI (or Fibre Channel) HBA. This should allow more specialized applications to be virtualized in Xen environments that use SCSI or FC storage without requiring the addition of [...]
Yes, FireWire is Faster Than USB
July 30, 2008 By 1 Comment
This should not come as a shock to anyone, as it has been proven before, but let me take this moment to say that, yes, despite their rated speeds, 400-megabit FireWire S400 (aka IEEE 1394) is faster than 480-megabit USB 2.0. While swapping out disk drives (first to upgrade the internal drive in my MacBook [...]
How To Move OS X Time Machine Backups To A New Disk
July 26, 2008 By 31 Comments
It turns out that you can move Time Machine backups easily, with included OS X tools, and without breaking anything. My old backups are still visible, and I have another 40 GB to work with. Read on for the details!
Upgraded! 320 GB in a MacBook Pro!
June 25, 2008 By 10 Comments
Specialized Server/Enterprise Hard Drives
August 7, 2007 By 3 Comments
Continuing my overview of the specialized hard drive market, we move on to the world of enterprise hard disk drives. These are performance monsters, with nearly all falling above the 10,000 RPM line that defines “exotic” in the desktop space. They also have a wide variety of interfaces, including parallel and serial SCSI, Fibre Channel, [...]
