Flush Time
Posted by Stephen in Computer history, Enterprise storage on 19. Oct, 2009 | View Comments
Single-parity RAID is under attack. Caching is the hottest trend in storage. The end of the high-performance disk drive is imminent. What happened? Increasing areal bit density has caused disk capacity to grow much faster than disk performance. A presentation at Storage Networking World by Ronald Bianchini of Avere exposed the mathematics of this phenomenon.
The Truth About HP’s Tech Day
Posted by Stephen in Enterprise storage, Everything, Gestalt IT, Personal, Virtual Storage on 01. Oct, 2009 | View Comments
HP and Ivy did a darn fine job of putting together a set of sessions to tell us what they have. They presented folks who really knew their stuff, warts and all. They invited a variety of independent voices and let us ask and say anything we wanted with no expectations, let alone an NDA. This was a stellar event, and every other IT company should be asking why they didn’t do it first.
Seagate Surpasses 500 GB In 2.5 Inches
Posted by Stephen in Computer history, Terabyte home on 23. Jun, 2009 | View Comments
The race to ship a 500 GB mobile hard disk drive unit was heated last year. Hitachi was first to announce a fat 12.5 mm drive in January, but Samsung and Western Digital fought a pitched battle through the second half of the year to produce serious volume in a the slim 9.5 mm 2-platter [...]
How Far Can You Push a Mac Mini?
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Terabyte home on 23. Mar, 2009 | View 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 rpm [...]
Upgrades Give New Mac Mini a Whole New Attitude
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Terabyte home on 17. Mar, 2009 | View 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.
New Mac Mini Is A Diamond In The Rough
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Everything, Terabyte home on 10. Mar, 2009 | View 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?
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Enterprise storage, Everything, Gestalt IT, Terabyte home on 24. Feb, 2009 | View 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.
I’ll Have Two Platters of Sheer Storage Madness, Please!
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Enterprise storage, Terabyte home on 06. Jan, 2009 | View Comments
The inexorable march of areal density continues with this week’s release of two breakthrough two-platter hard disk drives:
First up is Seagate, with their next-generation 3.5″ “7200.12″ drive family. Boasting 500 GB per platter, the drives are initially offered in 500 GB, 750 GB, and 1 TB versions, but we expect a 1.5 TB three-platter and [...]
EMC Atmos Versus VMware VDC-OS: Will The Real Cloud Strategy Please Stand Up?
Posted by Stephen in Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage on 10. Nov, 2008 | View Comments
As I guessed on Friday, EMC has officially announced their Maui Atmos software layer today, calling it the “industry’s first COS (cloud-optimized storage) offering”, “a new era for IT”, and “a new category of storage.” So the new era for IT is a cloud with globally-distributed object stores with policy management?
Great! But I thought the [...]
Western Digital + Fujitsu = More Competition for Seagate and Hitachi
Posted by Stephen in Enterprise storage, Terabyte home on 02. Oct, 2008 | View Comments
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
