The Register Archives – Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat

February 11, 2012

Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, February 18, 2011

February 22, 2011 By Stephen Leave a Comment

It was a busy week, with Tech Field Day 5 posts coming fast and furious. Now we are on to planning Wireless Field Day, coming in mid-March!

Filed Under: Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Virtual Storage Tagged With: big data, China, Cisco, cloud computing, coffee, digest, Drobo, Druva, Greg Ferro, Greg Knieriemen, HP, Infosmack, Marc Farley, Matthew Norwood, Momentus XT, Nexus 1000v, SAN management, Seagate, Sonia Lelli, Steve Duplessie, StoreOnce, Symantec, Tech Field Day, The Register, Xangati

My Stance on Embargoes

November 8, 2010 By Stephen 2 Comments

Embargoes help us all. I love that I can get inside information ahead of announcements, giving me time to consider the implications of new technology releases. I’m not scoop driven (though I’ve sometimes gotten the scoop) so I’m less interested in timeliness than I am in the depth of insight I can get from a briefing.

Filed Under: Enterprise storage, Personal Tagged With: blogging, briefings, embargo, NDA, NetApp, news, PR, scoop, Storage Newsletter, The Register

Smoking-Fast Laptops: Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid SSD Disk Drive Confirmed!

May 21, 2010 By Stephen 2 Comments

Thar she blows! Seagate's hybrid ssd/hard disk drive is real!

There has been much speculation that a new generation of hybrid flash/hard disk drives was right around the corner, and Provantage confirmed it today: The reseller posted a family of “Momentus XT” 2.5″ laptop drives for sale on their web site, shipping in 3-4 weeks. Many other sites began listing the drives as well, and The Register got the scoop, benchmarks, and official comment.

Filed Under: Apple, Enterprise storage, Personal, Terabyte home Tagged With: flash, H-HDD, Howard Marks, hybrid drives, hybrid hard disk drive, MacBook Pro, MCE Technologies, Momentus XT, NAND, NCQ, OptiBay, Provantage, Seagate, SLC, SSD, The Register, Toshiba, Western Digital

Back From the Pile: Interesting Content From the Week of May 2, 2009

May 4, 2009 By Stephen Leave a Comment

There were some interesting events and blog posts last week. This new weekly feature highlights those! Enterprise IT Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Your Reliance On Backup Tapes – What’s wrong with backup tapes? They’re inaccessible, making them unsuitable for most applications. My latest post for my Enterprise Storage Strategies blog. Is Licensing Turning vSphere Into [...]

Filed Under: Everything Tagged With: 3PAR, Amber Road, Apple Mail, Back From the Pile, backup, Brocade, CapGemini, Chris Evans, Chris Mellor, Chrysler, Cisco, cloud computing, data backup, Dave Donatelli, EMC, Enterprise Storage Strategies, ESS, Ethernet, Fred Wilson, Gestalt IT, Gmail, Google, Greg Knieriemen, IBM, IMAP, Iomega, iPhone, iStat, Jerome Wendt, licensing, Marc Farley, Micah Baldwin, Nirvanix, non-compete, NPR, Planet Money, podcast, Steve Duplessie, Storage Monkeys, StorCenter, Sun, Sunshine Mugrabi, tape, The Apple Blog, The Register, TheInfoPro, Tony Asaro, Twitter, UCS, venture capital, VMware, vSphere, W. Curtis Preston

3PAR Reserves A Seat At The Solid State Disk Drive Table

October 28, 2008 By Stephen 1 Comment

3PAR will use flash as “tier-0″ storage in their InServe arrays and is in the “flash is a drive” camp

Filed Under: Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage Tagged With: 3PAR, Chris Mellor, Craig Nunes, flash, InServe, Marc Farley, SSD, The Register, tier 0, tiered storage

Is the FCoE Starting Pistol Aimed at iSCSI?

October 16, 2008 By Stephen 23 Comments

The pistol shot heard this week was the starting gun for FCoE, not the execution of iSCSI

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 [...]

Filed Under: Enterprise storage, Virtual Storage Tagged With: Brocade, Chris Mellor, Cisco, CNA, DCE, Dell, EMC, Emulex, EqualLogic, Ethernet, FCoE, HP, iSCSI, LeftHand, NetApp, network storage, QLogic, san storage, SNW, storage area network, The Register, VMware

The Register Gulps Down Blocks and Files

September 1, 2008 By Stephen 2 Comments

News today is that powerhouse IT publisher, The Register, has snapped up storage industry reporting up and comer, Blocks and Files. Included in the deal is amusing editor/writer Chris Mellor and the back catalog of editorials. Left to rot are the sponsored (?) advertorials and regurgitated press releases. B&F will become a new storage-focused Register [...]

Filed Under: Enterprise storage Tagged With: Blocks and Files, blogging, Chris Mellor, The Register

Latest Content

Preview: Two Thunderbolt Video Input and Output Devices from Blackmagic Design: Intensity Shuttle and Intensity Extreme

February 10, 2012

I was thrilled to see the announcement by Blackmagic Design of two Thunderbolt versions of their respected Intensity video input/output box. But which is the better choice, the Intensity Shuttle or Intensity Extreme?

Teaching Science with Wi-Fi (Thanks, Ruckus and MetaGeek!)

February 10, 2012

As a parent, especially a techie one, you never know when a teachable moment is going to appear. Last night, I mentioned that I was testing a new Ruckus access point and enthused about how fast it was. My 12-year-old asked, “why is it so fast?” This led to a wonderful discussion about radio waves, congestion and propagation, and spectrum licensing. Yeah, I’m that kind of dad.

Review: Das Keyboard Model S for Mac (and Why I’m Sending It Back)

February 8, 2012

Make no mistake, the Das Keyboard Model S for Mac is a whole class better than the plastic junk most people use, and the snappy Cherry MX blue key switches are more rewarding than any scissor or membrane keyboard out there, but this is no IBM Model M, so buckling spring fans should look elsewhere.

EMC VFCache (aka “Project Lightning”) Is One Small Step, But an Important One

February 6, 2012

EMC VFCache (née Project Lightning) is a fairly simple offering: A server-based PCIe flash card that acts as a read cache with no integration with storage arrays or hypervisors. But EMC’s entrance into the host-based flash storage market is a powerful demonstration of the wave of disruption caused by flash-based storage and high-performance computing.

Nimbus E-Class: The First Big, Redundant, All-Flash Enterprise Array

January 31, 2012

The new Nimbus Data E-Class comes just at the right moment, with 500 TB of capacity, a fully redundant “dual active” controller architecture, massive performance (even InfiniBand), and complete feature set (once VAAI is released).

How My Blog Became Infected With MW:JS:150 Malware (And How I Fixed It)

January 26, 2012

This week, two blog readers let me know what Google Chrome was warning them of malware on my blog. I dived in and discovered that, indeed, a nasty, obfuscated JavaScript attack had made its way into my site. Although I was disappointed by the lack of clarity about how to fix it, I believe I was able to remove it last night.

Cheap, No-Contract 4G Data: Clear’s Undocumented Daily- and Weekly-Pass Plans

January 23, 2012

Although Clear clearly wants buyers to sign up for monthly service, they also have “secret” on-demand 2-hour, daily, and weekly plans. Here’s how to get online cheap!

HP’s Mighty Stumble

January 19, 2012

HP stumbled mightily in 2011, and it had nothing to do with product or people. Even sales remained strong, though the PC business is changing. HP’s mighty stumble was a crisis of confidence due to a chain of shenanigans at the very top. This culminated with the short reign of Léo Apotheker, leaving HP to reassure the market of its strategy.

Why Should Anyone Take Dell Seriously in Enterprise Storage?

January 16, 2012

For a massive IT company, Dell sure doesn’t get the kind of respect given their competitors. Time and again, I’ll hear the sneers about Dell being little more than a “box shifter” who doesn’t “get” real enterprise IT needs. After a series of acquisitions in storage and networking, Dell is trying to stake a claim as a serious competitor to HP, IBM, Oracle, and the like. But why should anyone take Dell seriously, especially in enterprise storage?