The latest Intel iMac line is a killer desktop, from its brilliant screen to its excellent performance. But it’s a little lacking when it comes to expansion: A workstation really needs more I/O than five USB and one FireWire port! Since I’m a storage fanatic, my attention naturally turns toward eSATA, and I’m not the only one. Although I’ve come up with three different methods of adding eSATA to my iMac, I haven’t yet taken the plunge and made it happen.
Archives for 2010
Review: 1 TB Seagate Expansion Portable USB Drive (ST910004EXA101-RK)
The Tech Field Day events I organize generate a massive amount of HD video content, and moving half a terabyte or more of data is a real issue. We had been using luggable desktop drives from Western Digital and Seagate, but preferred a smaller, lighter, USB bus-powered portable solution. The Seagate Expansion Portable USB drive we bought this week packs an amazing 1 TB of capacity, but our experience with the product was mixed at best.
The Enterprise IT Acquisition Game
Today is the (a?) day of reckoning in the 3Par saga, with Dell widely expected to make a counter-offer higher than HP’s bid. But this mega deal, like the Data Domain war before it, sends a strong signal to the enterprise IT world: It’s open season on data storage companies! But the rising superpowers are also likely looking at networking as an area of expansion. The game is afoot!
The Four Horsemen of Storage System Performance: The Rule of Spindles
Why do some data storage solutions perform better than others? Mechanical performance, RAM caching, I/O capacity, and the intelligence of the system all have a part to play. Today we examine the rule of spindles: Adding more disk spindles is generally more effective than using faster spindles.
Introducing the Small Business Storage Array Buyer’s Guide
Any reader of my blog knows that I’m a sucker for small storage systems. I currently use would a four bay Data Robotics Drobo, but there are many other fine choices for those with different needs. I was talking to my friend Jerome Wendt about this, and we are collaborating on a buyer’s guide for small business storage systems.
