ZFS should have been great, but I kind of hate it: ZFS seems to be trapped in the past, before it was sidelined it as the cool storage project of choice; it’s inflexible; it lacks modern flash integration; and it’s not directly supported by most operating systems. But I put all my valuable data on ZFS because it simply offers the best level of data protection in a small office/home office (SOHO) environment. Here’s why.
What is OCuLink?
With the advent of AMD Threadripper and Epyc, we are about to see an explosion of PCIe lanes in the pro-sumer and datacenter market. Although many of those lanes will be taken up by conventional PCIe cards, some will be used for SSD’s (M.2 and U.2) or for external connectivity. This is where OCuLink might finally take off: As an AMD alternative to Thunderbolt for external PCIe peripheral connectivity.
Storage is Getting Cloudier!
From iCloud Photos to Google Drive to NetApp and Primary Data, we’re putting storage wherever it needs to be. And this is a major shift for computing, from the iPhone to the datacenter. Watch this space!
Turn Off Error Recovery in RAID Drives: TLER, ERC, and CCTL
Hard disk drives encounter errors from time to time, so it’s a good thing that most have the ability to recover data anyway. But RAID systems usually have their own error recovery capabilities and can be thrown off when a hard disk pauses I/O. So it’s a good idea to use hard disk drives that allow you to disable or limit error recovery in RAID systems.
Download My Free E-Book, “Essential Enterprise Storage Concepts”!
I’ve got a lot to say about storage, as you might have noticed from reading my blog. So I finally sat down and wrote a book on enterprise storage. Now you can download the e-book for free, thanks to support from my friends at SolarWinds!
Dell, Wall Street, Magic Beans, and the End of EMC
As of today, EMC Corporation is no longer an independent company. Who thought we would see this day? From now on, EMC is simply a brand for parts of Dell’s Infrastructure Solutions and Services businesses. This marks a major shift in the enterprise storage world, for IT, and perhaps for American business in general.
Migrating Data With ZFS Send and Receive
I like ZFS Send and Receive, but I’m not totally sold on it. I’ve used rsync for decades, so I’m not giving it up anytime soon. Even so, I can see the value of ZFS Send and Receive for local migration and data management tasks as well as the backup and replication tasks that are typically talked about.
It’s Fine To Mount Hard Drives On Their Side Or Even Upside-Down
Have you ever wondered if mounting a hard disk drive on its side or even upside-down affects its lifespan or reliability? According to every drive manufacturer, it’s perfectly acceptable to mount a hard disk drive in any orientation as long as it’s not tilted and has sufficient cooling.
Free as in Coffee – Thoughts on the State of OpenStack
Last week I headed to Austin, Texas to attend the semi-annual OpenStack Summit there. Along with the usual socializing, I was looking to understand the current state of the technology: What does OpenStack really mean these days, and where is it going? Let’s start with “free”. As “the Internet” is quick to point out, this critical word has multiple […]
Nimble Storage Rolls Out an All-Flash Array
It took longer than I expected for Nimble Storage to introduce an all-flash array, but their AF7000 looks to be a very credible offering. They’re targeting XtremIO and Pure with their marketing, but I expect HP, Dell, and especially NetApp to be cross-shopped more frequently. In that fight, I expect the Nimble AF7000 to be very attractive indeed!