The first storage performance horseman is spindles: If you don’t have enough disk units, performance will suffer. I have been laying out storage on enterprise arrays since the dark ages, and one of the first lessons I learned was allocating data to avoid hotspots. I remember spending hours back in the 1990’s hunched over custom Excel spreadsheets […]
DMX
The Difference Between “Integration” and “Frankenstein”
When is a solution integrated and when is it a Frankenstein-like mashup of tangled tech? Apparently, that line is crossed when it’s your competitor’s offering… In my time in the storage industry, I’ve seen enough franken-storage come and go to make me skeptical whenever a new “integrated” solution is announced. But a lot of this […]
Flash Forward or Flash Back?
This is part of an ongoing series of longer articles I am posting every Sunday. The tech industry has been buzzing about solid state drives (SSDs) again lately, but many questions remain. Even after many major vendors (Apple, EMC, and Dell to name a few) have introduced NAND flash-based disk into their core products, it is […]
Is Flash A Disk Or A Cache?
There is a battle shaping up in the enterprise storage industry. On one side are those who see flash storage as an upgrade for the disk drive, and on the other are those who see it as a cache between the CPU and the drive. It’s a fundamental difference of opinion – flash chips can […]
SSD: So Close and Yet So Far
Solid state (NAND flash) storage is all the rage right now, but there are many lingering questions regarding its true performance, reliability, and cost. But no question is more important in determining its ultimate usefulness than that of location: Where should flash storage be placed to maximize return on investment? Storage companies have argued that […]
