It can be hard to keep up to date with the latest storage jargon, so some interesting technologies can be overlooked. When it comes to home storage, the advent of USB 3 has changed the game for external storage. Suddenly, enclosures can deliver multi-gigabit performance. Or they could, if only the storage stack could handle all this new speed! That's where a new external drive … [Read more...] about What Is A UASP Storage Enclosure?
SCSI
The I/O Blender Part 1: Ye Olde Storage I/O Path
Back in the day, when data was smaller and servers were machines, I/O followed a predictable pattern. Storage arrays could anticipate requests and RAID was beautiful. Then came virtualization, and with it an end to ye olde storage I/O path. Server = HBA = LUN It was a simpler time back in the 1990's. Each server had a SCSI host bus adapter (HBA) of its own. Maybe two, if … [Read more...] about The I/O Blender Part 1: Ye Olde Storage I/O Path
We Need a Storage Revolution
Although many discussions in the storage industry focus on the relative merits of one protocol or another, the conversation occasionally turns to the core issue at hand: We continue to patch together a system based on outdated concepts. Most storage protocols continue to mimic direct attached storage, and most of our so-called networks act as point to point channels. An … [Read more...] about We Need a Storage Revolution
Is TRIM Useful For Thin Provisioning?
If WRITE_SAME can be a semaphore for thin un-provisioning, what about TRIM? It sounds like a perfect fit, and has wider implementation to boot! Let's take a deeper look. First, I'd like to remind the reader that I'm not some specialist storage engineer. I am regular guy who wanted to know about this TRIM thing. I welcome corrections and feedback on this piece! We … [Read more...] about Is TRIM Useful For Thin Provisioning?
What is WRITE_SAME? Green Eggs and Ham!
One of the sticky wickets that holds back thin provisioning is the need to communicate when capacity is no longer needed. Enterprise storage arrays can reclaim zeroed pages, but writing all those zeros can really fill up an I/O queue. This is where WRITE_SAME comes into the picture. This is a really terrible name. It's all-capital letters and has an underscore in the … [Read more...] about What is WRITE_SAME? Green Eggs and Ham!