I've dabbled with FreeNAS in the past and had such a great experience with pfSense (a similar FreeBSD-based project) that I jumped in with both feet on my home office server build. But my initial impressions were, frankly, terrible. I've got the system running and stable now, but I'm finding it difficult to recommend FreeNAS at this point. 2017 Update: I'm still running … [Read more...] about FreeNAS First Impressions
storage management
Qumulo Launches To Manage Data At Scale
"We're getting the band back together!" That's how the pitch must have gone for the founding team at Qumulo, who also happened to create Isilon, now a major product at EMC. But what do you do after creating the most successful scale-out storage platform in history? Add in some advanced data management services and make it a software-only platform! What's Qumulo? CEO Peter … [Read more...] about Qumulo Launches To Manage Data At Scale
Defining Failure: What Is MTTR, MTTF, and MTBF?
Most IT professionals are used to talking about uptime, downtime, and system failure. But not everyone is entirely clear on the definition of the terms widely used in the industry. What exactly differentiates “mean time to failure” from “mean time between failures”? And how does “mean time to repair” play into it? Let's get some definitions straight! Definition of a Failure I … [Read more...] about Defining Failure: What Is MTTR, MTTF, and MTBF?
NetApp Unifies and Consolidates Software, Not Just Storage Capacity
NetApp has long wanted to be known for its "unified storage" offerings, storage arrays that combine NAS and SAN. But the company has expanded its storage software footprint as well, and recently unified these offerings under the "OnCommand" banner. Some of these products are intended solely for NetApp storage, but many are suitable for heterogeneous and even non-NetApp … [Read more...] about NetApp Unifies and Consolidates Software, Not Just Storage Capacity
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another, the conversation occasionally turns to the core issue at hand: We continue to patch together a system based on outdated concepts.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