Apple’s not an enterprise company or a storage company, but Apple does have enterprise storage features in their operating systems. And Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” is a great case in point. From Versions to Time Machine Local Snapshots to AirDrop, Lion brings some storage love, and NFS, SMB, and Xsan are there, too. Let’s look at what’s new and key in terms of storage in the latest version of Mac OS X.
TRIM
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.
Are Hybrid Hard Drives A Good Alternative To An SSD?
How well does the Momentus XT perform in a Mac laptop? Focusing on lower cost and greater benefit without getting taken in by the coolness of SSDs or hybrid drives, let’s weigh the merits.
Toshiba Offers “Blade” SSDs (Like Apple’s MacBook Air)
More information about the unconventional SSD used in Apple’s new MacBook Air. As I discussed in my previous coverage of this new flash form factor, it resembles a PCI Express Mini Card but is much smaller. Toshiba has now proved my speculation that the device uses SATA signals rather than the PCI Express lane used by the similar AirPort card. We also know that the lauded performance of the device is due to its chips and controller rather than skipping SATA in favor of PCIe as some had speculated.