All-flash arrays

Hitz: NetApp market growth hinges on cloud, data management

Storage stalwart NetApp celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2017. NetApp founder Dave Hitz reflects on its evolution and the impact of Cloud OnTap, Data Fabric and SolidFire HCI. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

NVMe-oF and storage class memory set to disrupt storage

NVM Express over Fabrics and storage class memory may disrupt traditional storage over the next half decade in much the same way NAND flash did over the last five years. Continue Reading

By

• Jeff Kato, Taneja Group

Pure Storage revenue boost puts it on ‘march to profit’

Pure Storage hit a home run in its first quarter under CEO Charlie Giancarlo. Pure Storage revenue of $278 million last month exceeded the high point of its  guidance and increased 41% from last ... Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

Like its CEO, HPE storage in transition phase

Meg Whitman says it’s time for “a new generation” to take over Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She was talking about the CEO change when she made that comment during the company’s earnings call last ... Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

3D TLC NAND gives capacity boost to IBM FlashSystem 900

FlashSystem 900 building blocks are the foundation of IBM FlashSystem A9000 and V9000 arrays. New NAND modules use 3D TLC in place of planar 2D enterprise MLC. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Violin Systems CEO Abbasi says profits coming in 2018

All-flash pioneer Violin emerges from bankruptcy; 2018 plans call for profits, acquisition, NVMe deployments and software-defined scalability. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

NVMe flash array startups Pavilion Data, Vexata jump in

The 4U Pavilion Memory NVMe flash array comes with 20 controllers and 40 Ethernet ports. Vexata markets VX-100 appliances running Active Data Fabric distributed storage. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Dell EMC acquisition: The deal of the century a year later

A year has passed since the Dell EMC acquisition, the biggest transaction in the history of IT. With the benefit of hindsight, we examine the positives, negatives and uncertainties of the deal. Did Dell buy the world's biggest storage vendor, or did EMC round out its infrastructure strategy? Was the timing of the Dell EMC acquisition good, and were the reasons behind it sound? Does it matter? What are the long-term prospects? How about the complications of integrating companies with different corporate cultures and overlapping product lines? What's the effect on the data storage market in general?

Public cloud use has increased at a remarkable rate. So much so, it's a matter of when, not if, public cloud adoption will match on-site infrastructure. Vendor lock-in is a top concern IT decision-makers and practitioners have with cloud services. An emerging set of multicloud primary storage products mitigate this problem by providing data services simultaneously across multiple public clouds. Explore the key drivers and benefits of these multicloud storage products and services. Find out what customers want from them. And learn about the vendors that meet these diverse customer requirements and how they deliver on the promise of multicloud storage.

The open source software movement has potential to change the face of storage. With the commoditization of servers and storage media, costs are low and reliability is high enough to use off-the-shelf components to build storage platforms with software-defined storage products, including open source. This trend is reducing or eliminating dependence on proprietary storage hardware and software. Find out which open source technologies support object-, file- and block-based storage individually or in combination.

 Continue Reading

Buying NAS: Do you want performance and scalability?

Although SANs still rule the modern the data center, the NAS array maintains a position high up on tech buyers' shopping lists for new primary storage. Continue Reading

By

• James Alan Miller, Senior Executive Editor

Navigating the all-flash array storage buying process

Companies of all sizes are turning to all-flash storage arrays to meet their storage capacity, performance, reliability and data protection requirements. Continue Reading

Entry-level Dell EMC SC Series adds data features

Dell EMC's SCv3000 launch includes automated hybrid tiering, data compression and replication with federated clusters. Dell EMC announced a money-back efficiency guarantee. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Qumulo Core File Fabric knits cloud bursting, replication

New Qumulo storage fabric replicates data between local and public cloud storage on AWS. QF2 is the first version of Core that runs in a public cloud. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

How to determine the true cost of flash

If you want to add flash storage, it's important to consider the cost per IOPS and gigabyte compared to HDD volumes, as well as the difference between consumer and enterprise SSDs. Continue Reading

By

• Brien Posey

Kaminario K2.N gives composable infrastructure an NVMe twist

Kaminario's K2.N all-flash infrastructure creates multiple virtual arrays from clustered resources. Compute nodes and NVMe shelves connect via RDMA over Converged Ethernet. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Tegile becomes the latest Western Digital acquisition

Western Digital's acquisition spree continues with the pickup of flash vendor Tegile Systems. The drive-maker says Tegile storage complements its ActiveScale object storage. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Hedvig storage upgrade adds flash tier, encryption options

Hedvig software-defined storage enables 'all-flash hybrids' by supporting tiering across different types of solid-state media inside of commodity hardware systems. Continue Reading

By

• Carol Sliwa

Tegile IntelliFlash array family welcomes all-NVMe sibling

A rack of Tegile's IntelliFlash N Series NVMe arrays scales to 60 PB of effective capacity. Tegile promises 3 million IOPS in a single array with full data services at low latency. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Compare XtremIO vs. Unity all-flash storage system for VDI

Dell EMC offers two all-flash storage options geared toward VDI shops. One suits companies with fewer than 500 persistent machines, and the other is for larger deployments. Continue Reading

By

• Robert Sheldon

Nimbus Data ExaDrive tunes into OEM channel

Nimbus Data claims ExaDrive can replace traditional disk in data centers. The 3.5-inch SSDs package flash and intelligent software, including data features in multiple ASICs. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Writable shared flash volumes highlight E8 Storage upgrade

E8 adds parallel file-system support for IBM Spectrum Scale and Oracle RAC deployments. Applications read and write to a shared flash volume on E8-D24 and new E8 X-24 arrays. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

How the leading all-flash array vendors meet storage demands

This in-depth overview of the features and capabilities of the leading AFA storage products can help you determine which configurations may best meet your needs. Continue Reading

By

• Logan G. Harbaugh, Independent consultant

Forget all-flash arrays, aim for flash-optimized storage first

Look for simple, cost-effective products that are optimized for flash and meet your needs rather than focusing on the all-flash array storage that vendors are pushing. Continue Reading

By

• Jeff Kato, Taneja Group

Forget all-flash arrays, aim for flash-optimized storage first

 Continue Reading

Making the case for an all-flash data center

Companies should ditch hard disk drives and outfit their data centers entirely with flash storage; vendors have solved old solid-state problems, such as wear time and cost. Continue Reading

By

• Jim O'Reilly

Post-IPO, Tintri software plan comes into sharp focus

Tintri will scale back head-to-head matchups in all-flash array market; stand-alone software accounts for a growing portion of storage revenue, CTO and co-founder Kieran Harty says. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Reduxio Systems adds CDM, DR upgrades to TimeOS

Reduxio rolls out its third version of TimeOS storage software, adding NoRestore copy data management and NoMigrate DR. The vendor claims to deliver zero downtime and data loss. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Stretch clustering fits Pure customers' wish lists

All-flash array vendor Pure Storage added multisite replication between FlashArray and FlashBlade systems with ActiveCluster stretch clustering, which is included in the Purity 5 OS. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Pure Storage flash array lines bulk up software

Purity 5 software for Pure Storage FlashArray adds active-active multisite replication and portable snapshots. Pure FlashBlade clusters now scale to 75 blades and five chassis. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

New Toshiba SSDs support 64-layer BiCS 3D NAND flash

Toshiba ships new client NVMe-based PCIe SSDs that support its latest 64-layer BiCS 3D NAND flash to improve performance and density and open the door to future price drops. Continue Reading

By

• Carol Sliwa

Examining what products the leading all-flash array vendors offer

Although there are many factors to consider when selecting the right all-flash storage arrays for your organization, the first step is to assess your functional specifications. Continue Reading

By

• Logan G. Harbaugh, Independent consultant

Why the NAND flash shortage exists and what to do about it

The current NAND flash market product shortage means SSD prices won't dip below hard disk drives any time soon. Make sure to ask your vendors about their supply situations. Continue Reading

By

• Howard Marks, Vast Data

Micron Ceph block storage expands NVMe configurations

Micron Ceph storage comes as a four-node storage cluster that incorporates object features of Red Hat's Jewel release. A single cluster scales to 96 TB of effective capacity. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Upgraded Nexsan Unity unified arrays get jolt of flash

Nexsan eliminated the need to run its E-Series arrays as Unity back-end storage. JBODs with RAID allow FASTier flash cache SSDs to run on 12 Gbps storage shelves. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Dell EMC World 2017: Flash, HCI and cloud take center stage

This year's Dell EMC World will feature plenty of product releases as the mega-vendor beefs up emerging technologies while continuing its pre-merger platforms. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

All-flash data center still an idea in development

The concept of the all-flash data center isn't new, and as the cost of SSDs continue to decline, vendors are pushing the of the all-flash data center like never before. Reality is a different matter, though. When it comes to older data, slower technology tiers -- such as tape and high-capacity HDDs -- and the cloud can still save plenty of money and resources. So how much flash is enough? It depends.

IT resources must remain continuously available nowadays. Establishing data center resiliency through technologies like replication and erasure coding, as well as implementing continuous backup and instant recovery, is only a start. Learn how to develop a resiliency plan of your own.

An increasing array of backup, disaster recovery and archiving services has turned the public cloud into a favorite target for secondary and tertiary data. Advances have also made the cloud a viable option as a primary storage tier in the storage hierarchy. Particularly if tier-two or tier-one workloads could benefit from the scalability, resilience and broad accessibility the public cloud delivers. Here's why.

 Continue Reading

Is an all-flash data center worth it?

 Continue Reading

X-IO storage pivots to the edge with NVMe-based Axellio

New storage strategy for X-IO centers on Axellio appliance with FabricXpress architecture. NVMe flash atop a PCIe edge storage switch allows analytics as data is ingested. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Will the flash storage market see another big acquisition?

HPE's $1.2 billion deal for Nimble Storage has stirred speculation on potential future acquisitions in the all-flash array market, such as Kaminario and Pure Storage. Continue Reading

By

• Carol Sliwa

Violin flash storage emerges for encore, sans 'Memory'

Redux of Violin Memory's flash storage is under way with new CEO, new strategy and new ownership by Soros Fund Management's Quantum Partners. Will it finally turn a profit? Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Tier 0 storage moves to NVMe to meet demand for speed

Tier 0 has been fast and proprietary, but nonvolatile memory express is changing that second part as a standard programming interface for PCIe SSDs. Continue Reading

By

• Howard Marks, Vast Data

Awaiting NVMe flash surge, Pure Storage preps FlashArray//X

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe flash array will be generally available starting in July. It packs 1.1 PB of raw storage in 3U, and 15 PB in a standard 42U rack. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

The present and likely future of the NVMe protocol

The NVMe and PCIe combination of protocol and interconnect was an inevitable development once solid-state drives were created, as was moving NVMe to fabrics. Continue Reading

By

• Jim O'Reilly

Flash, hybrid RealStor added to Seagate storage arrays

Hybrid and all-flash Seagate RealStor arrays are sold to original equipment makers to build branded storage systems. The all-flash pricing is pegged at less than $50,000. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Dell EMC XtremIO adds speed to Red Sox IT lineup

A Dell EMC all-flash array knocks a home run for the Boston Red Sox organization, improving management and analytics of ever accumulating data, and speeding performance. Continue Reading

By

• Paul Crocetti, Executive Editor

Intel Optane SSD starts shipping to select customers

New Intel Optane SSDs based on long-awaited 3D XPoint technology ship to early customers, promising up to eight times the performance over NAND flash-based NVMe PCIe SSDs. Continue Reading

By

• Carol Sliwa

Tegile Systems sees opportunities in NVMe, HPE-Nimble buy

The Tegile CEO talks about how the all-flash market is shaping up with the advent of NVM express, and how his company is battling against the major data storage vendors. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

Five factors to consider before buying all-flash storage arrays

Before purchasing all-flash array storage, you should determine whether your site plans to integrate AFA storage into its existing infrastructure or to start a new storage silo. Continue Reading

By

• Logan G. Harbaugh, Independent consultant

Startup Excelero shares server-based NVMe flash

Excelero's NVMesh Server SAN is generally available after two years of proofs of concept by hyperscale data centers. The product builds SAN capacity from server-based NVMe flash. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Building a business case for all-flash array storage

To make a business case for purchasing AFA storage, you must first understand what your applications need in terms of IOPS, latency and throughput. Continue Reading

By

• Logan G. Harbaugh, Independent consultant

HPE acquisition of Nimble gives it another SAN platform

Surprising HPE acquisition snares hybrid flash vendor Nimble Storage for proposed $1.2 billion. HPE picks up Nimble arrays and vaunts InfoSight storage analytics and monitoring. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

HPE’s Nimble Storage acquisition expands its struggling portfolio

Hewlett Packard Enterprise today made its second major storage acquisition of 2017, spending $1.2 billion on all-flash and hybrid array vendor Nimble Storage. The Nimble Storage acquisition comes ... Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

SAN arrays maintain primary data storage dominance, for now

Solid-state flash is the most sought-after technology for primary storage, as storage area networks remain the main focus of increasing capacity for most enterprises. Continue Reading

By

• James Alan Miller, Senior Executive Editor

Data storage infrastructure starts with science-fiction inspiration

Find out what happens when you take a cue from an old science-fiction movie and build an 'interocitor' that becomes its own storage infrastructure. Continue Reading

By

• Jon Toigo

IBM flash storage key to turnaround, says GM Walsh

Ed Walsh takes over as general manager of IBM storage to reignite sales. He says customers 'challenged by disruption' turn to flash storage to modernize IT. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Nexsan Unity adds compliance archive appliance

Nexsan Unity arrays integrate optional secure compliance archive for petabytes of unstructured data. Data files written to primary storage are immediately copied to the archive. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

AFA storage has total cost of ownership advantages over HDDs

All-flash array storage TCO advantages, including reduced power and cooling and increased performance, can help an organization justify its use to store their active workloads. Continue Reading

By

• Logan G. Harbaugh, Independent consultant

AFA storage advances may mean the end of the hybrid market

Flash price drops and speed boosts make the all-flash array the smart choice over hybrid storage arrays for most enterprise users, not just those with high-performance computing needs. Continue Reading

By

• Jim O'Reilly

Nimble Storage Adaptive Flash Arrays (CS-Series)

Nimble Storage jumped on the all-flash bandwagon in 2016, but didn't forget its disk fans by upgrading its CS-Series mixing flash and hard disk drives. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

Kaminario K2 array boosts performance, capacity

New Kaminario all-flash array features higher performance and capacity, improves data reduction guarantee to 4:1 and offers faster storage networking options. Continue Reading

By

• Carol Sliwa

NetApp AFF A700s flash array slims down A700 footprint

NetApp launches small-footprint A700s version of its high-end All Flash FAS A700 with built-in SSDs, updates all-flash capacity guarantee for A-Series flash storage line. Continue Reading

By

• Carol Sliwa

All-flash storage system 2016 Products of the Year finalists

Our seven all-flash storage system 2016 finalists include products from flash-only vendors, as well as vendors that offer all-flash versions of existing hybrid arrays. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Enterprise hard disk/hybrid storage systems: 2016 Products of the Year finalists

The 11 finalists in the hard disk/hybrid storage systems category of the 2016 Products of the Year include cloud and arrays that don't demand all-flash drives. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

HPE launches new XP7 based on Hitachi technology

Hewlett Packard Enterprise launched its high-end enterprise storage array upgade today at the same time as Hitachi Data Systems. The HPE XP7 and HDS Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) use the same ... Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

Nimble says customers quick to embrace all-flash

Nimble Storage, which was relatively late selling all-flash arrays, is trying to make up for lost time since launching its Predictive Flash platform in February. The vendor received a jolt from ... Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

IBM flash storage expands with midrange all-flash products

IBM's all-flash portfolio grows, with a new midrange and entry-level option, and the vendor adds a migration program aimed at EMC-Dell customers. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

Almost time for SSD flash storage to be used with object storage

As the price of flash SSD storage continues to fall, it becomes more attractive for object storage, which otherwise counts on big, slow and cheap HDDs. Continue Reading

By

• Marc Staimer, Dragon Slayer Consulting

Nexsan storage software brings Unity to its hardware

Unity software supports Nexsan with NST block devices, Assureon object storage and Transporter cloud sync functionality that it picked up from Connected Data. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

Pure FlashBlade tackles scale-out unstructured data

Pure Storage launches a blade-based, scale-out unstructured data all-flash system that handles NAS and object storage. The vendor also brings out an entry-level version of its SAN flash array. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

Enterprise hard disk/hybrid storage systems: 2015 Products of the Year finalists

The 14 finalists in the hard disk/hybrid storage systems category of the 2015 Products of the Year competition blend flash configurations with traditional spinning media. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

NetApp FAS2500 series: Technical overview

The NetApp FAS2500 series includes the FAS2554, FAS2552 and FAS2520. The NAS systems support hybrid flash setups for environments with mid-tier network storage needs. Continue Reading

By

• Aditya Gune, Senior Products Editor

How to choose the right snapshot method

Snapshots and replication have become data protection tools of choice, but finding the right snapshot method for your data center can be challenging. Continue Reading

By

• George Crump

Server-side caching has new data center role

Some server-side caching products have evolved into complete software-defined storage platforms that can aggregate flash across multiple servers. Continue Reading

By

• George Crump

EMC Isilon X-Series NAS: Isilon x200, x210 and x410

The Isilon X-Series is a lineup of NAS systems that support hybrid flash setups. The products are designed for environments with mid-tier network storage needs. Continue Reading

By

• Aditya Gune, Senior Products Editor

EMC Isilon S-Series NAS: Isilon S210 and Isilon S200

The Isilon S210 and S200 are part of the EMC Isilon S-Series line of NAS systems for data storage environments that require mid-level network storage offerings. Continue Reading

By

• Aditya Gune, Senior Products Editor

Utility watchdog deploys all-flash SolidFire storage array

California Public Utilities Commission was stuck at about 80% server virtualization before adding all-flash SolidFire storage to remove latency problems. Continue Reading

By

• Dave Raffo

HUS VM SAN array platform

The Hitachi Unified Storage VM is a storage array designed for enterprise SAN environments requiring high storage capacities. Continue Reading

By

• Aditya Gune, Senior Products Editor

Examine your computing environment before you buy flash storage

The decision to buy flash storage can overcome many performance issues, but other areas of your computing environment could be contributing factors. Continue Reading

By

• George Crump

SAN basics: All the tools you need to purchase a storage-area network

Whether you're purchasing a SAN for the first time or looking to upgrade, this guide walks you through the buying process from start to finish. Continue Reading

New Dell storage array, software-defined options added

Dell Storage ships new entry-level SCv2000 arrays, ups performance and density in PS6610 and adds a new Microsoft-based software-defined storage option. Continue Reading

By

• Carol Sliwa

HP MSA 2040 storage array

The HP MSA 2040 is a rack-mountable modular storage array for SAN environments that includes increased support for virtualization. Continue Reading

By

• Aditya Gune, Senior Products Editor

EMC VMAX Series storage arrays

The EMC VMAX is a family of SAN arrays designed for enterprise environments requiring large amounts of storage. Continue Reading

By

• Aditya Gune, Senior Products Editor

Hewlett-Packard 3PAR StoreServ 7000 Series Storage Arrays

The HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 series is a line of storage arrays designed for enterprise SAN environments. Continue Reading

By

• Aditya Gune, Senior Products Editor

SanDisk InfiniFlash launches company's all-flash platform

SanDisk launched the InfiniFlash all-flash platform this week. The system is said to deliver flash storage for less than $2 per GB before data reduction. Continue Reading

By

• Garry Kranz

What's the difference between 'usable' and 'effective' flash capacity?

Vendors often publish numbers for 'usable' capacity versus 'effective' capacity. Can you explain this and how can you plan flash capacity needs with these numbers in mind? Continue Reading

By

• Randy Kerns, Evaluator Group

What you should know about using flash to complement DRAM

George Crump discusses emerging technology that enables using flash as memory, why it matters and its applicable use cases. Continue Reading

By

• George Crump

Essential guide to desktop and laptop solid-state drives

Essential guide to laptop and desktop SSDs Continue Reading

The truth about using snapshot technology as data protection

Marc Staimer discusses using snapshot technology in your data protection strategy and outlines issues you should know about before opting for this approach. Continue Reading

By

• Marc Staimer, Dragon Slayer Consulting

NVDIMM vs. memory channel flash storage

Marc Staimer of Dragon Slayer Consulting compares NVDIMM and memory channel flash, explaining the advantages and disadvantages of each. Continue Reading

By

• Marc Staimer, Dragon Slayer Consulting

Memory channel flash storage vs. PCIe flash storage

Marc Staimer compares memory channel flash storage with PCIe connected flash and offers insight on the advantages and disadvantages of each. Continue Reading

By

• Marc Staimer, Dragon Slayer Consulting

Flash storage: Guide to all-flash storage arrays

TechTarget's all-flash storage array guide navigates the hotly contested market with a comparison chart and snapshot profiles of 15 products. Continue Reading

Violin 6000 arrays feature proprietary flash modules, memory fabric

Violin 6000 Series all-flash storage arrays use proprietary flash modules, memory fabric architecture and RAID to improve performance and latency. Continue Reading

By

• Carol Sliwa

Three key strategies to prevent RAID failure

In this tip, analyst Jon Toigo shares several ways storage admins can proactively prevent the failure of RAID arrays. Continue Reading

By

• Jon Toigo

The variety of enterprise SSD options available today

Leah Schoeb of Evaluator Group discusses the variety of enterprise SSD options available today in this Expert Answer. Continue Reading

By

• Leah Schoeb, Evaluator Group

Fact or fiction? Flash SSD storage is faster than HDD storage

The general perception of SSD storage is that it's always faster than HDD storage. Marc Staimer examines whether that's actually true. Continue Reading

By

• Marc Staimer, Dragon Slayer Consulting

How cloud providers are using NAND flash technology today

Leah Schoeb, senior partner with Evaluator Group, discusses how cloud providers are using flash today in this Expert Answer. Continue Reading

By

• Leah Schoeb, Evaluator Group

How to align laptop flash drive partitions in Windows

Marc Staimer outlines how to ensure that your laptop flash drive partitions are aligned properly in this Expert Answer. Continue Reading

By

• Marc Staimer, Dragon Slayer Consulting

I/O performance in need of a fix

Despite technological advances, unacceptable I/O performance could hold the entire industry back. Here are some solutions that have materialized. Continue Reading

By

• Arun Taneja, Taneja Group

Auto-tiering software set to boost adoption of SSDs

Discover why auto tiering could make expensive SSDs a more viable option, and about improvements to sub-LUN auto tiering and available auto-tiering options. Continue Reading

By

• Carol Sliwa

Is PCIe SSD right for you? Deploying PCI Express SSD devices

Learn about the PCI Express (PCIe) solid-state drive (SSD) market, how and where to deploy PCIe SSD in your environment, and challenges with the technology. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen Foskett, Gestalt IT

All-in-One Guide: Disk storage

Our complete guide to disk storage is divided into three chapters: Drives, RAID and disk arrays. Continue Reading