Flash memory and storage

Intel P4510 U.2 SSD ships with 64-layer TLC 3D NAND

Intel launched a new P4510 Series of U.2 solid-state drives (SSDs) equipped with its 64-layer triple-level cell (TLC) 3D NAND flash and enhanced firmware, enabling greater storage density and lower ... Continue Reading

NetApp cloud-flash pivot brings cheers

NetApp attributed strong product revenue growth last quarter in part to two-a-days – it’s averaging two displacements of rivals’ all-flash SAN systems every day. Success in NetApp cloud and flash ... Continue Reading

Time for a flash storage system refresh: What's next?

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Time for a flash storage system refresh: What's next?

The second wave of flash storage systems in the enterprise must be about optimizing flash performance and density, not just IOPS, and being faster than its hard disk predecessor. Continue Reading

NVMe flash hopeful E8 Storage goes software-only route

All-flash array startup E8 Storage has expanded into reference architecture with the launch of a software-only version. The new product, E8 Storage Software, runs on rack servers from Dell EMC, ... Continue Reading

When to use TLC NAND flash memory

TLC NAND flash storage devices wear out quickly, and they're not as fast as MLC or SLC. But TLC devices are a good choice for tier 2 storage and read-heavy applications. Continue Reading

Kaminario storage jettisons hardware for software-only cloud model

Kaminario is the latest vendor to deemphasize hardware in favor of a solely software-defined approach. Under its new strategy, customers will buy Kaminario storage as a reference stack from global ... Continue Reading

New enterprise SATA Micron SSDs use 64-layer 3D NAND flash

Micron launches new 5200 Series enterprise SATA SSDs with high-density 64-layer 3D NAND flash technology, offering similar performance to prior 32-layer 5100 Series. Continue Reading

Factors to consider before evaluating hybrid storage systems

The right hybrid flash storage can help an organization maximize its storage capacity and improve performance. Learn what factors to consider before evaluating hybrid storage arrays. Continue Reading

Key factors that affect NAND flash memory endurance

Program/erase cycles, write amplification and even garbage collection contribute to faster NAND flash wear-out. But wear leveling and bad block can help. Continue Reading

Pure Storage FlashStack is recycler's renewable resource

Food waste recycler Valley Proteins chose Pure Storage's all-flash converged infrastructure to replace Dell EMC VNX-Cisco UCS for 24 TB of usable storage with Cohesity backup. Continue Reading

NVMe enterprise flash storage, new memory mean change in 2018

Storage executives and industry analysts predict NVMe, NVMe over Fabrics and new memory technologies will disrupt the storage industry this year and into the future. Continue Reading

Rehearsals over, Violin Systems raises curtain on comeback

Violin flash customers can consume FSP hardware as a service with three-year subscription at guaranteed cost of 1 cent per GB per month, based on 140 TB and data deduplication. Continue Reading

Potential NVMe benefits spark enterprise IT interest

Enterprise IT pros who have seen the benefits of conventional flash storage are looking ahead to potential use cases for faster NVMe-based technologies. Continue Reading

Persistent storage-class memory to revolutionize data centers

Since it doesn't lose data during power outages, persistent memory will revolutionize direct-attached storage in particular and the cost/performance ratio of computing overall. Continue Reading

Persistent storage-class memory to revolutionize data centers

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Reduxio Systems' storage wows human resources specialist

Reduxio HX550 hybrid arrays provide primary storage with native data protection for CPP's talent management software, which includes a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment. Continue Reading

NVMe SSD storage costs won't hinder market takeover

Storage vendors agree that NVMe will become the default for solid-state drives, but it must still overcome cost and configuration challenges. Continue Reading

Hybrid storage arrays join multiple storage types to cut costs

Despite being more complex than all-flash or all-hard disk drive systems, hybrid systems offer the speed and low latency of flash and the economy of HDDs, tape or cloud. Continue Reading

NVMe-focused Toshiba storage node software due in '18

Toshiba plans to deliver storage node software designed to extend the high performance and low latency benefits of NVMe-based solid-state drives over a network fabric. Toshiba Memory America’s ... Continue Reading

Western Digital-Toshiba flash clash ends

Western Digital and Toshiba settled their NAND dispute with an out-of-court settlement that allows Toshiba’s sale of its NAND chip business while WD keeps its stake in the companies’ joint venture. ... Continue Reading

Which enterprise NVMe SSD vendor is right for me?

Picking an NVMe drive is an important decision. Consider thermal control, proprietary software and drive architecture to make the right choice. Continue Reading

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

NVMe-oF and storage class memory set to disrupt storage

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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

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

Do users need 3D NAND flash memory?

The population of users who need 3D NAND flash chips on their computers is limited to those who run extremely large workloads, such as big applications or multiple virtual machines. Continue Reading

NAND flash memory basics: Comparing SLC, MLC and TLC NAND

NAND is the most popular type of flash, but there are many different types, and they each serve a different purpose. Do you know your NAND flash basics? Continue Reading

NetApp revenue rides flash gravy train

NetApp is showing a legacy storage array vendor can still increase revenue impressively during these days of scant storage growth. NetApp Wednesday night reported its fourth straight quarter of ... Continue Reading

NOR vs. NAND flash memory: What companies need to know

NOR and NAND flash memory each suit different use cases, and companies looking at a flash memory product need to know the difference before they buy. Continue Reading

Are you ready for NVMe storage and the future of flash?

Three factors to consider beyond technical capabilities before designing and investing money and resources in a low-latency NVMe flash storage network. Continue Reading

Are you ready for NVMe storage and the future of flash?

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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

Solid-state drive performance metrics go beyond latency, IOPS

In determining performance and lifespan of an SSD, companies must consider the drive's architecture, the storage controller and write amplification in addition to IOPS and latency. Continue Reading

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

Hybrid storage arrays offer the best of all storage worlds

Hybrid flash arrays provide performance benefits over all-flash and all-hard disk storage systems and can address the varying workload demands of today's organizations. Continue Reading

Western Digital CEO vows to block Toshiba NAND sale

Western Digital CEO Steve Milligan said he remains confident his company will win its fight to prevent its NAND manufacturing joint venture partner Toshiba from selling its memory chip unit without ... Continue Reading

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

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.

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A year later: Pros and cons of the Dell and EMC merger

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Accelerate predictive analytics software with flash technology

For organizations that must analyze large amounts of data quickly and efficiently, nothing beats solid-state storage. Predictive analytics applications perform better with flash. Continue Reading

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

Is there a Ceph client to connect Windows machines?

Integrating Ceph and Windows isn't as straightforward as connecting Ceph to Linux machines. You'll need a Ceph Gateway or SUSE Enterprise Storage to get the job done. Continue Reading

Enter Your Great Storage Product in the Products of the Year Competition

In just a few days, the door will shut—and your outstanding data storage product will be left standing out in the cold rather than in the running for a Storage magazine/SearchStorage.com Storage ... Continue Reading

Toshiba memory business sale points to Bain-led consortium

The Toshiba memory business could be sold to a Bain Capital-led consortium that reportedly includes Apple, Dell Technologies and Seagate if the parties can strike a deal that passes legal muster ... Continue Reading

Back-end storage considerations for in-memory processing

Storing hot data in main memory removes the latency associated with hard disk and solid-state storage operations; it's the best option for need-it-now data. Continue Reading

How NVMe over Fabrics will change the storage environment

Expect NVMe to supplant SCSI and SAS protocols for SSD storage and NVMe over Fabrics to find a place in high-end networking deployments for transporting data. Continue Reading

HPE storage more Nimble after $1.2 billion buy

HPE storage sales received a boost last quarter from its $1.2 bilion Nimble Storage acquisition. HPE did not break out its total storage revenue by product, or even give a total amount except to ... Continue Reading

How NVMe over Fabrics will change the storage environment

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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

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

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

Pure Storage CEO swap: Dietzen out, Giancarlo in

Pure Storage CEO Scott Dietzen resigned unexpectedly Thursday, as the all-flash pioneer named former Cisco executive Charlie Giancarlo its new leader. Dietzen will stay at Pure as chairman, ... Continue Reading

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

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

NetApp earnings lifted by all-flash sales

Strong all-flash sales and a new niche acquisition highlighted the NetApp earnings call this week. The vendor on Wednesday reported net revenue of $1.33 billion, up 2% year over year and above the ... Continue Reading

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

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

Should I be concerned about SSD lifespan?

HDD and RAID vendors have stirred up FUD around the lifespan of SSD drive cells, but companies considering solid-state don't have to worry about arrays wearing out. Continue Reading

Flash Memory Summit 2017: Flash really on fire

Any claims that "flash is on fire" at Flash Memory Summit 2017 this week drew awkward glances, nervous laughs or groans. That's because one flash system literally caught fire, causing the ... Continue Reading

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

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

New enterprise SSDs launch from Intel, Micron, Toshiba

SSD manufacturers showing off new 3D NAND products at this year's Flash Memory Summit include Intel, Micron and Toshiba; Intel adds new SSD form factor and Optane options. Continue Reading

Attala Systems shows off 'CPU-less' FPGA storage gear

Startup Attala Systems plans a joint demonstration with Intel at Flash Memory Summit next week. The FPGAs serve as NVMe storage targets and handle processing and network commands. Continue Reading

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

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

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WD-Toshiba memory sale requires 2-week notice to WD

Toshiba and Western Digital's SanDisk subsidiary acted on a San Francisco judge's suggestion today and agreed that Toshiba would give SanDisk two weeks' notice before closing on a transfer or sale ... Continue Reading

IBM flash storage and cloud rare revenue bright spots

While IBM's revenue dropped for the 21st straight quarter, its storage business proved a bright spot. Following its own 22-quarter slump, IBM storage is now on a two-quarter winning streak. During ... 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

With trepidation, Tintri storage takes Nasdaq plunge

Tintri heads into the July 4 holiday wearing a new status symbol: publicly traded company. Still, it's initial public offering came a day late and $40 million short. Shares in Tintri storage ... Continue Reading

Tintri IPO aims at lower share price

The Tintri IPO remains a go for now, but the flash vendor now expects less of a financial windfall than originally anticipated.   The vendor's long-awaited initial public offering (IPO) of stock ... Continue Reading

IBM DS8880 arrays lift mainframe archiving to the cloud

IBM Storage has closed the loop on its Transparent Cloud Tiering software by adding it to IBM DS8880 arrays for archival storage of mainframe data. The Transparent Cloud Tiering (TCT) microcode ... Continue Reading

Two Tegile storage tiers highlight IntelliFlash update

Tegile Systems updates IntelliFlash with two tiers of flash. The 6U Tegile configuration supports 72 SAS SSDs for capacity and NVMe flash drives for performance. Continue Reading

Panzura cloud NAS gets performance jolt from NVMe

Panzura's enhancements to its cloud NAS include support for NVMe flash and increased capacity limit on VMware deployments. The cloud file system works with object storage. Continue Reading

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

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

Users get sneak peek at Pure, Cisco NVMe storage fabric

Pure Storage and Cisco Systems showcase NVM Express over Fabrics storage based on FlashArray//X all-flash and Cisco next-gen NVMe fabric protocol at Accelerate conference. Continue Reading

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

Pure Storage CEO assesses NVMe, flash storage market

In the run-up to Pure Accelerate, CEO Scott Dietzen assesses the trajectory of the NVMe flash market, vendor consolidation and how customers are using Pure's FlashArray. Continue Reading

New use cases for flash data storage benefit enterprises

Adoption of protocols such as NVMe and memory bus-based flash DIMMs helps flash storage devices keep pace with the most demanding use cases. Continue Reading

New use cases for flash data storage benefit enterprises

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HPE storage looks to Nimble, SimpliVity for jolt

Recent Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) storage acquisitions will play a key role in “reengineering” the company, CEO Meg Whitman said. During HPE’s earnings call Wednesday night, Whitman called ... Continue Reading

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

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

NetApp pockets Plexistor, nonvolatile memory software

NetApp quietly slipped an acquisition of storage memory software startup Plexistor into an earnings call otherwise noteworthy for strong results last quarter and a disappointing forecast for this ... Continue Reading

Phase change memory technology: Where is it headed?

With the release of Intel's Optane, a product based on phase change memory is finally on the market. Where PCM goes is dependent on quite a few factors. Continue Reading

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

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

Western Digital ships enterprise SAS-based 3D NAND SSDs

Tired of waiting for NVMe? Western Digital's HGST Ultrastar-branded 12 Gbps SAS-based 3D NAND SSDs target high-performance virtual, database, analytics and cloud workloads. Continue Reading

Optane memory: Opening the window on Intel's latest technology

Now that Optane products are on the market, the future of fast memory for storage and processing looks bright. But will Optane match the claims Intel has been making? Continue Reading

Micron SolidScale NVMe-oF-based storage architecture emerges

Micron Technology launched its SolidScale storage architecture based on NVMe-oF technologies, with plans for branded appliances to start shipping later this year. Continue Reading

Dell EMC all-flash moves focus on VMAX, XtremIO and Isilon

Dell EMC VMAX and XtremIO SAN all-flash arrays christen Dell EMC World 2017. All-flash Isilon NAS adds Infinity modular architecture. Dense flash in compact footprint is the focus. Continue Reading

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.

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Is an all-flash data center worth it?

The elevated cost of flash technology is a reason to limit flash usage. Find out what other factors go into a flash purchase and how it's used in today's data centers. Continue Reading

Is an all-flash data center worth it?

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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

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

Flash storage market shifting, Kaminario CEO says

Dani Golan of Kaminario sees NVMe as the next big disruptor in the flash market; says Kaminario focuses on cloud and SaaS, while legacy vendors fight over shrinking IT budgets. Continue Reading

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

IBM flash storage helps snap 22-quarter downslide

IBM storage sales rose in the first quarter of 2017, for the first time in more than five years. IBM snapped a 22-quarter string of storage declines on the strength of flash hardware and ... Continue Reading