Blog Archives

Overcoming The All Flash Cost Challenge

Posted on March 28, 2012 by George Crump

If all storage were the same price, all storage would be solid state storage. We would end data tiering, there would be no performance tuning and the discussion of storage performance problems would be a thing of the past. Of course all…

Tagged with: Flash memory, Hard disk drive, Multi-level cell, Pure, SLC, solid state storage, Solid-state drive, storage efficiency, VMware
Posted in Article

Why Flash Wears Out and How to Make it Last Longer

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Eric Slack

The life expectancy and durability of flash-based storage is a common topic in many presentations involving solid-state drive (SSD) products. While flash endurance is a prime factor in the economics of this technology, seldom is the audience given an explanation…

Tagged with: Bit Error Rate, ECC, Flash memory, Flash memory controller, HGST, MLC, Multi-level cell, Solid-state drive, SSD, sTec
Posted in Article

The Challenges with SSD Caching and Tiering

Posted on February 29, 2012 by George Crump

It is universally accepted that for most applications, adding flash to the storage infrastructure will greatly improve storage performance and offer a productivity return on the investment. The controversy in the industry is deciding where the flash storage should be…

Tagged with: All-Flash Array, Cache (computing), Flash memory, flash storage, Hard disk drive, Hardware, Pure, Solid-state drive, storage system
Posted in Article

Achieving Maximum SSD Efficiency

Posted on January 25, 2012 by George Crump

There are two well-known facts about solid state disk (SSD). First, SSD is fast and second, SSD is expensive—compared with traditional disk drives. There are also two well-known facts about the data center. First, almost every data center needs more…

Tagged with: Data center, Deduplication, Flash memory, Hard disk drive, RAID, Solid-state drive, SSD
Posted in Article

Integrating PCIe SSD Into The Storage System

Posted on December 6, 2011 by George Crump

The NexGen storage system is designed from the ground up to take advantage of solid state storage and is the first system that we know of that integrates storage tiering from the first release. It is also the first storage…

Tagged with: Hard disk drive, IOPS, NexGen, PCI Express, Solid-state drive
Posted in Blog

As an SSD Supplier, LSI isn’t just a Flash in the Pan

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Eric Slack

Flash technologies are certainly a hot topic in storage and IT these days. A lot of new companies are coming onto the market with exciting new products. There’s one company that’s somewhat of a fixture in the storage industry but…

Tagged with: Flash memory, Flash memory controller, LSI, LSI Corporation, NetApp, Solid-state drive
Posted in Briefing Note

What is a Storage Controller?

Posted on November 22, 2011 by George Crump

Storage arrays all have some form of a processor embedded into a controller. As a result, a storage array’s controller is essentially a server that’s responsible for performing a range of functions for the storage system. Think of it as…

AKiTio Taurus Super Mini S

Posted on November 15, 2011 by George Crump

A new addition to the Storage Switzerland Lab is the AKiTio Super Mini S. This is a small, somewhat portable dual drive storage device that can either stripe or mirror two 2.5″ hard drives. While some assembly is required I…

Tagged with: Akitio, Backup, Booting, Hard disk drive, IEEE 1394, RAID, Solid-state drive, Standard RAID levels, Test Drive
Posted in Lab Report

Advancing The State Of Solid State Caching

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Eric Slack

Most applications could benefit from a faster infrastructure. Storage performance, especially IOPS, has been routinely identified as a primary impediment to improving compute infrastructure speed. Not surprisingly, customers are turning to Flash Solid State Devices (SSDs) as a solution to…

Tagged with: Cache (computing), Flash memory, IOPS, Marvell, Multi-level cell, PCI Express, Solid-state drive, SSD
Posted in Article

SSD DIMM – An Alternative to PCIe SSD

Posted on August 26, 2011 by George Crump

PCIe Solid State Disks (SSDs) have become extremely popular in a very short amount of time. They provide uncomplicated access to high performance storage, allowing latency problems to be solved where the application is run – on the server. And,…