SAN, NAS, solid state, RAID

Quantum computing: What are the data storage challenges?

Quantum computing will be able to process massive amounts of data at extraordinary speeds, but challenges exist in data storage. How will today’s storage systems keep pace? Continue Reading

Seagate launches 22TB IronWolf straight into QNAP NAS partnership

Seagate’s 22TB IronWolf Pro HDD equals Western Digital for capacity. Of the big drive makers, only Toshiba now lags behind. QNAP NAS to offer petabyte capacities with new Seagate drive Continue Reading

Podcast: No more hard disks in five years, says Pure

We talk to Shawn Rosemarin of Pure Storage, who argues there will be no more hard drive sales in five years because energy costs and capacity needs can only be fulfilled by flash Continue Reading

Veritas shows off software SAN for Kubernetes at KubeCON 2023

Veritas InfoScale aims to provide high-performance block access storage despite limitations such as a maximum node count of 16 per cluster Continue Reading

IT Priorities 2023: Cloud and disaster recovery top storage and backup plans

Cloud storage still the biggest project planned in data storage in 2023, with disaster recovery the most important area in data protection cited by TechTarget/Computer Weekly survey respondents Continue Reading

HPE launches GreenLake for File and Block, and unified arrays

HPE upgrades its storage-as-a-service offer with Greenlake for File and for Block, configurable via the cloud but deployable on-prem. Meanwhile it shows new Alletra MP arrays Continue Reading

IBM Storage launched with backup appliance plan

Prosaically named brand will replace Spectrum products, while IBM rationalises offer for AI/ML, hybrid cloud and malware, which it sees as the backdrop to contemporary IT Continue Reading

HDD specs: Assess SATA vs SAS, sustained data rates and block size

In part two of a two-part series, we look at sustained data rates in hard disk drive specs, SATA versus SAS, drive security, and how HDD makers pack density into products by shingling Continue Reading

HDD specs: Assess MTTF, AFR and UER to get the drives you need

In part one of a two-part series, we look at key hard disk drive specs, including mean time to failure, annual failure rate and unrecoverable error rate, and how they relate to each other Continue Reading

Chasing savings from green storage

Storage upgrades can bring energy and cost savings, but new hardware, cloud and subscription models need careful tweaking and some serious number crunching to get right. Continue Reading

Vast Data’s ‘Act 2’ builds data management layer on QLC flash

Vast Data offers QLC flash bulk storage with a rapid cache I/O layer. Now, it has embarked on offering big data, analytics and application access to highly available data stores Continue Reading

QLC edges into mainstream, but what are its advantages?

QLC flash offers high density but has lifecycle limitations. But what does it really cost compared with TLC and MLC, and how are suppliers implementing it and getting around durability issues? Continue Reading

FlashBlade//E to open up new opportunities in Australia

Pure Storage’s FlashBlade//E will enable the storage supplier to target medical imaging and remote backup workloads and attract new customers in Australia Continue Reading

Pure Storage aims FlashBlade//E at unstructured data capacity

But not the ones that need super high performance. FlashBlade//E will target use cases that need large amounts of QLC flash without the most-demands for rapid access Continue Reading

Unstructured data and the storage it needs

We look at unstructured and semi-structured data and find increasing amounts of production workloads that have their own storage hardware – file and object – needs, including flash Continue Reading

How Dell is future-proofing its business

Dell Technologies is building a more resilient supply chain, investing in growth areas like edge and multicloud, and responding to shifts in consumption models to position itself for long-term growth Continue Reading

Porsche revs up Formula E team with NetApp hybrid cloud

Porsche’s electric car racing team has to set up on city street courses in short order, and does it with a portable server setup and hybrid cloud storage managed by NetApp GFC Continue Reading

Rakuten targets big edge deployments with Symworld Cloud

Japanese giant Rakuten bought Kubernetes management platform Robin.io and put it in 50,000-plus telco antennas. Now it aims Symworld Cloud at enterprise edge deployments Continue Reading

Container storage platforms: Big six approach starts to align

Container storage is a complex but vital task. We survey the big six storage makers and see methods are starting to align around management platforms Continue Reading

NetApp adds QLC C-series, new A-series and subscription upgrades

NetApp C-series QLC-based array family offers flash speed with capacity, while Advance adds subscription upgrades to owned hardware, as well as a new entry-level A-series array Continue Reading

Tiger’s hybrid cloud storage targets medical imaging

Tiger Bridge targets vertical sectors that find it hard to migrate to the cloud by allowing data storage in the cloud while using files locally as if stored on-premise Continue Reading

Green storage: Savings to be made but tricky to achieve

Storage upgrades can bring energy savings. New hardware, the cloud and as-a-service procurement models all cut costs, but can need careful tweaking to get right Continue Reading

NGX: Turkish arrays to challenge US mainstream storage vendors

Ankara-based NGX offers block, file and unified storage with use of cache and RAM to speed access. Software-defined storage, cloud and NVMe-over-fabrics are also coming Continue Reading

DataCore software-defined storage helps car firm avoid breakdowns

Bontaz used to face regular IT outages that took too long to recover from. Then it got DataCore software-defined storage and the ability to rapidly recover from downtime Continue Reading

Atempo plots course to containerised backup with S3 storage

Containerised modularised backup services will allow integration with third-party systems and backup storage unified onto S3 object storage for cost and analytics purposes Continue Reading

Top 10 emerging storage trends stories of 2022

There’s a seismic shift to the cloud. In its wake, object storage, unstructured data, analytics, unified file and object, and consumption models of procurement have all been boosted Continue Reading

Storage hardware shortage causes and how to mitigate them

We look at the IT supply chain shortages that have hit data storage equipment, their causes and what organisations can do to work more smartly to mitigate them Continue Reading

Top 10 storage and backup customer stories of 2022

Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 storage and backup customer stories of 2022 Continue Reading

From capex to opex: Storage procurement options bloom

We look at the growing list of possibilities when it comes to paying for storage infrastructure, ranging from upfront purchases with upgrades to pure pay-as-you-go options Continue Reading

Panzura partners with AWS on ransomware counter-measures

Panzura might have slipped beneath the waves, but it’s come back reinvigorated, and now boasts integration with AWS with ransomware protection and Outposts hardware Continue Reading

Indefinite storage: What it is and why you might need it

Indefinite storage addresses the issue that archived data may need to be kept well beyond the lifespan of the technology it was written for Continue Reading

Pure aims at near bare metal I/O with Portworx PX-Fast

PX-Fast is driven by customer need for scale and high performance in containerised environments and sees reworking of Portworx data architecture to slash storage access time Continue Reading

Cloud storage: Key storage specifications

We look at the key specs in cloud storage, including availability – such as five nines – bandwidth, IOPS and latency, capacity and tiering functionality, egress charges and security Continue Reading

Genome lab puts Vast Data’s rapid I/O to work on patient data

French government-backed SeqOIA ditched its Lustre-based storage after it reached performance limits and files got corrupted. That got fixed by a Vast Data QLC flash-based array Continue Reading

How to get structure from unstructured data

We look at how to gain structure from unstructured data, via AI/ML analytics to create new records, selecting object data via SQL and storing unstructured files in NoSQL formats Continue Reading

Scality Ring 9 brings Storage Accelerator enhanced flash tiers

Scality upgrade to Ring 9 of its object (and file) storage software sees enhancements to tiering, the introduction of Prometheus-based monitoring and hooks into VMware vCloud Director Continue Reading

NetApp launches BlueXP as single console across on-prem and cloud

BlueXP gives customers monitoring and control over all NetApp storage on-site and in multiple clouds. Meanwhile, its Ontap OS has added S3 object storage access Continue Reading

Huawei pushes OceanStor’s Arm chip benefits at Paris love-in

Chinese giant trumpets green benefits on its Arm processor hardware with OceanStor Dorado V6 range, which offers huge capacities and performance at the high end Continue Reading

Cloud bursting: Six key steps in planning and decision-making

We explore the key stages in a cloud bursting project: assessing the data and workflows, variants in the mechanism, application suitability, having the right resources, and planning and testing Continue Reading

GRAID puts RAID on a GPU for cut-price disk protection and rebuilds

US startup puts its software on Nvidia graphics cards to offload RAID processing and throughput of 110GBps throughput across up to 32 NVMe solid-state drives Continue Reading

Is object storage good for databases?

We look at object storage vs block access SAN storage and ask if object storage can be used for database workloads, or is it just good for bulk storage of analytics datasets? Continue Reading

Bowled out: NVMe flash pioneer Pavilion Data ceases business

Last of the pioneer NVMe flash storage array makers, Pavilion made multiprotocol highs-speed boxes – but it seems to have run out of sources of investment and gone out of business Continue Reading

Air gaps for backup and how they help against ransomware

The air gap is a basic of backups and storage. We look at what’s meant by an air gap, the rise of the logical air gap, and its place in the fight against ransomware Continue Reading

NFS vs SMB vs CIFS: File storage protocols defined

We take a close look at NFS and SMB – the key file storage access protocols – and weigh up their pros, cons and suitability to differing datacentre environments Continue Reading

Edge storage: What it is and the technologies it uses

Storage is moving from the datacentre to the edge. We define edge storage, look at the characteristics of edge computing that shape it and the technologies it requires Continue Reading

4 NAS devices for enterprises in 2023

If you're considering a NAS device for your organization, discover the factors to evaluate and some vendor offerings to add to your NAS shopping list. Continue Reading

AIOps for storage: Potential huge benefits, but lots of lock-in

Applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to storage can help to predict bottlenecks, diagnose I/O issues and recommend upgrades, but suppliers’ products are largely limited to their own hardware Continue Reading

PoINT to offer on-site S3 object storage archive on disk and tape

Archival Gateway can cluster up to 256 tape readers to provide S3 object storage clusters capable of storing 50 billion objects per bucket, and giving throughput of 230GBps Continue Reading

NAS vs. cloud storage: Which is better for your business?

On-site NAS and cloud-based NAS are the two main file storage options. Organizations need to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of each to make the best choice. Continue Reading

Dr Martens goes feetfirst into cloud-to-cloud backup

Iconic bootmaker laces up for a strategy to move all applications to the cloud, beginning with cloud-to-cloud backup for Microsoft 365 apps plus on-site VMware operations Continue Reading

Consider the advantages and disadvantages of NAS

NAS devices provide file sharing that is easy to manage but may be harder to scale than other storage types. Get to know the advantages and disadvantages of NAS. Continue Reading

Panasas’s double NAS offer aims at multiple analytics workloads

ActiveStor Flash and ActiveStor Ultra XL target I/O profiles from rapid AI/ML to processing-heavy modelling but remain firmly on-prem, with object and cloud declared ‘interesting’ Continue Reading

VMware’s vSAN 8 gets a rebuild for the solid-state storage era

At VMware Explore 2022, we interview VMware’s John Gilmartin about the new, faster vSAN, plans to use DPUs, the vSAN+ cloud offering, and VMware Ransomware Recovery Continue Reading

Cloud bursting: What it is and what it’s good for

We look at cloud bursting, which allows organisations to meet demand by bursting compute and storage to the cloud Continue Reading

Unstructured vs semi-structured data: Order from chaos

We look at alternatives to relational databases that have emerged to help bring some structure to unstructured data and gain valuable insight by making it semi-structured Continue Reading

Podcast: Storage the key bottleneck for AI processing

We talk to Panasas about the need for storage that can cope with delivering high volumes of small files for artificial intelligence with the throughput and latency needed to service costly GPUs Continue Reading

NetApp storage goes GA for VMware Cloud on AWS

Move will bring up to 50% decrease in TCO for customers running VMware apps in the Amazon cloud, says NetApp. No date yet for extension of the service across other public clouds Continue Reading

NAS vs. server: Which storage option should you choose?

NAS and server-based storage have unique attributes that support a variety of storage and DR applications, and each can be supplemented by cloud-based storage as needed. Continue Reading

7 guidelines to secure network storage

These practices, including firmware and VPN guidance, protect NAS devices. Use these steps as standalone procedures or incorporate them into your overall security process. Continue Reading

Bfloat16: What it is and how it impacts storage

Bfloat16 is an emerging way to handle very large numbers, developed by Google for its machine and neural learning and prediction. We look at what it means for IT and storage Continue Reading

Lightbits offers NVMe-over-TCP at 5x less than NVMe-over-FC et al

Lightbits builds NVMe-overTCP SAN clusters for Linux servers with Intel cards that accelerate network processing to give millions of IOPS with storage for public and private clouds Continue Reading

Podcast: How storage AIOps is revolutionising hybrid cloud ops

We talk to Tintri about storage and AIOps, which is the application of AI and machine learning-based software to monitor storage infrastructure to be able to detect patterns and predict failure, the need to upgrade, and so on Continue Reading

Podcast: Storage at the edge – impact and opportunities

We talk to Tobias Flitsch of Nebulon about the rise of edge computing and how that will drive demand for more storage that needs to be secure and resilient and centrally manageable Continue Reading

Unstructured data storage – on-prem vs cloud vs hybrid

We look at storage for unstructured data on-premise, in the cloud and across multiple locations. There are advantages to a hybrid approach, but there can be hidden costs, too Continue Reading

The verdict is Pure as Scottish prosecutor upgrades high-end storage

Scotland’s prosecution service saw disk drives in the dock every week with EMC legacy storage. Now it’s got Pure all-flash and has turned over an (Evergreen) new leaf Continue Reading

Four key need-to-knows about CXL

Compute Express Link will pool multiple types of memory and so allow much higher memory capacities and the possibility of rapidly composable infrastructure to meet the needs of varied workloads Continue Reading

NHS trust cuts costs and refresh cycle with Wasabi cloud storage

Imperial College NHS Trust expects to saves 30% in storage costs and cut back on five-year refresh headaches in a move that has seen backup and archive data move to the Wasabi cloud Continue Reading

NetApp Ontap to be sole vSAN storage alternative in the cloud

NetApp Ontap storage will provide file access capacity to extend VMware data stores in AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google clouds as a cheaper alternative to VMware vSAN Continue Reading

File, block and object: Storage fundamentals in the cloud era

We look at the three basic ways that storage accesses data – via file, block and object – as well as the ways in which the rise of the cloud and distributed systems have brought changes to them Continue Reading

Backup maintenance: Five key points to consider

Effective backups need to ensure all data is protected, and to track media and software changes. We look at five key things to consider Continue Reading

Weka scale-out NAS v4 goes beyond just AWS to go multicloud

Weka v4’s multicloud capability means the scale-out NAS file system can work across customer datacentres and public clouds that include AWS, Azure, GCP and Oracle Continue Reading

Global file systems: Hybrid cloud and follow-the-sun access

We look at global distributed file systems that put enterprise data under a single file access namespace so that enterprises and branch offices can get to data from anywhere Continue Reading

Podcast: The legacy and modern apps that drive object storage

We talk to object (and file) storage vendor Scality about the ways the application and development environment is changing and how that is driving object storage Continue Reading

Data gravity: What is it and how to manage it

Data gravity can attract increasing amounts of data, and brings with it onerous management overheads. We look at how to mitigate data gravity in datacentre and cloud Continue Reading

Unified file and object storage: Three suppliers and their approaches

We look at unified file and object storage products from NetApp, Pure Storage and Scality, the differences, the workloads aimed at, and how unified they actually are Continue Reading

Dell server, storage, PC sales grow despite component supply chain woes

Dell executives cite the company’s use of “alternative” component supply chains as server, storage and PC sales grow despite difficulties for most of the market sourcing parts Continue Reading

China using top consumer routers to hack Western comms networks

An advisory from US cyber authorities shares details of multiple vulnerabilities exploited by Chinese state actors to hack into Western telecoms networks Continue Reading

Pure FlashBlade//S and Evergreen//Flex boost as-a-service push

FlashBlade//S brings two new arrays in which customers can upgrade controllers and capacity, while //Flex allows capacity to be bought and moved across any QLC or TLC Pure array Continue Reading

Four obstacles to hybrid cloud storage – and possible solutions

We look at obstacles to hybrid cloud storage, such as complexity, a need for object storage, application suitability, and cost, with potential ways to mitigate the problems Continue Reading

Podcast: How to get truly portable Kubernetes storage

We talk to NetApp CTO Grant Caley about what is needed from storage to really deliver in a world of Kubernetes containerisation and microservices portability in hybrid cloud working Continue Reading

Portworx adds anti-ransomware to PX-Backup for Kubernetes

Pure’s Kubernetes storage and data protection platform adds object locking to combat ransomware Continue Reading

Video effects firm cuts costs by 20% and goes hybrid with Hammerspace

Jellyfish Pictures saves on rising power and office space costs, as well as Brexit difficulties, by using Hammerspace to allow access to large files from any geographic location Continue Reading

Hammerspace the ‘missing link’ for a cloud still lacking

The cloud can’t enable true multi-region working so Hammerspace helps make data visible globally and aggregate it as needed between locations with workflows set via customer policy Continue Reading

Pure to offer on-prem object storage as Snowflake data source

Pure Storage partnership with Snowflake will see the cloud data warehousing platform make use of on-prem FlashBlade fast file and object storage as a source for analytics data Continue Reading

Ctera opens up its storage to third-party analytics via APIs

File system software builds pools of NAS-like storage accessible from anywhere, with APIs to third-party tools to interrogate data for business processes, anomaly detection and more Continue Reading

PeerGFS to add AI/ML anomaly detection to distributed file system product

Peer will add AI/ML-based anomaly detection as it ramps up security protection in its PeerGFS distributed file management software, with Linux server support also to come in 2022 Continue Reading

Storage requirements for AI, ML and analytics in 2022

We look at what is needed for artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the pros and cons of block, file and object storage to store and access very large amounts of often unstructured data Continue Reading

Pure says unstructured data needs storage scale and performance

Podcast: Pure Storage says huge growth of unstructured data and its diversity means storage has to be able to scale with it and offer performance to gain insights Continue Reading

Ad agency slashes NetApp costs with Datadobi data migration

US-based branding agency needed to migrate 20TB of large files to new NetApp hardware, but unwilling to stomach the vendor’s migration costs it chose Datadobi instead Continue Reading

NetApp Cloud Insights gets AI monitoring and ransomware detection

Cloud Insights adds artificial intelligence-based continuous audit and monitoring of entire IT estate and generates impact assessments from performance events, plus anomaly alerting for ransomware Continue Reading

TV provider MediaHub boots SAN and NAS for Scality object storage

Sydney-based TV content provider MediaHub got tired of performance issues and scaling difficulties with SAN and NAS, so it powered its as-a-service offer with Scality object storage Continue Reading

Storage suppliers put Kubernetes platforms centre stage

How to orchestrate the orchestrator? Storage suppliers’ Kubernetes management platforms aim to meet storage and data protection challenge in containerised application environments Continue Reading

Quantum launches ‘scale-out’ i6H rackmount tape library

Aimed at hyperscalers and enterprises, the LTO-9 system comes in a rackmount form factor that can be deployed anywhere in the datacentre as part of a common pool of storage Continue Reading

Five key points on file locking vs object locking

We look at file vs object storage locking mechanisms, how different forms of storage ensure data consistency, and especially how object storage is tackling the challenge Continue Reading

Micron 7450 aims its 176 TLC layers at QLC flash use cases

New 176-layer tech brings densely packed flash cells in drives that come in 2.5”, M.2 and EDSFF form factors, aimed at datacentre workloads from archive to database storage Continue Reading

Software firm saves storage array costs with Nutanix hyper-converged

Banking SaaS provider Vialink needed more IOPS when its NetApp arrays slowed up, but Nutanix hyper-converged proved a better package than Pure Storage and Dell EMC, too Continue Reading

Cloud storage cost challenges and how to tackle them

We look at cloud capacity procurement pitfalls, forecasting challenges, the danger of over-buying, supplier lock-in, deciphering billing and resizing capacity when projects finish Continue Reading

Hammerspace offers follow-the-sun access to on-prem and cloud storage

Startup aims to succeed where others have failed and present file, block and object storage data from any and multiple locations as if it were local to the user Continue Reading

Posix vs object storage: How much longer for Posix?

We look at Posix compliance in storage and why it is being challenged by object storage and the need to scale much further than Posix-oriented storage was ever intended to Continue Reading

Tiger offers lightweight file access for hybrid cloud

Roar data, anyone? Tiger offers local access to cloud data, with only parts of the file being worked on downloaded and file locking in cloud buckets to ensure integrity Continue Reading