January 10, 2011 – Any top technologies list is somewhat (totally?) arbitrary. Do you pick them based on how interesting the technologies are? How much end-user interest is behind them? The extent to which the technologies will benefit end users? How much revenue they’ll generate? Or all of the above? Let’s go with “all of the above.”
Here’s my list of some of the key storage technologies for this year (in no particular order), with links to related in-depth features and recent product news articles from InfoStor and our partner site Enterprise Storage Forum.
#1. Solid-state disk (SSD) drives
2011 will finally be The Year of SSDs. All of the major disk array vendors now offer SSDs (mostly from STEC, although competition will heat up significantly this year). Prices are declining rapidly as volumes increase and technology improves. Some vendors are positioning relatively inexpensive multi-level cell (MLC), as opposed to single-level cell (SLC), NAND flash for enterprise duty. SSD and controller vendors have solved most of the issues around reliability and endurance which, together with the price declines, eliminate the primary gating factors to end-user adoption of SSDs.
Market researcher IDC predicts that the total SSD market will grow at a 58% CAGR in unit shipments and a 44% CAGR in revenues over the next few years.
The fastest growing segment of the overall market is enterprise-class SSDs, where unit shipment are expected to surge at a CAGR of 74%, and revenues are expected to grow at a 54% clip, through 2014.
IDC expects the total SSD market to exceed $7 billion in 2014.
Related articles:
Why solid state drives won’t replace spinning disk (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Fixing SSD performance degradation, part 1 (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Fixing SSD performance degradation, part 2 (Enterprise Storage Forum)
SSDs hit mainstream stride
Intel ships miniature SSDs
SSD update: Toshiba, OCZ
Hitachi GST enters SSD market
STEC scores OEM win with IBM for MLC SSDs
LSI ships SSD-based accelerator card
#2. Data reduction (data deduplication and/or compression) for primary storage
Just like data deduplication for secondary storage swept the market and became mainstream over the last couple years, data reduction for primary storage will gain traction in end-user adoption over the next two years.
Interest in data reduction for primary storage picked up significantly last year due in large part to a number of factors, including NetApp’s evangelizing the technology, IBM’s acquisition of Storwize, Dell’s acquisition of Ocarina, and the entry of startups such as BridgeSTOR.
Related articles:
IBM to buy Storwize for real-time data compression (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Dell to acquire Ocarina for data deduplication
Startup BridgeSTOR enters data reduction market
Musings on the future of data dedupe (blog post)
Data deduplication: Permabit finds success with OEM model (blog post)
#3. Cloud storage
A few years after the term ‘cloud storage’ was introduced, vendors and users are still debating what it is. Let’s just call it storage-as-a-service, whether internal (private) or external (public, or hosted). There were probably more product/service announcements regarding cloud storage last year than any other technology. And there’s little doubt that will continue in 2011.
Related articles:
SNIA forms Cloud Backup and Recovery SIG
SNIA develops standards for cloud storage
SNIA completes cloud storage standard
Guidelines for implementing cloud storage
EMC debuts self-service platform for cloud storage
F5 ARX appliances integrate with cloud storage
#4. Data center convergence
Data center convergence can be viewed as the unification of storage, servers and networks, or, as the convergence of networks. In the context of the latter, we’ll see increased end-user interest in Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) in 2011, which was stalled over the last year due in part to the slump in IT spending. But as the IT world moves to 10GbE, the old FCoE-vs.-iSCSI debate will be renewed this year (with a lot of the debate centered on performance and cost issues).
I also expect a lot of controversy over the various approaches to converged (10GbE/FC/iSCSI) adapters, which are usually referred to as converged network adapters (CNAs). Expect a battle royale between vendors such as Emulex, QLogic, Intel, Broadcom and others.
Related articles:
Guidelines for FCoE deployment
FCoE I/O convergence and virtualization
Brocade moves FCoE beyond top-of-rack (Enterprise Storage Forum)
Broadcom claims 2 million+ IOPS on converged controller (blog post)
Intel’s card play in unified networking (10GbE+iSCSI+FCoE)
#5. Storage solutions for virtual servers and desktops
There has been a lot of innovation from storage vendors as well as virtual server platform vendors over the last few years in the area of optimizing storage for virtual server environments, particularly in disk arrays and backup/recovery software. But this year, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) deployments will take off, and just as virtual servers created a lot of storage challenges, so will VDI.
According to a Client Virtualization Straw Poll conducted by CDW, which surveyed 200 IT managers, 91% of the respondents plan to implement some form of client virtualization within the next 12 to 24 months. The primary drivers behind adoption of client virtualization are improved operational efficiency and reduced costs (expected savings were estimated at 20% of the IT budget, according to early adopters).
Related articles:
Storage considerations for VDI implementations
Seven steps to a successful VDI implementation
FalconStor adds VDI support to SAN Accelerator
Related blog post: The Top Ten storage acquisitions of 2010
Showing posts with label solid-state disk (SSD) drives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solid-state disk (SSD) drives. Show all posts
Monday, January 10, 2011
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
How bad is SSD performance degradation?
December 7, 2010 -- “It's a fairly well known fact that solid-state disk (SSD) performance can suffer over time. This was quite common in early SSDs, but newer controllers have helped reduce this problem through a variety of techniques. In part one of this two-part look at SSDs, we examine the origins of the performance problems and some potential solutions.”
That’s how Enterprise Storage Forum contributor Jeffrey Layton begins his exhaustive two-part series on SSD performance degradation.
For years (decades, actually), the focus on SSDs was on the exorbitant prices of the devices. Then the attention shifted to reliability, or endurance, issues. But SSD and controller manufacturers made great strides in those areas over the past couple years.
Now, the focus may be turning to performance degradation over time.
Layton’s articles are the best I’ve read on this subject. However, a warning: The articles are very long, very technical, and very detailed. But if you (a) are using, or considering using, SSDs (b) have sufficient technical credentials and (c) have a lot of time, I strongly recommend reading the articles.
Part 1 examines the issues that cause performance degradation in SSDs, and looks at some of the solutions (or “workarounds,” because all SSD solutions seem to involve trade-offs) that vendors have implemented.
Part 2 looks at technologies/issues such as write amplification, over-provisioning and the TRIM command, and then delves into some very in-depth testing of Intel’s X25-E SSD in ‘before’ and ‘after’ stress test scenarios. Check it out on Enterprise Storage Forum:
Fixing SSD Performance Degradation, Part 1
Fixing SSD Performance Degradation, Part 2
That’s how Enterprise Storage Forum contributor Jeffrey Layton begins his exhaustive two-part series on SSD performance degradation.
For years (decades, actually), the focus on SSDs was on the exorbitant prices of the devices. Then the attention shifted to reliability, or endurance, issues. But SSD and controller manufacturers made great strides in those areas over the past couple years.
Now, the focus may be turning to performance degradation over time.
Layton’s articles are the best I’ve read on this subject. However, a warning: The articles are very long, very technical, and very detailed. But if you (a) are using, or considering using, SSDs (b) have sufficient technical credentials and (c) have a lot of time, I strongly recommend reading the articles.
Part 1 examines the issues that cause performance degradation in SSDs, and looks at some of the solutions (or “workarounds,” because all SSD solutions seem to involve trade-offs) that vendors have implemented.
Part 2 looks at technologies/issues such as write amplification, over-provisioning and the TRIM command, and then delves into some very in-depth testing of Intel’s X25-E SSD in ‘before’ and ‘after’ stress test scenarios. Check it out on Enterprise Storage Forum:
Fixing SSD Performance Degradation, Part 1
Fixing SSD Performance Degradation, Part 2
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
SSDs hit mainstream stride
November 17, 2010 – You know a storage technology is hot when there are four significant (well, at least interesting) announcements related to that technology in a single day. Such was the case yesterday with announcements related to solid-state disk (SSD) drives from Hitachi GST (in partnership with Intel), LSI, Violin Memory, Anobit and Intel.
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) claims to be the first hard disk drive (HDD) vendor to ship both SAS and Fibre Channel “enterprise-class” SSDs, albeit in only limited quantities to OEMs, with production shipments ramping over the first half of next year.
See “Hitachi GST enters SSD market.”
LSI announced a PCIe accelerator card based on SSD technology this week, with shipments slated for the end of the month. With 4KB block sizes, LSI claims performance of 240,000 IOPS on sequential reads and 200,000 IOPS on random reads. At an MSRP of $11,500, LSI’s 300GB WarpDrive SPL-300 card isn’t cheap but the company has some cool technology that integrators can bundle, including MegaRAID CacheCade and FastPath software.
See “LSI ships SSD-based accelerator card.”
Violin Memory introduced cache appliances based on flash and DRAM memory that significantly boost the performance of NFS-based NAS systems. The secret sauce in the NFS caching software comes from Violin’s acquisition of Gear6 earlier this year.
See “Violin’s cache appliances accelerate NFS NAS.”
Also yesterday, Anobit announced that it had received $32 million in a funding round led by Intel Capital, Intel’s equity investment unit. That brought the total funding behind Anobit to more than $70 million. Anobit specializes in NAND flash memory and Memory Signal Processing technology.
It’s not surprising that so many vendors are trying to get a piece of the SSD market. Market researcher IDC predicts that the total SSD market will grow at a 58% CAGR in unit shipments and a 44% CAGR in revenues over the next few years.
However, the fastest growing segment of the overall market is enterprise SSDs, where unit shipment are expected to surge at a CAGR of 74%, and revenues are expected to grow at a 54% clip, through 2014.
IDC expects the total SSD market to exceed $7 billion in 2014.
Related article: “Vendor group develops standards for PCIe SSDs”
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) claims to be the first hard disk drive (HDD) vendor to ship both SAS and Fibre Channel “enterprise-class” SSDs, albeit in only limited quantities to OEMs, with production shipments ramping over the first half of next year.
See “Hitachi GST enters SSD market.”
LSI announced a PCIe accelerator card based on SSD technology this week, with shipments slated for the end of the month. With 4KB block sizes, LSI claims performance of 240,000 IOPS on sequential reads and 200,000 IOPS on random reads. At an MSRP of $11,500, LSI’s 300GB WarpDrive SPL-300 card isn’t cheap but the company has some cool technology that integrators can bundle, including MegaRAID CacheCade and FastPath software.
See “LSI ships SSD-based accelerator card.”
Violin Memory introduced cache appliances based on flash and DRAM memory that significantly boost the performance of NFS-based NAS systems. The secret sauce in the NFS caching software comes from Violin’s acquisition of Gear6 earlier this year.
See “Violin’s cache appliances accelerate NFS NAS.”
Also yesterday, Anobit announced that it had received $32 million in a funding round led by Intel Capital, Intel’s equity investment unit. That brought the total funding behind Anobit to more than $70 million. Anobit specializes in NAND flash memory and Memory Signal Processing technology.
It’s not surprising that so many vendors are trying to get a piece of the SSD market. Market researcher IDC predicts that the total SSD market will grow at a 58% CAGR in unit shipments and a 44% CAGR in revenues over the next few years.
However, the fastest growing segment of the overall market is enterprise SSDs, where unit shipment are expected to surge at a CAGR of 74%, and revenues are expected to grow at a 54% clip, through 2014.
IDC expects the total SSD market to exceed $7 billion in 2014.
Related article: “Vendor group develops standards for PCIe SSDs”
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Top storage technologies for 2009
It’s time to ring in the New Year with the obligatory Top Storage Technologies for 2009. I’ve culled through dozens of picks from the vendor community, and the one that comes closest to my own predictions is from HP. So, according to me and HP, here are the hottest storage trends for this year, in no particular order:
Cloud-based storage is changing how companies commoditize and store the exponential amounts of data from video sharing, digital media and social networking sites. The need to store massive amounts of data with real-time access capabilities will change the storage industry in 2009 as we see a greater uptake in cloud-based storage solutions that address the challenges of data growth, but at a fraction of the cost of traditional storage infrastructures.
Data de-duplication. By drastically increasing disk utilization (some vendors claim data de-dupe ratios of 50:1 or more, although your mileage will vary), data de-duplication reduces storage costs and improves capabilities such as disaster recovery.
Solid-state disk (SSD) drives: In a recent InfoStor QuickVote reader poll, only 6% of the respondents were currently using SSDs; another 6% planned to purchase SSDs within the next six months; 14% within the next six to 12 months; and 74% had no plans to use SSDs. However, according to HP: “Once the industry addresses the cost premium and capacity challenges of SSDs, we will be one step closer to IDC’s predicted 70% compound growth rate for SSDs by 2012.”
Virtualized storage: IT organizations are looking to virtualize their storage environments to achieve the same benefits they’ve seen from server virtualization. This is leading to “shared data” architectures that ease storage management burdens.
Secure storage: Industry and government compliance requirements, as well as the need to protect sensitive data, will put storage-level security at the forefront in 2009. More and more users will opt for encryption, including drive-level encryption, to protect data.
Energy-efficient storage: Technologies such as data de-duplication and SSDs eliminate the need for unnecessary hardware to improve performance while reducing power consumption.
Cloud-based storage is changing how companies commoditize and store the exponential amounts of data from video sharing, digital media and social networking sites. The need to store massive amounts of data with real-time access capabilities will change the storage industry in 2009 as we see a greater uptake in cloud-based storage solutions that address the challenges of data growth, but at a fraction of the cost of traditional storage infrastructures.
Data de-duplication. By drastically increasing disk utilization (some vendors claim data de-dupe ratios of 50:1 or more, although your mileage will vary), data de-duplication reduces storage costs and improves capabilities such as disaster recovery.
Solid-state disk (SSD) drives: In a recent InfoStor QuickVote reader poll, only 6% of the respondents were currently using SSDs; another 6% planned to purchase SSDs within the next six months; 14% within the next six to 12 months; and 74% had no plans to use SSDs. However, according to HP: “Once the industry addresses the cost premium and capacity challenges of SSDs, we will be one step closer to IDC’s predicted 70% compound growth rate for SSDs by 2012.”
Virtualized storage: IT organizations are looking to virtualize their storage environments to achieve the same benefits they’ve seen from server virtualization. This is leading to “shared data” architectures that ease storage management burdens.
Secure storage: Industry and government compliance requirements, as well as the need to protect sensitive data, will put storage-level security at the forefront in 2009. More and more users will opt for encryption, including drive-level encryption, to protect data.
Energy-efficient storage: Technologies such as data de-duplication and SSDs eliminate the need for unnecessary hardware to improve performance while reducing power consumption.
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