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FEATURED by Kevin OBrien
SCSI Trade Association Technology Showcase 2012 Roundup
Over the last week StorageReview has been profiling the various presentations, technology and storage trends that resulted from this year's SCSI Trade Association (STA) Technology Showcase. The STA 2012 event highlighted the strengths of current and next-generation SCSI technology in everything from SAS cabling to new SCSI Express flash-based PCIe devices. Sponsors of the event included Amphenol, FCI, Fusion-io, HGST, HP, Intel, JDSU, LeCroy, LSI, Molex, PMC-Sierra, SanDisk, Seagate, TE, SerialTek, Toshiba, Western Digital and Xyratex.
FEATURED by Josh Linden
Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 Review
Hitachi continues to innovate in large-capacity hard drives, and it is easy to see from products like the Deskstar 7K4000 why Western Digital found Hitachi's hard drive division an attractive acquisition. The 7K4000 provides four terabytes (TB) of storage at 7200RPM, and like the Deskstar 5K4000 which we recently reviewed, the 7K4000 uses a five platter design, paired with 800GB platters and 4KB sectors to increase maximum capacity and improve error correction. Compared to the 5K4000, The Deskstar 7K4000’s specs emphasize performance, so we’ll see some key differences emerge between the drives during benchmarks.
May 19th, 2012 by Josh Linden
Unstoppable Datacenters [STA 2012]
The latest manufacturer approaches to SAS-based data integrity were on display at the SCSI Trade Association Technology Showcase. STA demonstrations from sponsors including Western Digital, HGST, HP, LeCroy, LSI, PMC-Sierra, SanDisk and Seagate incorporated multi-level protocol protection, including PHY, link, and transport levels. From simple parity and CRC up to RAID and T10 Protection Information (PI) technology, STA sponsors highlighted the need for end-to-end data protection and promoted solutions that paired data integrity solutions with high availability features.
May 19th, 2012 by Josh Linden
Accelerating Remote Copy with Windows 8 ODX [STA 2012]
Windows Server 8 Beta includes new Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX) technology, which uses extended copy commands to rapidly move massive amounts of data with lower CPU usage and network bandwidth. Sponsors including Microsoft, Dell, HP, NetApp and IBM at the 2012 SCSI Trade Association (STA) Technology Showcase demonstrated how ODX-accelerated transfers may be used in VM deployment, data migration, and tiered storage to lower the cost of hardware deployment and thin provisioning.
May 17th, 2012 by Josh Linden
DSI Launches Virtual Tape Library Suite
Dynamic Solutions International has announced DSI300, a new suite of virtual tape appliances designed to reduce much of the complexity and maintenance of traditional tape backup systems. The new DSI virtual tape library solutions include the entry-level DSI300-VV8, mid-range DSI300-M16, and the DSI300-EV0 for customers with extensive capacity needs. Each of the new DSI solutions uses FalconStor as the VTL appliance engine.
Read moreMay 17th, 2012 by Brian Beeler
STEC Drives 24nm MLC NAND Endurance with CellCare Technology
One of the more popular trends in the enterprise SSD space is the movement toward eMLC and MLC NAND. The less expensive NAND still delivers much of the performance of the high-end SLC NAND, with substantially lower cost. Of course historically MLC NAND gives up endurance too, which is why the enterprise SSD market is finding creative ways to lengthen the life of the NAND. For its part, STEC has announced that it's CellCare Technology can boost 24nm MLC NAND endurance from the typical few thousand program/erase cycles to 40,000 P/E cycles, a 13X improvement.
Read moreMay 17th, 2012 by Josh Linden
Iomega StorCenter px12-450r NAS Announced
Iomega has announced the StorCenter px12-450r, a high performance storage solution for small and medium businesses, remote/branch offices and distributed enterprises. The px12-450r features the updated Intel Xeon Processor E3-1200 v2 and 8GB RAM. Iomega has simultaneously announced that their full line of StorCenter PX products will offer three years of McAfee VirusScan Enterprise starting in the third quarter of 2012.
May 16th, 2012 by Josh Linden
Pure Storage FlashArray 300 Series Available Now
Pure Storage has announced general availability of its new all-flash storage series. The FlashArray 300 series is designed for high performance workloads including server virtualization, desktop virtualization (VDI), database (OLTP, real-time analytics) and cloud computing. This announcement marks the end of the Early Adopter Program, Pure Storage’s two-year effort to field-test the FlashArray 300 Series.
Hitachi's G-Technology line of external hard drives has long been a favorite for creative professionals and others who generally need some combination of reliability, performance, capacity and redundancy. While Hitachi has several products in the G-Tech line that specialize in one or more of those qualities, their latest effort is an external storage generalist that can just about do it all. The G-RAID with Thunderbolt offers up to 4TB of capacity over two mirrored drives, or 8TB if configured for maximum throughput in RAID0 over Thunderbolt, while providing legendary reliability from Hitachi's latest Deskstar 7K4000 hard drives.
When OCZ 
When SanDisk invested $327 million to acquire Pliant one thing was clear; SanDisk saw an opportunity to leverage their expertise in NAND and storage with Pliant's SAS controller knowledge and storage technologies to create class-leading enterprise SSDs that would excel in both performance and reliability. The current result is the SanDisk Lightning enterprise SSD family that includes both MLC and SLC SAS 6Gb SSDs.
Shrinking dimensions in the ultrathin computing market have threatened to push hard drives to the side in favor of higher performing and more battery friendly SSDs. At only 7mm high and featuring a new single-platter design, Western Digital's updated Scorpio Blue hard drive line is engineered for maximum mobile appeal for those who still need bulk storage in their ultrathin devices.
