April 30th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
EMC Announces Updates to VMAX and RecoverPoint 4.0
EMC has announced updates to EMC VMAX which is a new frame-based licensing model for EMC VPLEX virtual storage as well as EMC RecoverPoint 4.0, the new version of the software that now offers integration with EMC SRDF. With this announcement, EMC is asserting VMAX as the only tier 1 storage array that provides simultaneous Continuous Data Protection (CDP) and remote copies on the same LUN. Previously, users could operate SRDF and RecoverPoint on the same VMAX system, but not on the same volume. RecoverPoint 4.0 also features lots of enhancements: it is capable of protecting 7 times the data, protecting 4 times the volumes at 8000 volumes per cluster, and performs stronger with asynchronous throughput expanded 60% to over 400MB/s.
April 30th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
Dell Software Announces Foglight for Virtualization Updates
Dell Software announced updates to its rebranded Foglight for Virtualization, Enterprise Edition 6.8 which enables administrators to manage data center and desktop virtualization, and Dell has also enhanced Foglight for Storage Management 2.5 which offers reports on both physical and virtual storage. Resulting in their acquisition of Quest, Dell Software gained access to the Quest line of products which they have now rebranded to unify product nomenclature. Amongst a slew of updates, Foglight for Virtualization now includes performance monitoring support for VMware View and has new implementations enabling better VDI tracking from the application level to the server and storage level. Dell's release comes as more organizations shift to virtualization and the necessity of tracking performance breakdowns is increasing.
April 30th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
HP Announces Software-Defined Network Fabric for Cloud
HP announced its data center network fabric built on HP FlexNetwork architecture that delivers 2X greater scalability and 75% less complexity over current network fabrics while drastically reducing network provisioning time. While some exisiting network fabrics require manual device configurations and limited bandwith, HP's new series of software-defined network (SDN) data center switches provide users with advanced automation and scalability for more bandwith. This new series which includes the HP FlexFabric 12900, the first OpenFlow-enabled core switch that can handle virtualized workloads, supports enterprise-level cloud, big data and virtualization.
April 29th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
Kingston MobileLite Wireless Storage Hub Announced
Kingston announced their latest portable wireless storage device called MobileLite Wireless, building on the innovation of the Wi-Drive, which offers users the ability to wirelessly stream content from USB flash drives and memory cards (SD/SDHC/SDXC and microSD with included adapter). MobileLite Wireless can also serve as an emergency charger for cell phones. To use the Kingston MobileLite Wireless, users just need to pop in their flash drives to the USB port to view or share files, music or movies. The media slot for SD/SDHC/SDXC enables users to quickly share photos by removing their camera's memory card and plugging it in directly, while the adapter yields access to microSD cards that are commonly found on mobile devices such as phones and tablets.
April 25th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
SMART Storage Systems and Diablo Form Partnership
SMART Storage Systems and Diablo announced an exclusive partnership that will combine Guardian Technology from Smart and Memory Channel Storage (MCS) from Diablo to create a new breed of ultra low latency (ULL) SSDs and system accelerators. These forthcoming products will attempt to create another transition in the market. For performance-intensive needs, the shift has gone from SATA and SAS connectors for HDDs, to SSDs, to PCIe for SSDs or flash accelerators and now to using this new direct memory control technology. The trend has been toward eliminating latency and to find the fastest communication channel.
April 24th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
Fusion-io Announces NexGen Storage Acquisition
Fusion-io has announced that it has acquired NexGen Storage, a developer of hybrid storage appliances based on Fusion ioMemory designed for SME customers. Nexgen combines ioMemory and disk drives with ioControl software on x86 servers to create hybrid systems that offer flash-array performance at a far lower cost. Fusion-io's NexGen acquisition tacks on to their recent ID7 acquisition which shows their continued focus on software rather than hardware to continue to drive performance. These new hybrid systems built in conjunction by Fusion-io and NexGen enable customers to maintain cost-efficiency while being able to provision performance and capacity by necessity.
April 24th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
Exablox Announces OneBlox NAS
Exablox has announced the release of their OneBlox scale-out NAS with SMB and CIFS network protocols that includes cloud-based management as well as features such as inline deduplication, zero-configuration expansion and continuous data protection. With OneBlox, Exablox is trying to eliminate long installation times, flaky security and upgrades that require lots of configurations and changes. Instead, OneBlox offers an initial 5 minute installation with upgrades essentially on-the-fly while offering automatic AES-256 encryption and a host of other enterprise features. Exablox designed OneBlox to gather the best features from existing devices on the market together with their own enhancements. All of this can be managed using a multi-tenant cloud-based management service from Exablox called OneSystem.
April 24th, 2013 by Josh Shaman
HP Announces StoreVirtual Storage Updates
HP has announced new and updated StoreVirtual models which are the third generation of LeftHand Storage products and are part of HP's Converged Storage. The new model is the blade-based HP StoreVirtual 4630 Storage while the HP StoreVirtual models 4330 and 4730 have been updated to include Fibre Channel connectivity for scalable storage supporting virtualization growth. The HP StoreVirtual Storage line is a software-only Virtual Storage Appliance (VSA) or a Converged Storage offering that runs on rack or blade-based HP ProLiant Generation 8 hardware. HP is also launching a software-defined storage unit that combines its VSA with the new D2220sb Storage Blade.
April 23rd, 2013 by Josh Shaman
WD Announces 5mm WD Blue HDDs and WD Black SSHDs
WD is announcing the shipment of the very first 2.5" hard drives and solid state hybrid drives (SSHDs) in an ultra-slim 5mm form factor that are being offered in a 500GB capacity. The WD Blue comes in an HDD version while the WD Black is the hybrid model. WD has produced both of these new drives to fit the strictest minimal-space applications. They are targeted at use cases that are constrained by the physical room that the drive can use as well as their requirement to have solid performance in the case of the Black SSHD.
April 22nd, 2013 by Josh Shaman
WD Announces WD Xe Enterprise Hard Drives
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WD is announcing the immediate shipment of its new WD Xe 2.5" 10K SAS hard drive targeting the enterprise market. WD Xe drives are designed for data servers to replace legacy storage that is nearing end-of-life, and with the adapter they won't require organizations to lose their existing investments' value by completely turning away from 3.5" form factors. The drives sport up to 67% lower power consumption than 3.5" 15,000 RPM drives while offering up to 50 higher capacity and similar or greater sequential performance. This means that enterprises can save on energy costs, reduce drives' footprints or cram more data into the same area, and do it all without sacrificing performance.
The HGST Travelstar 7K1000 is a 1TB, 7,200RPM HDD that comes in a 2.5", 9.5mm form factor and interfaces over SATA 6Gb/s. The Travelstar 7K1000 is fairly unique in the space. Many drives are migrating to slimmer z-Heights at 7mm or even 5mm to meet the needs of space-constrained applications such as upgrading HDDs in ultrabooks. However, the 7K1000's target is a larger market - consumers that require robust capacity in their notebook computer or small form factor desktop at an economical price. Matching well with notebooks, the drive also features low power consumption and the highest shock tolerance in the industry. The 7K1000 also leverages Advanced Format which increased the physical sector size from 512 to 4096 bytes (4k). This helps to improve capacity and error correction capabilities.
The Seagate NAS HDD is a 3.5" form factor, 6Gb/s SATA interface hard drive that spins at 5,900RPM, ranges up to 4TB in capacity and is specifically engineered to be installed in one to five-bay NAS devices. With the consumer and small office NAS market growing quickly and with buyers usually opting for diskless models, Seagate is responding to market demand with this specific use-case drive. Of course there are loads of drives out there that users could implement to populate a NAS, but most are overkill or otherwise sub-optimal for the need. Seagate joins the NAS HDD market by designing a drive to handle NAS workload and operational requirements with their NASWorks specialized firmware, three-year warranty and support from many leading NAS vendors.
The Intel SSD DC S3500 is designed for data center applications such as in cloud computing, web hosting and other read-intensive environments, and the drive features an in-house controller, 20nm MLC NAND, and form factors at both 2.5" and 1.8". The DC S3500 is the latest SSD in Intel's new line while its sibling, 
The WD Se HDD is the company's latest 3.5" enterprise-class hard drive that ranges in capacities up to 4TB, spins at 7,200 RPM and interfaces over SATA 6Gb/s. The WD Se is designed to provide robust storage for large-scale NAS deployments, replicated environments, bulk cloud storage, and backup and archiving. The WD Se isn't geared toward revving up to the highest IOPS offered by an HDD; the drives are more affordable than performance variations and offer features required for data security by SMBs and the growing mid-range NAS market. That said, WD designed the Se series to still support moderate-workload applications with maximum sustained transfer rates claimed at up to 171MB/s.
The Netgear VueZone is a battery-powered camera system that is wire-free and delivers extremely simple 10 minute setup so that users can check-in on their pets, kids, home deliveries and anything else they need to monitor using a smartphone, PC or Mac. The second-generation camera system offers motion-detection, and recently Netgear has also introduced night vision cameras as well. The system utilizes a base station that connects to a home network using its Ethernet port. The station supports live streaming views of up to two camera, though with upgraded monthly plans stations can support as many as 15 cameras and can also record content and store it on the cloud.
