Features

Features

• Understanding Big Data analytics

  Explore the four technology regions associated with Big Data analytics in our technical report.  Continue Reading

• Storage management for virtualized servers

  Storage and virtual server management can now go hand-in-hand with new tools that offer single-console control of both storage and virtual servers.  Continue Reading

• Unified storage systems showdown: NetApp FAS vs. EMC VNX

  We compare EMC's VNX and NetApp's FAS series unified storage systems in terms of data services, autotiering and clustering. Find out what analysts and vendor reps think.  Continue Reading

• Scale-out NAS, object storage, cloud gateways replacing traditional NAS

  Scale-out NAS systems, object storage and cloud gateways are replacing file storage as IT companies face a plethora of unstructured data in their data storage environments.  Continue Reading

• Managing storage in a VDI environment

  The success of a VDI environment is dependent on user experience, and storage may be the area that has the biggest impact on users. Find out what steps to take to properly manage your VDI environment.  Continue Reading

• Storage virtualization products: An important niche

  Storage virtualization products help IT shops in need of non-disruptive data migration, tech refreshes and life support for aging storage assets.  Continue Reading

• Network storage options for virtual servers depend on needs, skill set

  Network storage options for virtual servers vary based on existing systems, skill set and budgets; Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI SANs, NAS can all work well.  Continue Reading

• Sub-LUN tiering: Five key questions to consider

  IT shops must consider five areas before adopting sub-LUN tiering as offerings vary in number of tiers, block size, analysis period, policies and monitoring  Continue Reading

• Auto-tiering software set to boost adoption of SSDs

  Discover why auto tiering could make expensive SSDs a more viable option, and about improvements to sub-LUN auto tiering and available auto-tiering options.  Continue Reading

• NetGear ReadyNAS review: A look at the ReadyNAS 2100

  This NetGear ReadyNAS review takes an in-depth look at the ReadyNAS 2100. Learn about the ReadyNAS 2100 features, setup and configurations to determine if it's right for your environment.  Continue Reading

• Data storage optimization: The first step for data efficiency

  Now that we've made storage, networks and servers more efficient by virtualizing them, it's time to focus on data storage optimization for greater data efficiency. Read storage industry expert and SearchStorage.com contributor Steve Duplessie for ...  Continue Reading

• VDI project plan: Start with right applications and use pilot program

  Experts say a VDI project plan demands different type of infrastructure; learn why you should start slow and use specific apps to gauge VDI storage results.  Continue Reading

• Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) implementation case studies

  Learn how three firms tackled management issues in a Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) implementation; case studies detail potential turf wars, restructuring.  Continue Reading

• RAID level comparison chart: A free download

  Download our free RAID level comparison chart, where the most important RAID levels are defined, along with information about the pros and cons of each RAID level.  Continue Reading

• Understanding cloud storage services: A guide for beginners

  In this guide on cloud storage services for SMBs, get all of your cloud storage questions answers with the latest tips and expert advice.  Continue Reading

• Implementing an electronic records retention system

  Learn the components of an electronic records retention system and best practices for implementing an electronic data discovery policy. Don't risk e-discovery request errors.  Continue Reading

• 10 Gigabit Ethernet for iSCSI storage, NAS storage still hinges on cost

  While 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) offers greater bandwidth for iSCSI storage or NAS storage, IT shops still have to justify upgrade costs with their needs.  Continue Reading

• Reduce storage power consumption via higher IOPS and capacity per watt

  Boost IOPS and capacity per watt to reduce storage power consumption; powering off disk drives and reducing data may not be enough to reduce power, cooling.  Continue Reading

• Disk spin-down: Power savings with a catch

  Disk spin-down and MAID can reduce power consumption, but spin-up latency and time-outs are drawbacks. Read about one firm's experience with disk spin-down.  Continue Reading

• Data reduction techniques for better storage efficiency

  Improve storage efficiency through data reduction techniques and capacity optimization using data deduplication, compression, snapshots and thin provisioning.  Continue Reading

• SAS and SATA, solid-state storage lower data center power consumption

  Learn why energy-efficient disk such as SAS and SATA will take on a greater role and lower data center power consumption, and why solid-state storage can be cost-effective.  Continue Reading

• Using a storage partition in your data storage infrastructure

  Learn about the common use cases for a storage partition in a data storage infrastructure, as well as the differences between a storage partition and a LUN.  Continue Reading

• Shared serial-attached SCSI (SAS) offers networked storage benefits on a budget

  Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst with the Storage IO Group, talks about the pros and cons of shared serial attached SCSI in this Q&A.  Continue Reading

• Storage virtualization projects: Factors to consider when implementing storage virtualization

  Storage virtualization projects are complex. Learn the various factors to consider when implementing storage virtualization and when to consult professionals.  Continue Reading

• Disk archiving appliance types: High-end systems to low-end email archiving appliances

  Learn about the basic types of disk archiving appliances, from high-end disk archiving systems that handle multiple content types to low-end disk-based archive appliances.  Continue Reading

• Data classification trends: Classifying native applications for enterprise data storage

  The latest trend in data classification is classifying data in native applications. Learn about the data classification process and get advice before starting a data classification project.  Continue Reading

• Service-level agreement (SLA) negotiation: Defining service-level objectives

  Learn how to negotiate a service-level agreement (SLA) and define service-level objectives, the importance of metrics and how a cloud storage service-level agreement works.  Continue Reading

• Choosing and implementing a host bus adapter for small and medium businesses

  Host bus adapters can also be a common pain point when setting up your storage environment. Tony Palmer, senior lab engineer with Enterprise Strategy Group, answers some frequently asked questions about HBAs in this Q&A.  Continue Reading

• HP IO Accelerator cards let Answers.com implement solid-state storage for database performance boost

  To improve database performance on its Web servers, Answers.com implements solid-state storage using HP IO Accelerator cards; sees a 900% increase in the number of queries each database server can handle.  Continue Reading

• Solid-state storage option must account for demands of IO-intensive applications

  IT shops need to determine the best solid-state storage option in disk arrays, servers or dedicated appliances by assessing the needs and demands of their I/O-intensive applications.  Continue Reading

• Cloud storage: Five best practices for moving to the cloud

  Learn best practices for getting the most from cloud storage, including what to look for in a service-level agreement (SLA), using existing resources to set up a cloud and how to avoid hidden pricing.  Continue Reading

• Cloud storage service-level agreements (SLAs) specify uptime guarantees but not data availability

  Cloud storage service-level agreements (SLAs) provide uptime guarantees but offer few specifics on data availability and data protection; users can try to customize the SLA for cloud backup and archive.  Continue Reading

• iSCSI SANs in a virtual server environment: Five best practices

  Storage experts offer best practices on how to maximize iSCSI SAN performance and efficiency in virtual server environments, where the protocol has found its biggest audience.  Continue Reading

• Data file archiving for small businesses: Determining what file archive tools to use for your SMB

  Learn how to determine what file archive tools are best for your organization in this FAQ.  Continue Reading

• An introduction to data compression

  Learn the basics of data compression: how to do it, what data should be compressed, the differences between deduplication and compression, and how to define a compression ratio.  Continue Reading

• Leverage existing network-attached storage and block storage for better data storage management

  Learn data storage management practices to better leverage your existing NAS and block storage and improve access to both types of storage.  Continue Reading

• Tools and techniques for reducing your enterprise data storage footprint

  Find out how storage managers can reduce their enterprise data management footprint. Learn about the importance of managing your data and the various tools for doing so, including data archiving, thin provisioning and data deduplication.  Continue Reading

• How to select a storage resource management (SRM) tool

  SRM tools can help you evaluate and leverage your storage infrastructure. Learn the best practices for selecting an SRM tool and how SRM technology can reclaim orphaned storage.  Continue Reading

• Cloud network-attached storage (NAS) emerges to address secondary file storage needs

  As unstructured data continues to grow, cloud NAS could be a good option for many organizations. However, it has some limitations. Ashish Nadkari, principal consultant with GlassHouse Technologies, discusses cloud NAS in this Q&A.  Continue Reading

• Alternatives to Cisco's Unified Computing System: HP BladeSystem Matrix and InteliCloud 360

  Looking for alternatives to Cisco's Unified Computing System? HP's BladeSystem Matrix has integrated services, while InteliCloud Inc.'s 360 has an innovative chassis design.  Continue Reading

• Six requirements for deploying primary storage optimization solutions

  With companies starting to perform data reduction on primary storage, it's important for them to understand the requirements that primary storage optimization demands.  Continue Reading

• ISCSI SAN FAQ

  ISCSI storage area networks (SANs) are frequently touted as a solution for small-midsized businesses (SMBs) moving to networked storage. But, why not just use Fibre Channel? Terri McClure, analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, discusses the pros ...  Continue Reading

• Content addressable storage FAQ

  Depending on what industry you work in, compliance can be a major issue and content-adressable storage (CAS) has emerged as an option for archiving data on disk. Terri McClure, analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, discusses the pros and cons of ...  Continue Reading

• RAID technology overview

  You need info about RAID. It's that simple. In the world of storage, RAID (redundant array of independent disks) is a major topic. Whether you are a RAID rookie or you're trying to optimize performance of a huge array, you'll learn something here. ...  Continue Reading

• The inside scoop on content-addressed storage (CAS) technology

  The sweet spot for content-addressed storage is still secondary storage -- the long-term retention of content for compliance purposes, and the archiving of vast amounts of data that rarely changes. But some CAS vendors are starting to go after the ...  Continue Reading

• Direct attached storage FAQ

  Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst with StorageI/O, answers frequently asked questions about direct attached storage (DAS).  Continue Reading

• Self-healing storage explained

  Today's IT environment requires a highly reliable foundation of storage where most failures are prevented, and if not prevented, then resolved in place. A self-healing array that eliminates up to 70 percent of drive failures and can then cover the ...  Continue Reading

• Multiprotocol storage explained

  Multiprotocol storage provides block-based and file-based access in an integrated package to reduce cost and complexity without compromising functionality. Learn the pros and cons of multiprotocol storage for small-midsized businesses.  Continue Reading

• NAS virtualization explained

  NAS virtualization can refer to the ability to virtualize multiple NAS heads into a single virtualized file system or the ability to spawn multiple virtual file servers within a physical file server. But because more and more NAS devices must serve ...  Continue Reading

• Choosing the right switch for an iSCSI SAN

  ISCSI storage doesn't actually require a switch. However, some iSCSI switches offer advanced capabilities that can increase SAN performance. This article offers information about choosing an iSCSI switch and a user case study.  Continue Reading

• Small-midsized business NAS product evaluation

  NAS is available in a wide variety of sizes, prices and levels of sophistication. This article compares and contrasts four very different NAS systems: the Buffalo TeraStation Pro II Pro, the Reldata 9240, the Synology RS407, and the Western Digital ...  Continue Reading

• What is clustered NAS and what are its benefits?

  Clustered NAS is typically defined as a concurrent multi-node access to and servicing of data. This is usually accomplished by implementing some kind of distributed or clustered file system that allows any node to serve data regardless of where it's...  Continue Reading

• For an SMB, what are the advantages and disadvantages of an in-house email archiving system vs. a ho

  There are a lot of pros and cons for both at all business sizes. But SMBs tend to be more price and administration sensitive. In other words, if you are a company that has an annual IT budget from $10,000 to $100,000, you simply can not go out and ...  Continue Reading

• How to create Tier 0 storage by leveraging solid-state drive technology

  With prices of solid-state drive (SSD) technology dropping, companies are starting to use SSD technology in a high-performance tier of storage called Tier 0.  Continue Reading

• Best practices for getting the most out of an iSCSI SAN

  One best practice overrides all others when deploying an iSCSI SAN. An IT organization must separate the storage traffic, physically or logically, from the ordinary LAN traffic.  Continue Reading

• What are the drawbacks of using content-addressable storage (CAS) for archiving?

  There are the likely suspects like cost, capacity, power and cooling because there is more data online than you have in alternative archiving solutions like tape. Some people discussed the performance limitations of CAS, but CAS was not designed to ...  Continue Reading

• What is content-addressable storage (CAS), and how does it work?

  Content-addressable storage (CAS) is a way of storing information that can be retrieved based on its content, instead of its storage location. It's typically used for long-term storage and retrieval of fixed content, like documents stored with ...  Continue Reading

• A guide to storage virtualization

  Few technologies are more confusing than storage virtualization. Without a guide to explain the different storage virtualization solutions, storage administrators who want to deploy this technology will be lost.  Continue Reading

• Who are the major vendors in the iSCSI SAN market?

  You've got your usual suspects; EMC, HP, and IBM. All of those vendors have rolled out targeted efforts to gain space in the SMB share. You've also got NetApp, known as a leader in NAS, who supports iSCSI block data and file sharing in the same ...  Continue Reading

• What are the drawbacks of iSCSI SANs?

  Everything has its tradeoffs. An iSCSI SAN should not share a network with regular network traffic. The data transfer takes up too much network bandwidth and it will impact application performance.  Continue Reading

• Host bus adapter (HBA) architecture explained

  HBAs are integral pieces of a SAN environment -- they connect the server to the SAN -- but few storage administrators know how to configure them.  Continue Reading

• What are the differences among journaling, scrubbing log files and stubbing?

  Yes. Two of the approaches are methods to get messages into an archive. Journaling, typically used in Microsoft Exchange environments...  Continue Reading

• Adding storage to a server using a RAID adapter

  Logan Harbaugh tests RAID adapters from Adaptec and LSI with Fujitsu and Seagate SAS drives and a Western Digital RAID-class SATA drive and details how to add storage to a server using a RAID adapter.  Continue Reading

• Learn all about RAID storage

  This handbook describes the different levels of RAID technology and explains how storage administrators can choose the appropriate RAID level.  Continue Reading

• SRM brings new levels of visibility and automation to storage

  To manage storage effectively, storage administrators must know how much storage is available, how much is being used, what applications are accessing the storage and what service levels are required for each application. Learn why many of them are ...  Continue Reading

• Handbook: Best practices for SAN expansion

  Best practices for SAN expansion include options for integrating SAN and NAS or iSCSI and Fibre Channel, evaluating capacity planning tools, as well as upgrading switches, disk arrays and HBAs.  Continue Reading

• High-performance NAS speeds file-based storage

  Traditionally, NAS systems have had limitations in throughput, connectivity, reliability and scalability. As a result, mission-critical storage tasks still required a SAN. Today, a new generation of high-performance NAS systems promises to overcome ...  Continue Reading

• Companies try green storage strategies to reduce power consumption

  Storage administrators are trying to mitigate the growing problems of power cost and availability by turning to green storage -- a broad mix of technologies and tactics intended to reduce power consumption not only in the data center but across the ...  Continue Reading

• What is dual parity, distributed parity and network RAID?

  There's some confusion and different marketing terms out there. RAID 6 is a common one. RAID 6 is an extension of RAID 5...  Continue Reading

• Learn all about iSCSI and Fibre Channel SANs

  This handbook compares Fibre Channel SAN and iSCSI SAN technologies, provides tips on how to enhance iSCSI performance, and discusses how to make a SAN highly available.  Continue Reading

• How to integrate iSCSI and Fibre Channel, and make it work

  Although companies of every size are embracing iSCSI SAN technology because of its lower cost and relative simplicity, there are situations where iSCSI and Fibre Channel coexistence makes sense. Here are eight best practices for integrating iSCSI ...  Continue Reading

• Take precautions when integrating SAN and NAS

  Today, SAN and NAS platforms routinely exist side by side and are often interconnected so their respective benefits can be pooled. However, storage administrators must take great care when connecting SAN and NAS. Here are eight best practices for ...  Continue Reading

• How data deduplication works

  Chapter one of our data deduplication handbook takes you under the hood to show how data deduplication works so you can maximize the efficiency of this data reduction technology.  Continue Reading

• How to select a storage capacity planning tool

  To select a storage management and capacity planning tool, first calculate how much storage is available and how much of your total storage capacity is actually being used.  Continue Reading

• Host bus adapter upgrades and replacements

  SAN expansion best practices include maintaining control over HBA selection, eliminating bottlenecks and boosting availability.  Continue Reading

• Switch upgrades and replacements

  In this chapter of our guide to SAN expansion best practices, you'll learn about the physical limitations of switches, how to architect the switching infrastructure and how to find opportunities to deploy ISCSI.  Continue Reading

• Best practices for expanding or replacing disk arrays

  No matter how much storage capacity you squeeze into a disk array, eventually it will run out of room. Tiered storage tactics and data deletion policies can help you stay one step ahead, but no matter what, you'll periodically need additional ...  Continue Reading

• Fibre Channel technology

  This chapter offers an overview of Fibre Channel specifications and devices including HBAs and switches. Readers will also learn about the pros and cons of FC SANs in the storage enterprise.  Continue Reading

• Enhancing iSCSI performance

  This chapter examines means of improving iSCSI performance with high-performance Ethernet switches and TOE adapter cards. This chapter also offers tips/guidelines for iSCSI deployment.  Continue Reading

• SAN availability and reliability

  This chapter outlines some of the techniques and tactics used to achieve high availability and redundancy in a SAN (FC or iSCSI). These can include port aggregation, trunking, and failover.  Continue Reading

• Learn all about SATA

  This handbook offers three related SATA tips which compare SATA to SAS and SCSI and provides advice on striking the right balance between them.  Continue Reading

• LUN management at the heart of SAN configuration

  LUNs are the basic vehicle for delivering storage, but provisioning SAN storage isn't just a matter of creating LUNs or volumes; the SAN fabric itself must be configured so that disks and their LUNs are matched to the appropriate servers. Proper ...  Continue Reading

• Storage Area Network School: Table of contents

  What is a storage area network? What are the benefits and pitfalls of installation? How can a SAN fit into your organization? These questions and more are answered in our Storage Area Network School.  Continue Reading

• What are SAS, SATA, Fibre Channel and FATA disk drives? When will there be an iSCSI disk drive?

  Well, with the right marketing and packaging, we could say there's already an iSCSI disk drive today...  Continue Reading

• Is RAID in general an obsolete technology today?

  This is a technology that is so commonly used, so transparent, that we really don't even think about it...  Continue Reading

• What are the pros and cons of RAID-6? What is RAID-DP?

  Generally speaking, dual-parity RAID (RAID-DP) is a proprietary, vendor specific implementation of dual parity...  Continue Reading

• What are the most important new disk drive technologies?

  The first 1 terabyte hard disk drives have appeared. What will be the impact of hard disk drive technologies such as perpendicular recording, 2.5-inch high-performance drives, secure erase, encryption and hybrid technology drives?  Continue Reading

• What's the relationship between storage capacity, storage utilization and storage performance?

  There's a lot of focus on storage capacity rather than storage performance. One of the marketing pitches behind storage virtualization is to increase storage utilization so that you don't need to buy so many drives.  Continue Reading

• Why do enterprise storage arrays cost so much when hard drives are so cheap?

  Why the cost of an enterprise storage array costs so much more than the hard drives inside it.  Continue Reading

• How data deduplication eases storage requirements

  Storage administrators are struggling to handle spiraling volumes of documents, audio, video, images and large email attachments. Adding storage is not always the best solution, and many companies are turning to data reduction technologies such as ...  Continue Reading

• What are some of the best practices for managing the growth of unstructured data?

  It starts with corporate policies around data management ...  Continue Reading

• Where are some of the biggest sources of unstructured data in the enterprise?

  There are actually many sources of unstructured data, which accounts for much of the data growth that we've seen in the enterprise.  Continue Reading

• What are some of the biggest challenges with unstructured data?

  By far, the volume of data has to be the biggest challenge...  Continue Reading

• What are the disadvantages of unified storage over independent block and file systems?

  There are some compromises that you'll need to make; there are certainly some control granularity issues. The pattern of access for file-based data and block-based data is significantly different...  Continue Reading

• What is the advantage of having unified storage?

  There is debate about that. Many customers may prefer to have just one storage system, avoiding specialized storage systems, like NAS for file-based access or a complicated block-based storage system...  Continue Reading

• What is the difference between InfiniBand, SAS and iSCSI and where does each technology fit?

  InfiniBand is an interface; just like Fibre Channel (FC) or Ethernet. As an interface, InfiniBand carries different protocols...  Continue Reading

• What is the difference between virtualization switches and virtual SANs?

  The word "virtualization" is thrown around so much that it's hard to always know what it means...  Continue Reading

• When should I use a SAN vs. NAS or iSCSI?

  It's often a matter of block vs. file...  Continue Reading

• DWDM vs. SONET networks for connecting to the virtual world

  We live in a virtual world where most of us have network access in our homes -- the Internet -- which is a virtual network.  Continue Reading

• Download Advanced Storage Guide Chapter 4: NAS (PDF)

  You asked for it, so here it is -- a printable version of our Advanced Storage All-In-One Guide. Download Chapter 4: NAS in .pdf format now.  Continue Reading