Manage
Learn to apply best practices and optimize your operations.
Manage
Learn to apply best practices and optimize your operations.
Controlling unstructured file data storage growth: Five storage reduction tips
By its nature, unstructured file data storage is uncontrolled and a quite unruly. Here are five tips on how to reduce your file data storage growth. Continue Reading
Data storage provisioning best practices
Best practices for data storage provisioning start with the need for the many stakeholders to communicate and coordinate so the process will be effective. The team approach will also help with the establishment of policies and rules, as well as tool... Continue Reading
Storage best practices for virtual server environments
Measuring and tuning storage performance has grown more challenging with the proliferation of virtual servers. Learn how RiskMetrics Group has adapted to its changing environment, and best practices for managing storage in virtual server ... Continue Reading
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Fibre Channel SAN versus iSCSI SAN: Cost and scalability considerations
Buying a new block-based storage array can be tough decision for data storage managers at SMBs. In the second part of our series on Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage area networks (SANs), we will discuss the cost and scalability considerations of each... Continue Reading
How to determine a NAS system's scalability
This tip covers scalability limitations of a network-attached storage (NAS) system, including maxed managed file limits, IOPS and throughput limits, and capacity limits. It can help you avoid application outages that occur when storage reaches ... Continue Reading
SMB storage strategy tutorial
Developing an effective storage strategy for the data center can be crucial for SMBs. Check out this guide for tips on developing an effective data center strategy, including information on outsourcing storage, cost-effective data security measures ...Continue Reading
Pros and cons of storage capacity management tools
Learn what storage capacity management tools can and can't do by looking at the operational problems they're attempting to solve.Continue Reading
GUIs are nice, but don't overlook command-line interfaces: BEST PRACTICES
While command-line tools may have their roots in Unix environments, they've come a long way and can be used in the same manner to accomplish many tasks on multiple storage platforms.Continue Reading
DAS in the enterprise is alive and well
Direct-attached storage continues to give SAN and NAS a run for their money, even in the enterprise. Storage managers often look toward DAS to lower costs and to simplify data management.Continue Reading
Storage Tutorials
Storage learning guides take you step by step through the storage buying process and list the best practices you need to be aware of before starting any technology upgrade or implementation.Continue Reading
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Best practices for Fibre Channel switching environments
To find the best switch for your Fibre Channel SAN, you'll need to determine the application throughput and I/O for sizing that SAN.Continue Reading
Applying ITIL best practices to storage explained
More and more storage managers are embracing the ITIL framework of best practices.Continue Reading
What software tools do you use to manage your storage systems?
Data migration tips
Data moves. Or, it has to be moved when you're refreshing array technology, merging storage resources with an acquired company or shifting data around to more economical tiers. Data migration is a common task, but it's often a difficult one. We ...Continue Reading
NAS best practices: Avoid file management nightmares by planning
The good news is that you can get a NAS box up and running in 20 minutes. The bad news is that deploying your second, third and fourth NAS system creates a file management nightmare.Continue Reading
Realizing benefits of storage consolidation sometimes easier said than done
When done right, storage consolidation will reduces machine count and increases storage utilization. Just be sure to invest in vendor support, since problems stemming from consolidating a storage infrastructure will have a deep impact.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
Automate storage management
IT process automation tools provide workflows that can help automate manual storage management processes. The real value is when these workflow engines are integrated with storage management apps to not only guide administrators through the process,...Continue Reading
How to create an RFP for NAS
Creating an RFP will help you boil your NAS vendor choices down to a manageable few. And your NAS RFP should include one technology: thin provisioning.Continue Reading
Tips for creating LUNs
LUNs are the cornerstone of a server's relationship with its attending storage platform. This article details what you need to consider when creating LUNs.Continue Reading
How many bytes for...
This page provides tables and other information about how many bytes are required (how much computer storage) for various information objects or purposes; it also summarizes some facts that have been gathered about how much information exists in the...Continue Reading
NAS system planning strategies
Implementing a NAS environment requires a lot of planning. This tip tells you why location, power and allocation are vital to consider when installing a NAS.Continue Reading
How to size a SAN
If your DAS storage infrastructure has reached its limits, or your existing SAN is out of date or just plain end-of-life, your first step will be to know what your storage requirements are.Continue Reading
Storage managers explain their different paths to data archiving
Storage managers who use disk-based, tape-based and hosted data archive products discuss the pros and cons of each approach.Continue Reading
Chargeback applies real values to actual storage utilization
Users demand unlimited growth and peak performance for all of their data because they're not the ones that foot the bill. This is changing with the use of chargeback storage techniques. By employing chargeback storage tools, IT departments can ...Continue Reading
Hot Storage Skills
As storage becomes more complex and costly, businesses are seeking storage professionals who can architect various tiers of networked storage, document what they've done, and help their business units select the type of storage that best supports ...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
Comparing different backup strategies
Review the primary options for backup including direct, network and SAN, and determine which solution is best for your backup strategy.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
How to create a SAN performance baseline
To understand SAN performance and what is normal SAN behavior, you must have a performance baseline.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
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 calculate available disk space on a RAID 5
Storage management expert Ashley D'Costa answers a reader's question: "How do I calculate the disk space available on my RAID 5?"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
Best Practices: Finding the logic in volume managers
Host-based volume managers (also known as logical volume managers) are the most underrated or underutilized components in storage ecosystems. Here are seven reasons why they deserve some respect.Continue Reading
How useful are storage benchmarks?
Most storage vendors like to tout how well their gear performed on benchmark tests, but the results may not always be as they first appear. The benchmarking process can be easily manipulated because of the large number of variables that influence ...Continue Reading
Top 10 tips for capacity management
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
How to reduce response time in a SAN
When it comes to storage area network (SAN) metrics and measurements, such as bandwith, input/output per second (IOPS) and utilization, more is usually better. However, when it comes to response time and latency (the amount of time it takes to ...Continue Reading
Ten tips to meet data compliance audits
Here are 10 tips that will help you prepare for, and master, the inevitable data compliance audits.Continue Reading
How to choose an e-discovery tool
Here is a list of factors to consider when choosing an e-discovery tool.Continue Reading
How to write an archiving program RFP
With so many archiving systems on the market, putting together a request for proposal (RFP) for an archiving program for structured, semistructured or unstructured data is a key step. It's equally important that your team is well-prepared to ...Continue Reading
How to make the right NAS gateway purchasing decisions
NAS gateways overcome the inherent limitations of scale and flexibility by utilizing externally connected storage as external standalone disk arrays. NAS storage capacity is typically expanded by simply adding more disks to the appliance, but this ...Continue Reading
NAS management software specifications
Network attached storage (NAS) appliances and gateways must be configured and managed using NAS management software that allows administrators to allocate space, manage RAID and storage behaviors, perform routine maintenance, and other tasks. ...Continue Reading
IBM washes hands of IceCube storage project
IBM is spinning out its long overdue next-generation storage system, code-named IceCube, and is seeking $15 million in funding to commercialize the product.Continue Reading
How to choose the correct RAID level
This tip offers nine things to consider when deciding which RAID level is right for your organization's needs.Continue Reading
Iron Mountain buys Accutrac for records management
Continuing its effort to reinvent itself as an online backup and records management company, Iron Mountain announces its second acquisition in this market in as many months.Continue Reading
What to expect from a storage audit
This tip outlines the three main types of storage audits, what you stand to gain from each type and offers insight into the audit process.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
Data retrieval strategies: Document management software overview
This overview focuses on the role of document management software in data storage and how it can mitigate risk for the enterprise.Continue Reading
Data retrieval strategies: Retrieving data from archives overview
This overview highlights some of the key issues involved with retrieving data from archives, such as data security, indexing and searching, and data retention.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
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
Best Practices: Balance workloads with RAID types
Vendors will tell you how beautifully parity-based RAID works in their storage subsystems, making it almost unnecessary to use any type of striped/mirrored RAID protection. But if you don't match the workload profile of the application to how ...Continue Reading
Specifications for storage capacity planning products
Gauging storage needs over time is one of the biggest challenges faced by IT administrators, and a new generation of capacity planning tools is emerging to help forecast growth and utilization of storage resources, and even perform predictive ...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
Justifying your storage staffing
Three things to consider when calculating staffing levels to get beyond staffing per terabyte.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
What is unstructured data and how is it different from structured data in the enterprise?
Expert Pierre Dorion talks about unstructured data and its impact on the data enterprise.Continue Reading
How do data classification and file indexing manage unstructured data?
Well, data classification itself is not really a technology, but rather a policy-driven practice of data categorization based on an understanding of the data on hand...Continue Reading
What is the impact of unstructured data on backup and restore and disaster recovery in general?
As data volumes grow, there's a bigger problem meeting recovery time objectives. We depend on our data, and we have set recovery times for our systems that are zero (no downtime) in some cases, though most companies set recovery times from eight to ...Continue Reading
Data storage quiz
So you say you're an expert when it comes to backup or RAID or SANs? That's nice, but you have to admit there's just something about the well-rounded storage techie that makes him/her a hot commodity. Take our Data storage quiz and see how you stack...Continue Reading
Data storage quiz cheat sheet
If you must peek and cheat, here are the answers to our Data storage quiz.Continue Reading
Test your knowledge of data storage management strategies
Are you on top when it comes to data management? Take our final exam and evaluate your knowledge of data management strategies. This test isn't for the weak, so you might want to do a bit of studying first by checking out our new Data Management ...Continue Reading
How does IP storage differ from iSCSI, NAS and Fibre Channel?
Generically, IP storage involves any storage functionality that is leveraging TCP/IP as a network transport...Continue Reading
SAN consolidation strategies
As islands of SANs proliferate in companies, the cost of storage can soar. Sound SAN design strategies allow companies to reduce the number of SAN islands, strengthen a primary SAN, make storage easier to manage and provide more data protection.Continue Reading
How to compare Fibre Channel (FC) and SCSI
Storage expert Greg Schulz offers advice on how to compare Fibre Channel (FC) and SCSI technology.Continue Reading
Data storage technologies quiz
Sit down, grab a pencil and some paper, and list what you think are the top 10 data storage technologies of 2006. Then, take our quick quiz to see how many match up to our top 10 picks.Continue Reading
Keep end-user storage under control
With free email services offering up to 2 GB of storage, it's tough to convince corporate email users that mailbox limits are needed. But companies are realizing that user storage quotas are a necessary evil.Continue Reading
Download Advanced Storage Guide Chapter 1: Storage components (PDF)
You asked for it, so here it is -- a printable version of our Advanced Storage All-In-One Guide. Download Chapter 1: Storage components in .pdf format now.Continue Reading
Capacity planning: Reclaim orphaned storage
This tip takes a look at how to maximize your storage capacity utilization by finding orphaned data and storage that can in turn be re-allocated for another productive use.Continue Reading
How to improve SAN utilization
Improve the utilization of your SAN in terms of performance, capacity and availability. These tips can be applied in principal to FC, iSCSI or InfiniBand block-based SANs, as well as NFS or CIFS file-based NAS environments.Continue Reading
The rising cost of cheap storage
The commoditization of storage has been driving acquisition cost down for quite some time. However, hidden costs are now starting to surface as organizations struggle to manage hundreds of terabytes of data. This tip discusses the some of the ...Continue Reading
How to count the cost of storage
The cost of each gigabyte of storage is declining rapidly in every segment of the market. Enterprise storage today costs what desktop storage did less than a decade ago. So why are overall costs increasing?Continue Reading
SAN performance: Five tips in five minutes
Answers to frequently asked questions about how to improve SAN performance.Continue Reading
NAS: How does a client access files?
NAS expert Randy Kerns offers advice to a reader who asked: "How does NAS appear to machines accessing files from it?"Continue Reading
What is Information lifecycle security management?
Information lifecycle security (ILS) is a new approach to securing data based on the value of the content. ILS defenses change over time as information ages and its value decreases.Continue Reading
Best practices in data warehouse storage infrastructures
Today's business isn't just about putting products on the market. It's about getting the right product to the right consumer at the right time. But such precision requires much more than a solid product and keen business sense -- it takes business ...Continue Reading
Introduction to data storage management
Storage is a resource, and it must be allocated and managed as a resource in order to truly benefit a corporation. Successful data storage management strategies leverage a suite of tools to configure, provision, archive and report storage activities...Continue Reading
iSCSI, iFCP and FCIP: How do they stack up?
iSCSI, iFCP and FCIP are compared in this Q&A.Continue Reading
FC vs. iSCSI: Five tips in five minutes
Recently, there has been a buzz among storage pros about how FC and iSCSI stack up. Check out this expert advice, so you can decide what is right for your organization.Continue Reading
Five tips in five minutes: A guide to cost management
The following tips offer quick and easy advice on how to keep costs low while maintaining a prolific storage system.Continue Reading
The winners of Storage magazine's Products of the Year were surprising
Storage Bin: The winners of Storage magazine's Products of the Year were surprising, as so few of them were big-name storage vendors. Here's Steve Duplessie's take on the subject.Continue Reading
How to minimize I/O latency
Storage expert Greg Schulz details how to minimize the latency between a server and a storage device.Continue Reading
How many disk drives do you need for RAID 10?
What is the minimum number of disk drives you can have in a RAID 10 array? I have read you must have at least four, but our server admin said it is HP's default, and he can do it on just two drives. This is on a Window Server 2003 with a total of ...Continue Reading
How to convince management to upgrade
Learn how to effectively convince your boss or other management of the need for an upgrade or technology acquisitions.Continue Reading
Five tips for forecasting storage resource needs
Here are five ways to forecast your storage resource needs more accurately.Continue Reading
Calculator for disks per usable space or how much space from each disk
Which is the best platform for a storage subsystem management tool?
What is block I/O?
What does I/O stand for?
information lifecycle management
Information life cycle management (ILM) is a comprehensive approach to managing the flow of an information system's data and associated metadata from creation and initial storage to the time when it becomes obsolete and is deleted.Continue Reading
information life cycle management
Information life cycle management (ILM) is a comprehensive approach to managing the flow of an information system's data and associated metadata from creation and initial storage to the time when it becomes obsolete and is deleted.Continue Reading
information life cycle management (ILM)
Information life cycle management (ILM) is a comprehensive approach to managing the flow of an information system's data and associated metadata from creation and initial storage to the time when it becomes obsolete and is deleted.Continue Reading
SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative Specification)
SMI-S (Storage Management Initiative Specification) is a standard developed by the Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA) that is intended to facilitate the management of storage devices from multiple vendors in storage area networks (SANs).Continue Reading
storage area management
Storage area management (SAM) is a still-evolving set of procedures, services, and standards for comprehensively managing the infrastructure of a storage area network (SAN), including all components within all servers, the disk arrays, the tape ...Continue Reading
storage area management (SAM)
Storage area management (SAM) is a still-evolving set of procedures, services, and standards for comprehensively managing the infrastructure of a storage area network (SAN), including all components within all servers, the disk arrays, the tape ...Continue Reading
Storage for manufacturing
Manufacturing environments typically have different storage requirements than corporate apps, and have to deal with globally dispersed design teams as well as growing regulatory concerns. Here's how several prominent manufacturers have met the ...Continue Reading
Encrypting tape: Software vs. hardware and key management
Encrypting data is a high priority for businesses these days. This tip will help you become familiar with the formats of encryption and the importance of key management.Continue Reading