Tips

Tips

• Guidelines for implementing virtualization in your storage infrastructure

  Virtualization is showing up in all layers of the storage infrastructure. Storage managers need to balance the benefits of virtualization against the complexity it brings. Here are some guidelines for implementing virtualization in your storage ...  Continue Reading

• SaaS shopping list for SMBs

  Storage-as-a-service (SaaS) companies have changed how they operate. Learn what to look for when shopping for an online data backup provider with this product features checklist.  Continue Reading

• SAN storage consolidation checklist

  Learn about the critical questions you need to ask and answer before considering a storage-area network (SAN) storage consolidation project.  Continue Reading

• Using NAS NFS with VMware ESX: Technology pros and cons

  NAS NFS can be an efficient network storage methodology when dealing with VMware ESX and thousands of virtual machines, but NAS performance can be an issue.  Continue Reading

• What you need from a third-party storage service provider

  Third-party data storage vendors can help SMBs with limited resources make strategic decisions and navigate data storage. This tip will help you make the important decisions that are involved in selecting third-party support.  Continue Reading

• Choosing a midrange network-attached storage (NAS) system

  Midrange network-attached storage (NAS) appliances can be an affordable solution for SMBs in today's do-more-with-less economic climate. Learn how to choose the NAS system that best fits your storage environment.  Continue Reading

• Wide stripe before you dive into SSD

  Storage managers should consider physical disk technologies before plunging into SSD for storage IO performance. One of the processes existing vendors provide is called wide striping. It's most often available inside storage subsystems from 3PAR, ...  Continue Reading

• 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

• Fibre Channel SAN versus iSCSI SAN: Reliability and performance

  Buying a new block-based storage array can be tough decision for data storage managers at SMBs. In this first part of our series on Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage area networks (SANs), we'll compare the reliability and performance of these ...  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

• 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

• iSCSI vs. Fibre Channel for SMBs

  Deciding whether to use iSCSI or Fibre Channel to build your storage area network (SAN) can be crucial to effectiveness of the implementation. This tip discusses the pros and cons of iSCSI and Fibre Channel in the SMB market.  Continue Reading

• The pros and cons of solid-state drives for notebook computers

  A solid-state drive (SSD), like the name suggests, consists of flash memory, similar to what's in USB flash drives or Secure Digital media cards. This tip discusses the The pros and cons of solid-state drives in an SMB environment.  Continue Reading

• What are the key differences between SATA II vs. SATA I?

  New SATA II-based drives will make their way into the enterprise because of three features: port multipliers, port selectors and native command queuing.  Continue Reading

• High performance computing demands special backup approach

  For storage administrators, the increasing popularity of HPC servers translates into unique backup challenges.  Continue Reading

• Do you really need NAS?

  There are no short, hard-and-fast rules when it comes to determining if a small to midsized business (SMB) needs network-attached storage (NAS). In this tip, Tory Skyers discusses the advantages and disadvantages of networked storage in an SMB ...  Continue Reading

• MAID and other energy-saving storage technologies for SMBs

  The cost to power and cool data storage gear is eating up IT budgets. In this tip, Daniel Dern discusses eight ways that small to midsized businesses (SMBs) can keep storage energy costs down while addressing potential impacts on response time, ...  Continue Reading

• The pros and cons of thin provisioning

  Most storage area networks (SANs) have a section in their marketing material entitled "Thin Provisioning," but what is it, how does it work and why does it matter? In this tip, Mark Arnold discusses how thin provisioning can help with both the ...  Continue Reading

• Moving from DAS to NAS

  As the volume of data and the number of users in SMBs grow, direct-attached storage (DAS) becomes harder to manage. In this tip, Rick Cook discusses how SMBs can benefit from adding storage to their existing networks in the form of NAS.  Continue Reading

• How to boot from a SAN

  Not too long ago, the idea of storing a server's operating system on the SAN was treated with skepticism. Now, with the growing adoption of iSCSI storage, some SMBs moving to networked storage are reconsidering having their servers boot from shared ...  Continue Reading

• How to consolidate NAS boxes

  By now, we all know that network-attached storage (NAS) can provide benefits for small-midsized businesses (SMBs). However, managing more than a few NAS devices quickly becomes a burden, swapping the value out of NAS simplicity. This tip discusses ...  Continue Reading

• Determining the number of drives in a RAID group

  How many drives in a RAID group will it take to give you the performance you need for a database or email or file server, or for that new VMware implementation?  Continue Reading

• Five ways to control RAID rebuild times

  Hard disk capacities are rapidly increasing, and so are RAID rebuild times. This article offers five tips for keeping RAID rebuilds reasonable.  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

• RAID tutorial: Picking the right RAID level

  While there are multiple variations of RAID available today, only six levels actually matter for SMBs. Marc Staimer discusses how to choose the right RAID level for your business based on the application data type, the criticality of that data and ...  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

• Understanding NAS interconnects: Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet

  Understanding interconnects like Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet, which are used to integrate NAS devices into networks, can help you make better decisions on NAS deployments.  Continue Reading

• Five steps to calculate data storage capacity requirements

  This tip offers five best practices for controlling storage costs with effective storage capacity planning.  Continue Reading

• Why NAS protocols are the language of NAS

  NAS protocols are the language of your NAS system, and understanding how they work is the key to operating a storage network. The main NAS protocols are CIFS and NFS, but iSCSI is gaining ground, and FCoE may be just around the corner.  Continue Reading

• How to move from DAS to a SAN

  Here's how to move your data from direct-attached storage to your brand-new storage area network.  Continue Reading

• Leveraging storage replication for VM disaster recovery

  When you're sizing up storage solutions for DR in a virtual environment, you should consider the issues of vendor support; storage architecture; replication options; deduplication; and recovery options.  Continue Reading

• LUN basics

  Greg Schulz outlines what a LUN is and how it is used.  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

• Using global spare drives to increase SAN reliability

  Here's a checklist for storage administrators using global spare drives to create a more reliable SAN.  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

• Choosing a low-end NAS product

  Many low-end NAS products are designed for personal or home office use. However, there are some products on the market suitable for certain SMB or enterprise-level applications. Learn what you need to consider before deploying a low-end NAS product.  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

• Tutorial on solid-state disk (SSD) devices

  Solid-state disk (SSD) devices use much less power and produce less heat than hard disks. But until their prices come down, they'll at best be niche devices.  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

• What you should know about iSCSI initiators

  Learn about hardware and software iSCSI initiators and when you should choose each.  Continue Reading

• Ten reasons storage security is critical

  Storage expert Kevin Beaver outlines 10 reasons you need to step up your storage security game.  Continue Reading

• Why you should perform data classification

  Regardless of how daunting a task it may be, understanding the data we store is the first step in addressing data management issues. This tip outlines some of the main reasons why data classification is essential.  Continue Reading

• Using SAS and SATA for tiered storage

  This podcast offers detailed information about SAS and SATA so you can strike the right balance between SAS and SATA in a tiered storage environment.  Continue Reading

• RAID levels defined

  This tip offers a listing of the RAID levels in use today and details the characteristics and applications of each.  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

• 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

• Choosing a storage virtualization approach

  This tip outlines three approaches to storage virtualization available today, along with some benefits, caveats and some examples of each.  Continue Reading

• Storage virtualization: Where and how

  This tip outlines the various locations to implement storage virtualization functionality, the different approaches to storage virtualization and offers suggestions on how to choose the right approach for your environment.  Continue Reading

• Storage basics: RAID striping in detail

  How RAID striping improves performance and how parity fits in.  Continue Reading

• Justifying your storage staffing

  Three things to consider when calculating staffing levels to get beyond staffing per terabyte.  Continue Reading

• Will SAS and SATA replace SCSI technology?

  Learn where to use SCSI, SAS and SATA drives.  Continue Reading

• Block and file access unite with multiprotocol storage

  This tip looks at the pros and cons, as well as when and where to deploy multiprotocol storage, which is also referred to as "unified" storage.  Continue Reading

• Thin provisioning pros and cons

  Learn how thin provisioning works, as well as its benefits and drawbacks, so you can decide whether it is right for your storage environment.  Continue Reading

• Storage security and the firewall DMZ problem

  Firewalls are often relied upon too much for network security -- especially when it comes to locking down the storage environment. Learn how this firewall demilitarized zone (DMZ) security misconception unnecessarily exposes many critical storage ...  Continue Reading

• Migrating data in NAS gateway configurations

  There are four approaches for migrating data between NAS gateway systems. For storage administrators, the problem is how to maintain data availability during the migration.  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

• Multipath I/O: Guarantee redundancy during HBA failure (almost!)

  Microsoft's Multipath I/O (MPIO) is designed to mitigate the effects of a HBA failure, by providing an alternate data path between devices. Learn why MPIO doesn't completely eliminate the possibility of problems if an HBA fails and what you can do ...  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

• 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

• Five must-have storage security testing tools

  You know that your storage systems need to be secured and there are plenty of tools to find general security vulnerabilities. But, what about tools that look specifically at storage security vulnerabilities? There are a handful of these tools that ...  Continue Reading

• Five ways to add capacity to a NAS system

  NAS expert Randy Kerns offers some actions to take in order to find more space on your NAS system.  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

• Multipath I/O and failover: The differences

  Storage expert Rick Cook discusses the major differences between failover and multipath I/O and clears up common misconceptions about each.  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

• ISCSI network configuration, design and optimization

  It's a must to consider more than just cabling when designing an iSCSI-based storage network. Learn to look at the bigger picture when configuring or optimizing an iSCSI-based storage network.  Continue Reading

• The problem with unstructured information

  Information security expert Kevin Beaver highlights the problem of managing unstructured information and what you can do to keep your organization on the right track to storage security and out of hot water.  Continue Reading

• SAN performance: Five tips in five minutes

  Answers to frequently asked questions about how to improve SAN performance.  Continue Reading

• Kerberos and its place in NAS authentication

  Kerberos security has been around since the 1980s, but many people are still unfamiliar with how it works. Storage expert Christopher Poelker explains how NAS environments can benefit from the use of Kerberos.  Continue Reading

• Testing iSCSI SAN performance with Iometer

  Iometer, a performance test tool for tuning Windows environments, can also be used to tune performance in iSCSI SANs. The tool lets you simulate the SAN's performance by setting many of the parameters and running tests. Repeated runs with different ...  Continue Reading

• Storage compatibility: Be sure your equipment works together

  Ensuring compatibility between storage products can be tricky. This tip outlines eight things you need to consider when integrating a new storage product into your environment.  Continue Reading

• SAN fine tuning: Get the most from your storage

  The way key SAN components, principally HBAs and switches, are configured will determine overall SAN performance. If you know what to look for and how to make adjustments, performance problems can be greatly reduced.  Continue Reading

• Is storage automation right for you?

  This tip covers what storage automation is, and what it is not, and what it means to you. Also, you will learn why you should, or should not implement a storage automation product.  Continue Reading

• SATA drives: Four worst practices

  SATA drives have a few gotchas. Read about the four common SATA drive mistakes to avoid in your storage environment.  Continue Reading

• Thirteen data retention mistakes to avoid

  Information security expert Kevin Beaver outlines 13 data retention mistakes storage administrators frequently make, and what you can do to avoid them.  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

• Guidelines for better iSCSI security

  Learn about the following iSCSI SAN security guidelines: How to secure the management interface, how to authenticate and how to disable unnecessary network services.  Continue Reading

• Implementing SAS storage

  This tip offers advice on how to carefully lay out your topology, choose an appropriate mix of SAS and SATA drives and plan for future growth before setting up a SAS system.  Continue Reading

• Troubleshooting your NAS system

  This tip will point out some common sense suggestions and best practices that may help you to create or maintain a more robust and reliable NAS infrastructure.  Continue Reading

• Storage 101: Using a director switch

  This tip outlines the features of a director switch and details the reasons a director could be advantageous to your particular SAN system.  Continue Reading

• RAID striping or concatenation: Which has better RAID performance?

  Designing storage for performance can be difficult, but these tips from our expert will help you compare RAID striping or concatenation based on RAID performance.  Continue Reading

• Better performance -- RAID striping or concatenation?

  Designing storage for performance is a very esoteric effort by nature. There are quite a few variables that need to be taken into account.  Continue Reading

• Which RAID configuration offers the best price-to-performance ratio?

  SAN expert, Christopher Poelker addresses a reader's concerns about the way we explained the relationship between RAID price and performance in a 2003 SAN quiz.  Continue Reading

• Storage security 101 -- A checklist of practical safeguards

  There are some commonly overlooked storage security issues that every storage administrator needs to consider. In this tip, information security expert Kevin Beaver outlines a set of solid storage security basics you can use as a guide to check your...  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

• Checklist: First steps for limiting your downtime

  Keeping downtime to a minimum requires forethought, preparation and practice. This checklist covers what you need to do to win the downtime battle.  Continue Reading

• Five tips for forecasting storage resource needs

  Here are five ways to forecast your storage resource needs more accurately.  Continue Reading

• Zoning 101: Why zone?

  Zoning can offer a number of benefits for your SAN. This tip details the advantages of zoning and offers an explanation of the different methods. (This tip is part of our Storage 101 tip series.)  Continue Reading

• Questions to ask before building a NAS system

  Questions and considerations when building a NAS system.  Continue Reading

• Data classification: Getting started

  Classifying data and knowing how its value changes over time will improve service levels, create a better working relationship with business units and reduce costs. (This tip is part of our Storage 101 tip series.)  Continue Reading

• Securing data at rest vs. data in transit

  Kevin Beaver offers insight on why transit is not where the security risk lies and provides recommendations on what you should focus your time, money and effort on instead.  Continue Reading

• Controlling the storage sprawl

  Consolidation, automation and cost control are key to managing storage across multiple data centers.  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

• How to troubleshoot SATA drive connection problems

  Use this checklist to help troubleshoot your SATA drive connection problems, and find out what to do with the jumpers and how to check the SATA BIOS drive.  Continue Reading

• Incremental and differential backup

  This tip details the differences between incremental and differential backups and the benefits and drawbacks of each type.  Continue Reading

• Boot from the SAN with iSCSI

  This tip details the advantages of booting from the SAN instead of locally.  Continue Reading

• RAID-53: RAID by any other name

  RAID 53 has a much higher transaction rate than RAID 3, which is achieved by striping the data across multiple RAID 3 arrays.  Continue Reading

• Checklist: Zone your SAN in five steps

  Learn how to develop an effective zoning plan and implement it with a minimum of hassle.  Continue Reading