Entries categorized under “Flash Memory”

Last week's acquisition of NexGen Storage by Fusion-io was greeted with quite a bit of fanfare by the storage industry. But as an individual who has covered Fusion-io for many years and talked one-on-one with their top executives on multiple occasions, its acquisition of NexGen signaled that Fusion-io wanted to do more than deliver an external storage array that had its technology built-in. Rather Fusion-io felt it was incumbent for it to take action and accelerate the coming data center transformation that it has talked and written about for years. (read more)

Hybrid storage arrays use flash memory in combination with hard disk drives to create storage that balances performance, capacity and cost. Because the majority of the data will ultimately be stored on slower HDD instead of flash memory, the trick is to achieve consistently high performance without 100% flash. The secret sauce the Hybrid Storage Array vendors bring to the table is a combination of storage architecture, hardware, and software features. (read more)

DCIG has for some time been recommending the adoption of flash storage in the data center as a way to achieve substantial overall savings and ROI. As part of the April 11 announcement of the IBM Flash Ahead Initiative, IBM revealed that a flash storage enabled systemic rethinking of the data center can generally achieve savings of over 30% in data center hardware and software costs. This finding affirms DCIG's belief that Flash Memory Storage Arrays are poised to address not only special I/O-intensive use cases, but to begin displacing traditional storage arrays in many data centers. (read more)

In May 2010 DCIG released its first-ever Midrange Array Buyer's Guide in which we covered 70+ models from over 20 vendors. Fast forward just three (3) short years later and DCIG is on track to release not one, not two, not three no, not even four Buyer's Guides on enterprise midrange arrays but five distinct Buyer's Guides on this topic! So what has changed in just three (3) short years that DCIG feels the need to produce so many? To understand this requires a closer look at the forces that are driving the evolution and revolution in enterprise midrange arrays. (read more)

DCIG is pleased to announce the availability of its inaugural DCIG 2013 Flash Memory Storage Array Buyer's Guide that weights, scores and ranks 85 features of 34 different storage arrays from ten (10) different storage providers. (read more)

2012 saw a lot of discussion--some would say hype--over flash memory-based storage for the enterprise. Vendors are promoting various approaches to bringing flash memory storage to the data center. DCIG believes that Flash Memory Storage Arrays are poised to address not only special I/O-intensive use cases, but to begin displacing traditional storage arrays in many data centers. (read more)

Many IT professionals assume that the high cost of flash-based systems takes them out of consideration for their own data centers. However, Hybrid Flash Memory/HDD Storage Arrays drive down the cost of flash-level performance by intelligently leveraging flash for speed and traditional spinning disks for cheap capacity to achieve an ROI and Return on Assets that makes them a compelling value for many businesses. In other cases, the low power and low latency of an all-flash array are the best fit for the needs of the business and achieve an acceptable ROI. (read more)

Flash memory arrays almost always win the efficiency and performance battles when compared to hard disk drive storage arrays. It is for these reasons that comparisons between the two need to be redefined to reflect the distinctive features of each. Nimbus Data Systems Gemini breaks new ground with high availability, higher storage density, flash memory endurance and performance as well as new flexibility to configure storage networking ports. Combined these features illustrate how flash memory arrays should no longer be compared to hard disk drive storage arrays and instead be measured by a new set of standards. (read more)