Hitachi/Intel Push Solid State Drives Forward

[May 20, 2010] Panasas and IBM are just two of the storage vendors turning to an old idea to improve RAID rebuild times.

[April 20, 2010] The effect of the evolution of Ethernet on the data storage market offers a case study in the causes of technology market disruption and innovation.

[February 26, 2010] Instead of predicting which technologies will take over the data center, we give you the ones most likely destined for the scrap heap of history.

[December 21, 2009] Enterprise storage columnist Henry Newman sees FCoE and SSD mergers coming, but there are no clouds in his forecast.

[November 6, 2009] RAID is laboring to keep up with explosive data growth, but experts see ways to make the technology go further.

[September 17, 2009] The long-running data storage technology could be headed for trouble. We look at the problem — and potential solutions.

[September 11, 2009] The economy has kept a lid on storage spending, but there are plenty of startups and established names ready to pounce on the recovery.

[August 28, 2009] Some high-end data storage technologies could radically change your home PC in the not too distant future.

[July 24, 2009] The storage world as we know it is about to change — and not all RAID vendors are ready.

[June 18, 2009] Recent steep drops in the price of 10Gb Ethernet NICs mean that Fibre Channel's decade-long dominance will soon be over.

[June 16, 2009] Mergers, hostile takeovers, turf battles, high-profile defections... We look at what's behind the turmoil in the IT industry — and what it means for the future of storage.

[April 27, 2009] Storage hardware sales may be suffering, but customers are still opening their wallets for some data storage technologies.

[March 16, 2009] Storage and IT professionals have a lot more to worry about than just the economy. Automation and the demand for broader IT experience are other issues threatening job security.

[January 22, 2009] Dedupe, iSCSI and cloud storage are likely to be big this year as cost-cutting measures, but the rise of solid state drives could buck the trend toward frugality.

[January 5, 2009] The global financial meltdown and Democratic control of the White House and Congress will likely mean new corporate accountability regulations — and more work for storage administrators.

[December 31, 2008] What were the most-read stories on Enterprise Storage Forum this year? Sun's financial health, Linux file systems and pNFS were just a few of the hot issues.

[December 19, 2008] Storage remains a priority for end users, but in some cases budgets have been cut and vendors are more willing to deal.

[December 18, 2008] After batting .800 on this year's predictions, it's time once again for our intrepid enterprise storage columnist to peer into his crystal ball and see what's in store for the storage market for 2009 and beyond.

[October 28, 2008] With their ability to reduce storage needs, storage optimization technologies are gaining favor with end users.

[September 12, 2008] The storage networking world could be profoundly changed by three emerging technologies.

[September 11, 2008] If you want to preserve data for the really long term, as in thousands of years, Norsam Technologies' analog HD-Rosetta disk may be your best bet.

[August 7, 2008] The network file system protocol is getting its biggest overhaul in more than a decade, and the results could be profound for end users.

[July 25, 2008] Drive and component manufacturers are getting psyched about 6Gb/s SAS, but storage users will have to wait a while before they can get their hands on the next-generation SAS products.

[July 18, 2008] Everyone's talking about storage systems designed to meet the exploding data needs of Web 2.0 companies, but what will these systems look like, and what kind of data requires such a system?

[March 27, 2008] NFSv4.1 and Parallel NFS will finally bring the 24-year-old protocol into the high-speed networking age.

[March 19, 2008] The top switch vendors see data center fabrics converging — and they're developing platforms to be at the center of it all when it happens.

[March 12, 2008] RAID pioneer Garth Gibson discusses Tiered Parity, the latest step in the storage technology's evolution.

[January 25, 2008] Solid state storage just might have what it takes this time around.

[December 21, 2007] Our resident storage guru steps out onto a limb to see what's in store for the storage market in 2008, including some big news for SAS, IP storage and undetectable errors.

[December 13, 2007] Whether it's money or energy, conservation will likely be on the minds of storage users next year.

[December 3, 2007] I/O virtualization and converged I/O networks offer users the promise of greater efficiency for their server and storage networks. We look at some of the vendors and protocols that promise to make unified data center fabrics a reality.

[November 21, 2007] 8 Gigabit per second Fibre Channel products are slowly arriving, but it will be some time before full storage systems based on the new technology arrive. And by then, Fibre Channel could face new competition.

[October 3, 2007] Storage automation is gaining thanks to its server counterpart, but it still has a ways to go.

[September 27, 2007] A bold prediction made earlier this month by Network Appliance has its doubters.

[August 17, 2007] File-Area Networking, also known as file virtualization, remains one of the hottest sectors of the storage market.

[July 31, 2007] Early signs of intelligence are finding their way into RAID data protection, switch platforms and disk arrays, with much more in the pipeline. Vendors and users are lining up, but do they see eye to eye?

[March 6, 2007] 10GbE and InfiniBand may pose a challenge to the storage interconnect king, but Fibre Channel has two advantages that will be hard to overcome.

[February 9, 2007] Cray and IBM are taking storage to the next level as part of a U.S. government supercomputing program.

[December 22, 2006] Our ace storage columnist predicts a number of surprises for the year ahead, including that NAS performance might catch up with SANs.

[December 20, 2006] From IP SANs to e-discovery, we honor a holiday classic.

[December 7, 2006] Are RAID 5EE and 6 necessary, and if so, does the extra data protection mean SATA is unreliable?

[October 13, 2006] There's a method to EMC's merger madness: The storage giant wants to virtualize just about everything.

[October 11, 2006] Some proposed changes to POSIX standards could greatly improve file system performance.

[October 10, 2006] As storage systems get bigger and bigger, failures become a big problem. A new academic and scientific project headed by industry pioneer Garth Gibson hopes to solve that problem.

[October 6, 2006] One consequence of all the storage mergers is the growing market concentration of the largest vendors.

[October 5, 2006] What's behind all the storage mergers? For some, the answer is survival, while others look to gain a competitive edge. But whatever the reason, merger mania has hit the storage sector.

[September 14, 2006] It may have taken years longer than expected, but a number of factors have converged to make InfiniBand a force to be reckoned with.

[July 7, 2006] The lines appear to be blurring between storage and general IT, and a number of vendors plan to capitalize on the trend.

[June 15, 2006] With PCI Express boosting network performance, the TCP/IP stack may be due for an overhaul next.

[June 9, 2006] In an exclusive interview, EMC chief Joe Tucci discusses the company's evolution, acquisitions and future plans.

[March 27, 2006] What does the arrival of Amazon and Google mean for the world of storage?

[February 15, 2006] Redmond's recent moves into the storage market suggest that the software giant may just be getting started.

[December 21, 2005] The annual column in which our enterprising storage columnist grades his predictions from last year and boldly looks ahead to next year.

[December 15, 2005] Long-term storage performance trends suggest trouble down the road for storage users. And unless vendors and management react now, it's only going to keep getting worse.

[November 30, 2005] Do next-gen optical formats have a place in the enterprise storage stack? At least a few vendors see promise.

[November 3, 2005] Growing complexity and soaring data demands make it inevitable that storage users will eventually have to try new approaches to manage it all.

[October 7, 2005] Backup technologies are changing rapidly, creating both confusion and opportunity for storage users.

[April 25, 2005] In the second part of our storage outlook series, we examine the need for dedicated teams for automating storage management.

[March 25, 2005] Whether you call it provisioning, utility computing or virtualization, storage management is changing.

[January 13, 2005] Fibre Channel users will be faced with some tough choices over the next year or two. We look at some issues to consider when choosing your Fibre Channel upgrade path.

[December 21, 2004] The annual column in which our enterprising columnist makes bold predictions about what may lie ahead for the storage industry.

[November 11, 2004] Object-Based Storage Devices could be the standard that replaces block devices and SCSI technology.

[October 22, 2004] Storage devices have been working the same way for 35 years. The common protocol to talk to devices has been around for 18 years, with very little in the way of changes. The time has come to replace SCSI and block devices.

[July 1, 2004] Commentary: Storage virtualization is still in its infancy compared to its rich, mature potential. The goal of a ubiquitous, vendor-neutral storage utility will take more years of evolution of both the storage networking infrastructure and virtualization technology.

[May 27, 2004] With the volume of data soaring and new regulations requiring that it be kept safe and secure, storage users will have to navigate a rapidly changing landscape in coming years.

[May 5, 2004] Demand for storage continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, which is certainly good news for storage vendors, but what does it mean for the future of the industry? Leslie Wood explores several key areas that are predicted to shape the storage industry for 2004 and beyond.

[December 24, 2003] Since it's 'That Time of Year,' we've given storage industry analysts an open mike to reflect on 2003 and predict what will be hot in storage for 2004.

[October 31, 2003] Storage technology overall has seen an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary year. Should we expect more of the same over the next 24 months? 36? 48?

[September 30, 2003] While some industry experts believe IP-based SANs will have an eye-opening effect on the storage industry, others feel that it will be nothing more than 'business as usual.' Leslie Wood concludes an in-depth look at where IP SANs stand today and once again tackles the burning question of whether or not Fibre Channel SANs and IP SANs will play nice together.

[September 3, 2003] While some industry experts believe IP-based SANs will have an eye-opening effect on the storage industry, others feel that it will be nothing more than 'business as usual.' Leslie Wood takes a look at where IP SANs stand today and addresses the burning question of whether Fibre Channel SANs and IP SANs will play nice together.

[January 29, 2003] Well, it's that time of year again. January is almost over and we have heard more than our fair share of both useful and useless predictions for 2003. And although the folks at Enterprise Storage Forum are not in the 'prediction' business, we thought we would find out from a few well-informed storage folks what they think this coming year holds for the storage industry.