News

Flash storage and solid-state drives (SSDs)

• November 24, 2020 24 Nov'20

  Pure adds block, Azure and convergence to as-a-service offerings

  Pure customers can get its storage on-premise, in colocation or the cloud, and now it has added FlashArray C// block capacity and Flash Stack converged infrastructure to the catalogue

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Canada ad firm subtracts 44U with HPE and Ctera hyper-converged

  Glenn Davis Group slashed its hardware estate from 48U of rack space to 4U when it ditched its SAN and tape legacy kit for flash-based Ctera X Series and cloud backup

• November 09, 2020 09 Nov'20

  Quantum’s ATFS aims to classify and manage unstructured data

  Quantum triumvirate now comprises ATFS for file system classification and management, StorNext for high performance with large files and ActiveScale object storage as a bulk store

• October 28, 2020 28 Oct'20

  NetApp boosts NVMe, QLC and container hybrid cloud offer

  Storage giant NetApp unveils new AFF, FAS and E-series arrays with NVMe and QLC flash capability, plus object storage in Ontap and Spot cloud container resource management in Cloud Manager

• September 21, 2020 21 Sep'20

  Nutanix boosts storage performance by 50% with BlockStore

  Hyper-converged infrastructure pioneer Nutanix boosts access to NVMe and potentially Optane storage with BlockStore, which avoids the need to access the deepest layers of the OS

• September 21, 2020 21 Sep'20

  India’s storage market takes hit but hasn’t lost its shine

  The slower growth in storage spending in India amid the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to be mitigated by digitisation efforts by financial services and manufacturing firms

• September 16, 2020 16 Sep'20

  Pure flashes the cash, paying $370m for Portworx

  Flash storage pioneer believes container storage is the next frontier and pays big money for container persistent storage software provider Portworx in deal set to close this month

• September 15, 2020 15 Sep'20

  Scality aims at high-performance object with Ring 8 all-flash

  Object storage specialist – with file storage capability – aims at tier-1 use cases such as AI/ML, content delivery and some backup tasks with all-flash upgrade to Scality Ring 8

• September 10, 2020 10 Sep'20

  Broadcom launches Brocade gen7 Fibre Channel switches

  New generation Fibre Channel doubles performance to 64Gbps with switches and HBAs now available. But what future for Fibre Channel with NVMe-over-fabrics hitting the datacentre?

• September 02, 2020 02 Sep'20

  Nimbus Data launches 64TB of QLC flash in one drive for £8,000

  Flash pioneer aims QLC-equipped ExaDrive NL at AI/ML, analytics, media streaming and archiving use cases. Nimbus eschews NVMe for well-established SAS and SATA connectivity

• September 01, 2020 01 Sep'20

  Pure aims at unified file and object and launches new QLC storage

  Flash storage maker says unified storage in file and object is what is needed for contemporary analytics and AI workloads, while it launches a new all-QLC version of FlashArray//C

• August 25, 2020 25 Aug'20

  Intel’s DAOS tops the IO500 speed challenge for HPC storage

  Following on from Lustre, Intel’s DAOS is an object storage-based system with that is designed specifically for use with Optane for metadata and SSD for bulk storage in HPC environments

• August 18, 2020 18 Aug'20

  Panasas launches storage tiering by size instead of usage

  Dynamic Data Acceleration moves data to media dependent on file size and claims performance advantage over rival as it gets the best out of flash and spinning disk hard drives

• August 12, 2020 12 Aug'20

  Pure and Cohesity launch FlashRecover for flash-speed restores

  Flash market pioneer links up with scale-out backup product maker to provide bundled backup plus super-fast recovery based around Pure FlashBlade storage arrays

• July 23, 2020 23 Jul'20

  Commvault refreshes HyperScale backup appliances with Hedvig

  Backup player set to replace Fujitsu/Red Hat-based backup appliances with new hardware and storage software from Hedvig, which it bought late last year

• July 08, 2020 08 Jul'20

  Pavilion adds object storage to NVMe Hyperparallel Flash Array

  Pavilion responds to customer demand for object storage to support AI/ML, big data analytics workloads with multi-controller NMVe flash storage architecture

• July 01, 2020 01 Jul'20

  Qumulo hybrid cloud NAS provides special effects for Cinesite

  Hybrid cloud scale-out NAS from Qumulo used to offload Active Directory lookups and other workloads to the AWS cloud that had suffered in peak times when on Isilon

• June 25, 2020 25 Jun'20

  Nebulon emerges with software-defined storage, but from the cloud

  Startup to offer on-site storage with local I/O and some controller functionality in the cloud, combining software-defined and cloud to bring “fleet management at scale”

• June 16, 2020 16 Jun'20

  QLC + 3D Xpoint = Vast Data’s universal storage

  Vast marries cheap-and-deep QLC flash with super-fast 3D Xpoint to bring flash for all data, with a particular eye on analytics and with NAS and S3 object access for now

• May 29, 2020 29 May'20

  Kaminario offers cut-price virtual SAN in the cloud

  Flash pioneer Kaminario builds its VisionOS out to the cloud and says its cloud block storage is much cheaper than what is available from the native cloud services of the big three providers

• May 11, 2020 11 May'20

  Dell EMC launches PowerStore NVMe container-based storage array

  PowerStore controller software is based on container modules for SAN and NAS storage, while the mid-range array is all-NVMe and aimed at performance-hungry use cases such as Splunk

• April 23, 2020 23 Apr'20

  What comes after flash? Weebit Nano hopes its ReRAM will

  Weebit Nano’s ReRAM stores bits by building resistive filaments and promises a 1,000x speed boost over flash in chips that can store data for years and is well-suited to edge uses

• March 25, 2020 25 Mar'20

  Smartbox move to Nutanix HCI a catalyst for IT team revamp

  Gift supplier reorganises IT team structures as Nutanix hyper-converged infrastructure helps sweep away legacy architecture for hybrid cloud and containerised operations

• March 12, 2020 12 Mar'20

  APAC remains hotbed for digital transformation

  Nearly half of organisations in the Asia-Pacific region see digital transformation as their top priority, followed by cloud infrastructure deployment and artificial intelligence, survey finds

• February 25, 2020 25 Feb'20

  IT Priorities 2020: Cloud storage key but SAN/NAS alive and well

  In the Computer Weekly/TechTarget IT Priorities survey cloud dominates storage spending priorities for 2020, but on-premise technologies such as SAN and NAS are still key to IT

• February 12, 2020 12 Feb'20

  IBM unifies storage arrays under FlashSystem brand

  IBM to bring together all non-mainframe storage arrays as FlashSystem product, with options from entry-level to petabyte-scale with NVMe flash and storage class memory

• January 29, 2020 29 Jan'20

  Formulus Black Forsa turns memory into block storage

  Forsa allows customers to bring application data into memory, by provisioning DRAM or persistent memory as block access storage with latency several times better than NVMe flash

• January 20, 2020 20 Jan'20

  Inside NetApp’s transition into a data management firm

  NetApp’s leaders in Asia-Pacific discuss the company’s pivot into data services and its traction in the region

• January 15, 2020 15 Jan'20

  How container applications are shaping storage management

  Persistent storage, backup and recovery were not on the minds of those behind container applications, but that is starting to change

• January 07, 2020 07 Jan'20

  Scale’s HE150 the first of a big push to small edge HCI hardware

  Scale Computing aims to scale to micro-sized hyper-converged with a lightweight operating system it claims its competitors can’t match for edge and remote location deployments

• December 19, 2019 19 Dec'19

  Top 10 storage stories of 2019

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 storage stories for 2019, with the latest trends in enterprise storage arrays, hyper-converged, object storage, scale-out NAS, and more

• December 09, 2019 09 Dec'19

  Public sector still losing user devices in high numbers

  The Ministry of Justice has lost 354 smartphones, PCs, laptops and tablets in the past 12 months, according to a Freedom of Information request, and other government departments are in the same boat

• December 05, 2019 05 Dec'19

  NetApp’s Keystone hybrid cloud storage ‘try-before-you-buy’ for on-prem

  Keystone on-premise and cloud subscription model will cost more than buying hardware so will be best suited to customers that want to try NetApp on-site before committing to purchase

• November 20, 2019 20 Nov'19

  Datrium boosts VMware protection but won’t add more hypervisors

  NVMe flash pioneer turned DR-as-a-service-focused data platform provider Datrium says VMware and Kubernetes have “won the market” and it won’t extend support beyond those two

• November 18, 2019 18 Nov'19

  DataCore adds file and S3 object storage with vFilO

  Software-defined storage specialist DataCore has added file storage and S3 object storage access with vFilO, which lets customers create virtual pools from on-site and remote datastores

• November 05, 2019 05 Nov'19

  Qumulo gets HPE upgrade as customers ‘come back from object’

  Distributed file system maker Qumulo benefits from HPE Apollo hardware upgrade in a market where Qumulo exec says customers are coming back from object storage for unstructured data

• October 24, 2019 24 Oct'19

  Total saves £95,000 a year with Nutanix hyper-converged

  Gas and electricity supplier struggled with ageing traditional infrastructure, but moved to hyper-converged for projects that include containers and DevOps deployments

• October 21, 2019 21 Oct'19

  Virtual Instruments is now Virtana and aims at cloud, containers

  Searches for “Virtual Instruments” returned too many synthesizers, so storage monitoring pioneer went through a blue sky ordeal. It has new plans for cloud and container capability, too

• October 10, 2019 10 Oct'19

  UK and Middle East PR firm ditches NetApp for Nutanix and Talon Fast

  Four Communications needed better connectivity for collaboration between the UK and its gulf sites, so dumped server/storage for hyper-converged and a distributed file system

• October 07, 2019 07 Oct'19

  PLC flash: A solid state candidate for analytics and archives?

  We thought flash would end at QLC, but storage media makers are working on penta-level cell, which could push capacity to double figures, but at a further performance cost

• October 01, 2019 01 Oct'19

  Dutch group works on digitising collaborator archives created in aftermath of World War 2

  Experiments have been carried out to ascertain the best technology to open up the analogue archives of the Central Archive of Special Justice in the Netherlands

• October 01, 2019 01 Oct'19

  Intel previews Optane persistent memory, QLC SSD and even PLC

  Intel sets out roadmap for second-generation Optane persistent memory – between SSD and DRAM – as well as QLC SSD, with talk of PLC (penta-level cell) after that

• September 30, 2019 30 Sep'19

  Pure Storage APAC CTO talks up storage trends

  Flash-based storage will be around for at least two decades more, while crystal- and DNA-based storage needs a lot more work before becoming mainstream, according to Pure Storage’s CTO for the Asia-Pacific region

• September 24, 2019 24 Sep'19

  Pure adds Optane and QLC flash to boost performance and capacity

  Flash storage player adds Intel Optane modules performance, a capacity flash range based on QLC drives, plus rebranding and GA of its on-premise/cloud leasing service

• September 17, 2019 17 Sep'19

  Pure Storage sees stellar growth in APAC

  Pure Storage is expanding its footprint in key markets such as Australia, Japan and South Korea, even as it proceeds with caution in China

• September 17, 2019 17 Sep'19

  Pure Storage outlines growth momentum, bolsters cloud play

  Pure Storage CEO talks up the storage supplier’s competitive edge in a largely stagnant market dominated by larger rivals

• September 10, 2019 10 Sep'19

  Spectra tilts at HSM with StorCycle storage management software

  Spectra Logic unveils newly-developed storage management platform and two-tier file access and object storage with all data visible to all users for restore

• September 10, 2019 10 Sep'19

  Ctera launches hybrid cloud HC2400M at media use cases

  Edge filer specialist hits up the media and entertainment market with its NAS-like hardware that caches data locally, syncs with other nodes and stages data to the cloud

• September 04, 2019 04 Sep'19

  Virtual Instruments brings automated VM right-sizing in v6.2

  Storage and app performance specialist can now change virtual machine compute and network resources according to workload, with increased shift to analytics and proactive monitoring

• July 30, 2019 30 Jul'19

  Australia to upgrade supercomputer in HPC boost

  The Gadi supercomputer at the Australian National University will run 10 times faster than its predecessor, giving researchers access to high performance computing resources to solve the toughest research problems

• July 11, 2019 11 Jul'19

  University of Bristol upgrades to Nimble as it takes IT off-site

  Higher education institution gets trouble-free hybrid flash performance from Nimble and stores 600TB of data at two colocation sites to which it is transitioning from on-campus

• July 09, 2019 09 Jul'19

  StorOne brings leasing for high-performance multiprotocol flash storage

  To make a name for itself in the SME storage market, startup StorOne intends to innovate in technology and its economic approach, with a subscription model for storage

• June 10, 2019 10 Jun'19

  Western Digital aims to help rethink unstructured data storage

  Zonedstorage.io is Western Digital-backed idea to re-architect unstructured data storage with sequential writes to high-capacity media such as SMR HDDs and ZNS NVMe flash

• April 29, 2019 29 Apr'19

  LightBits Super SSD brings NVMe on vanilla Ethernet

  Israeli startup LightBits offers super-fast NVMe flash storage over plain Ethernet networks in a move that some think will bring “iSCSI for the NVMe generation”

• April 26, 2019 26 Apr'19

  NVMe is ‘ready’, say Dell EMC, Virtual Instruments and Cisco

  Storage and networks big guns say super-fast NVMe flash is ready for enterprise users, with performance 10x over existing Fibre Channel and ecosystem in place

• April 24, 2019 24 Apr'19

  Pure Storage buys Compuverde to put object storage on steroids

  Fast flash storage specialist Pure Storage adds object storage to FlashArray and aims to compete with NetApp on NAS while bringing flash performance to web applications

• April 17, 2019 17 Apr'19

  Qumulo upgrades hybrid-flash hybrid cloud C-series with C-72T

  Hybrid cloud-focused clustered NAS provider Qumulo’s C-72T takes advantage of cheaper and better components to start at 72TB and scale to petabytes from a 1U node

• April 09, 2019 09 Apr'19

  IBM sees NVMe gains in V5100F, but more to come with better apps

  As IBM launches first midrange NVMe box, execs say applications need to have the SCSI designed out of them to gain the full potential of NVMe flash-equipped arrays

• April 03, 2019 03 Apr'19

  Datrium makes European push as it targets storage ‘big guys’

  NVMe pioneer turned hybrid cloud and “data platform” provider makes a push for the enterprise and wants to take scalps from those selling “1990s SAN technology”

• April 02, 2019 02 Apr'19

  Cranfield gets Rubrik backup plus Nutanix in drive to the cloud

  Research-led university goes hyper-converged across the board with Rubrik backup appliances and Nutanix in a move to rationalise on-site physical needs and drive to the cloud

• March 11, 2019 11 Mar'19

  Aptare buy to add turbo-charged analytics to Veritas

  Veritas announces acquisition of Aptare, in a move that will boost the backup giant’s analytics offer with inclusion of Aptare IT analytics in NetBackup and Backup Exec

• February 26, 2019 26 Feb'19

  All-flash and hyper-convergence star in HPE and NetApp financials

  All-flash storage lines hit high revenues and growth rates for HPE and NetApp in their latest quarter results. Hyper-converged infrastructure also does well for HPE, but NetApp keeps mum

• February 20, 2019 20 Feb'19

  MWC 2019: Huawei claims massive lead on 5G readiness

  At a pre-Mobile World Congress event in London, Huawei’s Ryan Ding shared details of the firm’s rapidly expanding 5G mobile portfolio, and laid into his competitors

• February 19, 2019 19 Feb'19

  Pure launches ObjectEngine cloud dedupe, plus inter-rack NVMe

  Flash storage pioneer offers flash-to-flash-to-cloud ObjectEngine on-premise and in the cloud while boosting connectivity between datacentre racks with NVMe-over-fabrics

• February 13, 2019 13 Feb'19

  Cloud and backup top storage priorities for 2019

  Deploying the cloud for primary and secondary storage and backup and archiving project top project priorities in 2019. SAN, NAS and hyper-convergence also prominent

• January 15, 2019 15 Jan'19

  Nottingham Building Society boosts storage and saves power with Nexsan deployment

  Building society ditches geriatric IBM storage array to gain reliability, boost capacity by 20 times and make energy savings with Nexsan, but rejects flash storage for spinning disk SAN

• January 10, 2019 10 Jan'19

  20TB hard drives expected in 2019 as Seagate HAMR is tested by NetApp

  Heat-assisted method of writing to disk looks likely to push HDD capacities to 20TB this year, with 40TB possible by 2023, for media suited to colder data

• December 28, 2018 28 Dec'18

  Top 10 storage stories of 2018

  Key trends in storage in 2018 included hybrid and multicloud storage, container storage, and hyper-converged infrastructure. Meanwhile, flash storage has evolved with NVMe

• November 29, 2018 29 Nov'18

  Virtual Instruments aims to be “the brain of the datacentre”

  Virtual Instruments hopes artificial intelligence and machine learning functionality that helps IT staff spot connections between application and storage performance could put an end to the “war room”

• November 27, 2018 27 Nov'18

  Data volumes set to hit 175ZB with a tectonic shift to the cloud

  There will be more data in the public cloud than enterprise datacentres or consumer devices by 2025 as data shifts location, according to a study by IDC and Seagate

• November 21, 2018 21 Nov'18

  NetApp and Pure show strong results on flash storage and cloud

  NetApp records healthy year-on-year revenue increase with flash showing out well, while Pure Storage sees incredible earnings for its flash products over 12 months

• November 19, 2018 19 Nov'18

  Pure Storage makes big hybrid push with Cloud Data Services

  Flash storage pioneer makes a big deal of its object storage architecture as it launches Pure capacity in the AWS cloud, plus replication to the cloud for on-premise hardware

• October 30, 2018 30 Oct'18

  Excelero adds NVMe flash via Ethernet and Fibre Channel

  NVMesh2 will allow NVMe flash connectivity, so customers can use existing network hardware between servers. Erasure coding for data protection is also added

• October 29, 2018 29 Oct'18

  IBM refreshes StorWize with NVMe flash and NVMe-over-fabrics

  Big Blue boosts midrange arrays with NVMe and NVMf capability and launches Spectrum Discover, a Data Lake metadata-focused data analysis tool, plus a new tape drive, the TS1160

• October 17, 2018 17 Oct'18

  Violin to add X-IO flash, hybrid and disk as mid-range options

  Reborn Violin Systems is to buy X-IO’s spinning disk, all-flash and hybrid flash storage systems in a bid to provide more mid-range options to its customers

• October 10, 2018 10 Oct'18

  Commvault tops and tails HyperScale backup appliance offer

  Data protection specialist adds clustered high-end HS3300 backup appliance and the standalone Remote Office Appliance, pushing the HS1300 launched last year to mid range

• October 03, 2018 03 Oct'18

  Violin launches XVS8 flagship high-performance flash array

  Reborn Violin Systems launches flash boxes that can scale to petabytes and are aimed at transactional, analytics and virtualisation use cases, with NVMe upgrades expected

• October 01, 2018 01 Oct'18

  New cloud storage services for Microsoft Azure at Ignite 2018

  Microsoft launches Data Box hardware appliances for cloud ingestion, Avere vFXT cloud NAS, Ultra SSD storage based on NVMe flash and Azure Premium file storage

• September 17, 2018 17 Sep'18

  Red Hat to throw its hat in with Container Storage Interface

  Software maker will add Container Storage Interface support to its existing OpenShift Container Platform and GlusterFS-based scale-out file system container storage

• September 14, 2018 14 Sep'18

  Lenovo cements deal with NetApp to strengthen datacentre foundation

  Lenovo wants to become more customer-centric. A tie-up with NetApp takes its datacentre strategy to the next phase. We investigate

• September 10, 2018 10 Sep'18

  Enterprise demand drives hike in storage sales, says IDC

  Healthy jump in all-flash and SAN/NAS sales is being driven by enterprise storage modernisation, but also by component price rises. Dell EMC and NetApp top the supplier sales charts

• September 04, 2018 04 Sep'18

  DDN to make enterprise push with Tintri’s VM-aware storage

  DDN set to add Tintri’s portfolio of all-flash and hybrid flash arrays to its product offering following the purchase of the VM-aware storage pioneer after it filed for bankruptcy in June

• August 29, 2018 29 Aug'18

  Toshiba drives add Marvell cards to give native NVMe-over-fabrics

  Piggy-backed cards allow drive shelves that can connect to remote servers as if directly attached and at NVMe speeds, with box maker Aupera getting in on the JBOF act

• August 22, 2018 22 Aug'18

  Newisys bare metal NVMe box targets performance market

  Former OEM supplier come out of stealth with dual-server box that can mount 56 NVMe drives for hyperscale datacentres or build-your-own NVMe shared storage hardware

• June 25, 2018 25 Jun'18

  VM-aware storage pioneer Tintri on verge of bankruptcy

  Recent first-quarter results by the VM-aware storage pioneer throw light on a fragile financial situation that needs new funds or a buyer to avoid bankruptcy by the end of June

• June 22, 2018 22 Jun'18

  Vexata doubles capacity in NVMe flash storage VX family

  NVMe flash storage Vexata maker ups capacity to just under half a PB with 8TB drives, claims near-bare metal performance, and aims at analytics, trading and simulations workloads

• June 20, 2018 20 Jun'18

  San Francisco 49ers add pace to the team with NVMe flash from Datrium

  US NFL football team plans high-performance NVMe flash to power in-game statistics and video decision-making, plus access for scouts to player databases during draft

• June 14, 2018 14 Jun'18

  StorageCraft to unveil unified storage, backup and cloud appliances

  StorageCraft arose as a backup software maker but now plans converged storage, backup and analytics play in a move to unify offering built on core and acquired products

• June 14, 2018 14 Jun'18

  Case study: Mercedes F1 team makes gains with Pure Storage all-flash

  Two years ago, the Mercedes AMG Formula 1 team deployed Pure Storage all-flash arrays in its datacentre and in mobile racks out on the circuit. It’s a bet that has paid off for the racing team

• June 08, 2018 08 Jun'18

  Medical firm puts vTax and SAN to sleep to save £30,000 with Scale

  Penlon replaces HPE servers and storage and VMware virtualisation to escape the high costs of licensing, and deploys Scale Computing hyper-converged appliances at two UK datacentres

• May 29, 2018 29 May'18

  Pure debuts new FlashArray //X arrays with NVMe across the range

  Pure is set to replace //M series boxes with FlashArray //X arrays in which NVMe is standard with NVMe-over-fabrics connectivity to servers and expansion shelves

• May 23, 2018 23 May'18

  Technicolor speeds up movie production with Excelero NVMe flash

  Film giant Technicolor had to duplicate workstreams or schedule access to movies being worked on, but Excelero NVMe allows concurrent access to 10 or more workstations at a time

• May 21, 2018 21 May'18

  Micron first to market with QLC flash drive 5210 QLC SSD

  Micron’s 5210 QLC SSD is aimed at analytics and content delivery in cloud and web-scale operations that currently use 7,200rpm spinning disk in huge Raid sets to gain IOPS

• May 21, 2018 21 May'18

  IBM adds deduplication to Spectrum Virtualize, and Storwize arrays

  IBM has added data deduplication to Spectrum Virtualize and array products that run it. It has also upgraded array analytics and the cloud version of Spectrum Virtualize

• May 09, 2018 09 May'18

  NetApp adds Google Cloud NAS and AFF A800 NVMe flash array

  NetApp gets on the cloud NAS bandwagon with Google Cloud Platform file storage access, while adding its first NVMe flash-equipped storage array, the AFF A800

• May 04, 2018 04 May'18

  Dell EMC freshens high-end SANs with VMAX makeover, PowerMax

  Dell EMC rebrands VMAX high-end SAN arrays as PowerMax, with CPUs upgraded, new inline data deduplication, controller code re-worked and NVMe and Optane hardware on the roadmap

• May 02, 2018 02 May'18

  StorageOS makes hybrid cloud container storage platform generally available

  StorageOS releases tool that allows management of persistent storage for containers that can operate on-premise, in public cloud and hybrid cloud to provide deployment, QoS and protection

• April 09, 2018 09 Apr'18

  NVMe scale-out NAS: Qumulo P-series targets Isilon and Pure

  Scale-out NAS specialist Qumulo unveils P-series all-flash systems based on NVMe, and aims to be an alternative to high performance NAS hardware from Isilon and Pure Storage

• April 04, 2018 04 Apr'18

  InfiniSync backup ‘bunker’ gives zero RPO for critical apps

  Infinidat launches InfiniSync “black box” as off-site storage on-site, plus new Infinibox PB-scale array, cloud storage service Neutrix Cloud and InfiniGuard backup appliance

• March 29, 2018 29 Mar'18

  Western Digital adds StorReduce deduplication to object storage

  US hardware giant Western Digital links up with StorReduce to provide data deduplication for object storage that combines WD ActiveScale scale-out appliances with the startup’s dedupe software