News

Flash storage and solid-state drives (SSDs)

• December 21, 2021 21 Dec'21

  Top 10 cloud storage, DR and datacentre storage stories of 2021

  Key articles from 2021 that demonstrate the growing importance of cloud storage and disaster recovery, but also the snags that lead to cloud repatriation and difficulties restoring from the cloud

• December 14, 2021 14 Dec'21

  IT priorities 2022: Ransomware and cloud drive storage and backup

  The pandemic and the move to the cloud has driven cloud storage as a key priority

• December 08, 2021 08 Dec'21

  Pure adds flagship FlashArray//XL with doubled throughput

  High-end enterprise-targeted FlashArray//XL leverages latest Intel Ice Lake CPU, PCIe 4.0 and distributes SLC flash across drive modules to double throughput over existing arrays

• November 15, 2021 15 Nov'21

  Video firm gets Qumulo scale-out NAS and super-fine metrics

  Cognacq-Jay Image shunned Scality and Isilon to get Qumulo scale-out NAS for extremely elastic video workloads and built fine-grained metrics to troubleshoot complex processes

• November 10, 2021 10 Nov'21

  Vast Data: Big shifts promised for an AI future

  Purveyor of Universal Storage says AI and GPU-based compute will dominate, and is set to benefit with its (relatively) cheap, deep and quick QLC-plus-Optane offer

• November 02, 2021 02 Nov'21

  iXsystems entry-level NAS goes hyper-converged with TrueNAS Scale

  iXsystems TrueNAS can be a fraction of the cost of competitors and with a revamped operating system it can be built into clusters that can run virtual machines and containers

• October 21, 2021 21 Oct'21

  NetApp Insight frames moves to public cloud and cloud native

  Storage player highlights partnerships with cloud hyperscalers and development of Spot portfolio aimed at cloud-native applications, DevOps, FinOps and SecOps

• October 20, 2021 20 Oct'21

  Vast boosts QLC flash offer with ransomware-proof snapshots

  Vast majors on QLC flash bulk storage with 3D Xpoint cache to smooth out traffic into sequential flows

• October 20, 2021 20 Oct'21

  Spectra Logic unveils Vail hybrid cloud storage virtualisation

  Vail provides single pool of storage overlay to on-premise flash, disk and tape, plus cloud via object storage interface with Posix-compliance promised in future releases

• October 04, 2021 04 Oct'21

  Nexustorage aims at file and block access to object storage

  New Zealand-based startup to release Nexfs, which chops files into sub-file chunks and tiers them off to cheap and deep object stores with NFS and iSCSAI access for Posix applications

• September 28, 2021 28 Sep'21

  Pure launches Fusion cloud control layer for storage

  Pure Fusion is a storage control plane across cloud and datacentre. Portworx Data Services also launches to provide database management for container storage platform

• September 20, 2021 20 Sep'21

  Kioxia revisits SLC flash to power FL6 and rival Optane

  SLC flash storage – mostly consigned to the ‘where is it now?’ pile – has been given a lease of life by Kioxia as capacity for rapid access storage-class memory applications

• September 06, 2021 06 Sep'21

  NetApp and AWS launch fully managed Ontap cloud file storage

  But hybrid cloud still limited, according to NetApp. Until containerisation is widespread, applications tend to be built for the cloud or work better in the datacentre

• August 31, 2021 31 Aug'21

  More NAND SSD in fewer hands as WD $20m Kioxia bid likely

  The NAND flash market could soon go from six major players to four, but the fusion of Kioxia into WD and SK Hynix with Intel’s NAND business will still leave Samsung atop the pile

• August 03, 2021 03 Aug'21

  Panasas’s 10x saving bumps NetApp from HPC storage deployment

  University of Wollongong got 1.2PB for the cost of 100TB for HPC storage in its cryo-imaging institute. Scale-out NAS maker Panasas also brought life sciences expertise to bear

• July 06, 2021 06 Jul'21

  Manutan claws back 25% of storage admin time in switch to Pure

  Industrial and office supply giant needed to replace 3Par arrays then made a rapid switch to Pure Storage FlashArray flash storage when the ageing HPE hardware crashed during POC

• June 18, 2021 18 Jun'21

  Vast Data will offer containerised storage software, but not yet

  Vast Data sticking to its plan to provide no-tier “universal storage” via QLC flash and a 3D Xpoint read/write buffer that uses a containerised control plane

• June 02, 2021 02 Jun'21

  SA-based MSP shuns HCI for Nebulon cloud-defined storage

  SYSDBA needed to refresh its HPE 3PAR arrays, and so looked at hyper-converged but decided on cloud-defined storage from Nebulon that marries local storage with a cloud control plane

• May 25, 2021 25 May'21

  Valence brings storage virtualisation for the cloud era

  Startup 22dot6 launches Valence, software-defined storage that throws a virtualisation layer over any backend storage via multiple nodes that split metadata and storage services

• May 19, 2021 19 May'21

  Flexxon bakes AI into SSDs to fight unknown threats

  Singapore-based Flexxon has developed a solid-state drive that uses artificial intelligence to fend off malware and other unknown threats

• May 13, 2021 13 May'21

  Portworx gets container-native array management for Pure hardware

  Container storage player Portworx builds in container-native functionality to allow discovery, provisioning and management from inside Kubernetes cluster, but only on Pure arrays so far

• May 04, 2021 04 May'21

  Nebulon helps DCI offer high-performance edge hyper-converged

  Cambridge-based cloud and colo provider DCI will offer DataQube servers with Nebulon, which marries a cloud control plane with local PCIe-connected flash storage

• April 27, 2021 27 Apr'21

  Scality launches Artesca container-native object storage

  Object storage specialist gets on a burgeoning container object storage market with Artesca, which runs from Kubernetes to provide persistent storage for containerised applications

• April 21, 2021 21 Apr'21

  Winemaker racks Pure all-NVMe all-flash for rapid SAP response

  Concha Y Toro also pocketed a 35% saving in storage costs following a move from as-a-service storage provision to Pure Storage FlashArray//X all-flash hardware

• March 24, 2021 24 Mar'21

  IWM uses StorCycle to free capacity for all-flash SAN upgrade

  Imperial War Museums set to embark on unstructured data archiving project that will archive cold data to tape and free up capacity for a move to IntelliFlash all-flash SAN

• March 11, 2021 11 Mar'21

  Scottish farm subsidy body slashes dev time with Pure all-flash

  Rural directorate ditched hybrid flash EMC SAN for Pure all-flash storage and cut developer time in half, while beta testing Cloud Block Store and planning container project

• February 17, 2021 17 Feb'21

  Executive interview: Tapping APAC’s storage potential

  Lenovo’s head of storage in Asia-Pacific singles out the region’s market opportunities and predicts that the healthcare sector will go full-fledged with flash storage in the next year

• February 16, 2021 16 Feb'21

  C40, C60 R3, go! Pure adds to FlashArray//C QLC flash range

  Hybrid storage killers: Pure Storage adds entry-level FlashArray//C40 R3 QLC array plus re-CPUed C60 R3 that will scale to 5PB or more

• February 09, 2021 09 Feb'21

  IBM refreshes entry-level FlashSystem arrays with a little NVMe

  Big Blue refreshes three entry-level systems – the 5200, 5035 and 5015 – with the flagship of them gaining all-NVMe flash storage capability and cluster scaling to 10s of PB

• January 22, 2021 22 Jan'21

  MinIO stakes leadership claims in cloud object container storage

  2016 startup MinIO reckons it has first mover advantage as a container-native platform that provides private/cloud object storage in and orchestrated by Kubernetes

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  VVOLs and Pure win VM storage beauty parade for French chain

  VMware Virtual Volumes and a move from NetApp to Pure Storage saw cosmetics retailer Beauty Success make performance gains and eliminate bottlenecks in ordering and logistics

• January 11, 2021 11 Jan'21

  Malaysia’s storage market dips amid uncertainty

  Malaysia’s enterprise storage market declined 9.2% in 2020, but recovery is on the cards this year as business confidence improves

• December 23, 2020 23 Dec'20

  Top 10 cloud storage stories of 2020

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 cloud storage stories of 2020

• 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