The amount of data continues to increase - about all storage predictions begin
with this one since many years - but what's new is that the price to store them
increases since few months and this trend will continue during the beginning of
the year. As about all storage subsystems contains hard disk drives, the
vendors have no choice but to increase the price of their configuration. For
how long? Apparently, following the flood, the situation in Thailand
Success of technologies to reduce data storage
To try to compensate the situation, the users will look more deeply to the data they never or rarely use and to all the technologies enabling to store less and then to buy less hard disk drives:
Success of technologies to reduce data storage
To try to compensate the situation, the users will look more deeply to the data they never or rarely use and to all the technologies enabling to store less and then to buy less hard disk drives:
- data reduction (compression and de-dupe)
- thin provisioning
- automatic tiering
- new way of data protection (RAIN)
- software to better manage the entire configuration like SRM
SSD to benefit of HDD shortage
Of course, price/GB of SSDs will continue to be higher compared to HDDs. But the gap is narrowing and some users will accept to pay more - but less than before - to get the three main advantages of solid-state memories: access time, transfer rate and lower power consumption. The vendors are also making big efforts to provide longer writing cycles on flash chips. Here PCI is gaining momentum, being the best interface to sustain the speed of SSDs for high-end applications, SAS and SATA III being uded to replace conventional HDDs. Some companies are already offering all-flash storage subsystems competing in performance with the fastest traditional monolithic SAN. SSDs will progressively be used as cache, in tiering configuration with HDDs and then for the complete storage memory with HDDs for backup only..
Cloud storage
Cloud, big data and virtualization, these words are dominating the speeches of the vendors. It will be the same along all the year. Cloud storage, private, public or hybrid, will evolve to try to solve two main problems: bandwidth and security. When you think that some vendors offer to transport physically your HDD to make the first complete backup ... That's why hybrid cloud with local storage and cloud backup service is a smart solution. Some new gateways to access to the cloud also can help. Synchronization of data between different devices is going to be a functionality more and more added to cloud storage.
Big Data
Here come new analysis tools to order out of the chaos of petabytes of both structured and unstructured data. Apache Hadoop, already adopted by a lot storage vendors, is at the forefront of this market.
Virtualization
Virtualization of both server and storage is unstoppable and will continue to be a huge market for the vendors, more than anything.
NAS
NAS appliances continue to explode at all levels, from the home to the largest companies. Mid-range devices now get enterprise-class features, are scalable and can be clustered. In this field, we see a great future for the surveillance market. Another trend to follow: the possibility to access and manage a NAS through smartphones and tablets with app based on iOS and Android.
Connection
The battle between 10GbE and 16Gb FC will arrive in 2012 but the cost of 10GbE ports is dropping quickly as the demand is much higher. FC is abandoned by HDD manufacturers now concentrating on SAS for enterprise HDDs. 12Gb SAS is standardized and we are waiting to see in 2012 the first HDD or SSD with this interface.
USB 3.0
Intel will finally probably handle USB 3.0 this year. The new interface was already successful but its integration on all PCs will drastically boost it.
Thunderbolt
The new Intel/Apple interface is a dream for applications needing fast transfer rates, like video. Apple is the only one to have implemented it on its computers and the offering of external storage systems with Thunderbolt is limited and pricey. If Intel decides to integrate it on its processors, it could be an explosion but its high price will not affect USB 3.0. The is no way for FireWire to compete against Thunderbolt and USB 3.0.
HPC
There are a lot of innovations in the architecture of HPCs with Lustre or GPFS and now even EMC begin to be interested by this growing market of huge configurations needing not only fast processors but also petabytes of data.
Data protection of notebooks in enterprises
A majority of employees now use their notebook to work when they travel or at home and they contain critical data for their company. Since two years some solutions appear to protect them automatically and securely though the cloud. They are also needed following the proliferation of tablets and smartphones."
Of course, price/GB of SSDs will continue to be higher compared to HDDs. But the gap is narrowing and some users will accept to pay more - but less than before - to get the three main advantages of solid-state memories: access time, transfer rate and lower power consumption. The vendors are also making big efforts to provide longer writing cycles on flash chips. Here PCI is gaining momentum, being the best interface to sustain the speed of SSDs for high-end applications, SAS and SATA III being uded to replace conventional HDDs. Some companies are already offering all-flash storage subsystems competing in performance with the fastest traditional monolithic SAN. SSDs will progressively be used as cache, in tiering configuration with HDDs and then for the complete storage memory with HDDs for backup only..
Cloud storage
Cloud, big data and virtualization, these words are dominating the speeches of the vendors. It will be the same along all the year. Cloud storage, private, public or hybrid, will evolve to try to solve two main problems: bandwidth and security. When you think that some vendors offer to transport physically your HDD to make the first complete backup ... That's why hybrid cloud with local storage and cloud backup service is a smart solution. Some new gateways to access to the cloud also can help. Synchronization of data between different devices is going to be a functionality more and more added to cloud storage.
Big Data
Here come new analysis tools to order out of the chaos of petabytes of both structured and unstructured data. Apache Hadoop, already adopted by a lot storage vendors, is at the forefront of this market.
Virtualization
Virtualization of both server and storage is unstoppable and will continue to be a huge market for the vendors, more than anything.
NAS
NAS appliances continue to explode at all levels, from the home to the largest companies. Mid-range devices now get enterprise-class features, are scalable and can be clustered. In this field, we see a great future for the surveillance market. Another trend to follow: the possibility to access and manage a NAS through smartphones and tablets with app based on iOS and Android.
Connection
The battle between 10GbE and 16Gb FC will arrive in 2012 but the cost of 10GbE ports is dropping quickly as the demand is much higher. FC is abandoned by HDD manufacturers now concentrating on SAS for enterprise HDDs. 12Gb SAS is standardized and we are waiting to see in 2012 the first HDD or SSD with this interface.
USB 3.0
Intel will finally probably handle USB 3.0 this year. The new interface was already successful but its integration on all PCs will drastically boost it.
Thunderbolt
The new Intel/Apple interface is a dream for applications needing fast transfer rates, like video. Apple is the only one to have implemented it on its computers and the offering of external storage systems with Thunderbolt is limited and pricey. If Intel decides to integrate it on its processors, it could be an explosion but its high price will not affect USB 3.0. The is no way for FireWire to compete against Thunderbolt and USB 3.0.
HPC
There are a lot of innovations in the architecture of HPCs with Lustre or GPFS and now even EMC begin to be interested by this growing market of huge configurations needing not only fast processors but also petabytes of data.
Data protection of notebooks in enterprises
A majority of employees now use their notebook to work when they travel or at home and they contain critical data for their company. Since two years some solutions appear to protect them automatically and securely though the cloud. They are also needed following the proliferation of tablets and smartphones."
- via storagenewsletter.com
With the affect on the hard drive market still in affect, this article shows how it is affecting much more than hard drive prices. Hard drive prices are not expected to come down any time before June 2012. People will be very careful with how they use their storage. The shortage is affecting everything that has a hard drive in it, slowing down sales in Desktop PCs, Laptops, and Enterprise servers. Let us know if you will be holding off on buying any type of storage until hard drive prices come down to where they were before.
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