Big (and Small) Developments In Storage 27
louismg writes "On the same day that BlueArc released the Titan 2000 family, with performance more than three times higher than rivals EMC and NetApp, including a global namespace and scalability to 512 terabytes, EMC took a low-end approach by unveiling a line for the SMB market, dubbed Insignia. Red Herring claims that BlueArc's announcement changes the storage game, while The Register says that small means beautiful. What makes sense for today's IT infrastructures, with data growth showing no sign of slowing?"
EMC's product is software, not hardware (Score:3, Insightful)
The Insignia line consists of a basic, low-cost version of the VisualSRM management package, an SMB edition of the eRoom collaboration software, an SMB edition of the RepliStor replication package, and an SMB edition of Storage Administrator for Exchange.
How can we get more from our customers who already shelled out top dollar for our storage? With a variety of cleverly-named software packages, of course. Ugh, I *despise* EMC.
Commodity Mass Storage (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Commodity Mass Storage (Score:2)
Integrated SAN/NAS, installed inside the same box as the computer for a zero-external-space formfactor, connected by a low-level abstracted, storage specialized communication protocol over a high-speed wire-electric transmission medium.
Re:Commodity Mass Storage (Score:2, Funny)
Is that near Mexico city? I think I've partied there before.
Better organization! (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I'm facing a minor storage crisis with a 15-gig music tree, a 20-gig photos tree, and dozens of gigs of other useful stuff that I only need on an occasional basis.
When I offload the camera, the files go to the laptop. To avoid duplicating files, the most recent few weeks worth of photos should always be on the laptop. But anything older should move off, to free up space on the drive. I'd like to keep as much of my music in both places as possible, but I need a way to replicate file moves, metadata changes, and deletions so the same bad rips and inaccurate tags don't persist after I fix them once.
There are a set of notes files, mileage logs, and other small files which I'd like to synchronize between the desktop and laptop. However, there's a possibility of both copies changing simultaneously (or at least between syncs), so I'd need a way to reconcile changes.
These little dilemmas have me wasting a lot of space until I resolve them. Stale data and useless files are all over the place, and I don't have the notes I need when I need them. It sounds like I might be able to do most of this with rsync, but the notes files, CVS maybe?
Has anyone tackled these issues before in a useful way, perhaps a sensible-storage-organization HOWTO? More space is not the issue right now, I need more sense.
Re:Better organization! (Score:1)
Re:Better organization! (Score:2)
iDisk? (Score:2)
Who modded that down? (Score:2)
Re:Better organization! (Score:1)
I feel that half the problem in file management (i.e. search and retreival) lies in metadata. With the right metadata attached to each file, classification, organisation and search becomes far, far easier. The problem lies in who the metadata is generated and stored.
For example, I'm building a specific CRM/Helpdesk hybrid thingy (technical term!) to replace our current system and massively bloated spreadsheets. Now because it's work based there's no issue in forcing some minor metadat
Re:Better organization! (Score:2)
Re:Better organization! (Score:2)
Re:Better organization! (Score:2)
Re:Better organization! (Score:1)
For the rest of us, we'll still have the old, slow 'guess the filename, hope you find it somewhere' approach.
Re:Better organization! (Score:1)
Some metadata is transparent. After all MIME/File type is a piece of metadata present in every file. Even if some OSes have to rely on file extensions. Yes, I'm talking to you my monolithic friend....
I don't think metadata is a lost cause. I think it's the future. The point I was arguing is how to hide it from the user. You're right - the system needs to be better able to supply extra metadata itself. Having MP3s automatically embellished with CDDB info is a fantastic idea. The
Re:Better organization! (Score:4, Informative)
You set up one (or more) directories on at least two machines, tell it to keep those directories in sync - and magic happens. There's a central internet server that your machines connect read and store only the file checksums. And if more than one computer is online (either on the same LAN - or anywhere on the internet), files will be copied and the directories syncronised. It's a brilliant idea.
I personally have several FolderShare shares, including a large folder off my home directory that I keep organised and know that it will be automatically replicated to my other machines for distributed backup. *And* it works well for my MP3 directory and my digital photos.
It used to be a pay service, but Microsoft bought it and immediately opened the service for free to everyone. I believe their primary intent is for it to be a part of Windows Live when Windows Vista launches. FYI, there are Windows and Mac clients.
Re:Better organization! (Score:2)
How about a document management system like moodle or Microsoft Sharepoint?
Shell Scripting (Score:1)
I'd have a
Re:Better organization! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Better organization! (Score:1, Funny)
Both (Score:1)
"What makes sense for today's IT infrastructures, with data growth showing no sign of slowing?"
Both really. Alright, it's really cool that they can now store up to 512 terabytes. But for many businesses, that storage capacity isn't needed - and won't be for a while. By the time they do need it, they'd be at the point of needing to replace the old system anyways.