Evaluate

Evaluate

Weigh the pros and cons of technologies, products and projects you are considering.

• Market for software-defined systems due for a correction

  Software-defined storage seems to relegate hardware to the sidelines, but that may change as hardware-centric offerings become attractive alternatives to software-on-COTS options. Continue Reading

• The best enterprise storage systems and services of 2017

  For 16 years, Storage magazine and SearchStorage have recognized the best enterprise storage systems with our annual Products of the Year awards. For this year's competition, vendors submitted new and upgraded products from the past year ... Continue Reading

• Time for a flash storage system refresh: What's next?

  The second wave of flash storage systems in the enterprise must be about optimizing flash performance and density, not just IOPS, and being faster than its hard disk predecessor. Continue Reading

• Best data storage products 2017: Products of the Year

  Storage magazine names winners of 2017 Products of the Year awards for best storage products in backup and DR, software-defined storage, storage arrays and management tools. Continue Reading

• Datrium DVX 3.0

  Datrium impresses judges and wins top honors with its DVX storage architecture, designed to sidestep latency and deliver performance and speed at scale. Continue Reading

• Caringo FileFly Secondary Storage Platform

  FileFly Secondary Storage Platform from Caringo works with Windows Server and NetApp OnTap, adding intelligent data transfer to scale-out secondary storage while reducing cost.Continue Reading

• WekaIO Matrix

  Startup WekaIO's Matrix parallel, scale-out file software pools the fast flash storage in application servers and offloads cold data to public and private clouds.Continue Reading

• Excelero NVMesh 1.1

  Startup's NVMesh software virtualizes nonvolatile memory express-based storage and lets applications access pooled storage resources at high speed and low latency.Continue Reading

• DataCore SANsymphony PSP6

  The latest release of DataCore's software-defined storage offering, SANsymphony PSP6, enhances REST API integration, container support and cloud replication.Continue Reading

• Infinidat InfiniBox 3.0

  InfiniBox 3.0 stores data on disk, deploying a small amount of flash as an acceleration tier. Its caching algorithm ensures the hottest data is on the fastest storage media.Continue Reading

• Pure FlashBlade

  Pure Storage FlashBlade is optimized for unstructured data analytics. Its system-on-a-chip architecture uses custom NAND flash blades to accelerate data and its metadata.Continue Reading

• IoFabric Vicinity 3.0

  Vicinity 3.0 from IoFabric uses artificial intelligence to cut storage costs and also creates a seamless, live instance of data between on-premises sites and the cloud.Continue Reading

• Factors to consider before evaluating hybrid storage systems

  The right hybrid flash storage can help an organization maximize its storage capacity and improve performance. Learn what factors to consider before evaluating hybrid storage arrays.Continue Reading

• Storage startup trends: Vendors to watch in 2018

  Another year is behind us, and 2017 wasn't kind to enterprise-storage startups, as a bunch went belly up or sold off their assets. Not deterred by this recent history and startup trends, a new group of companies has emerged to try and make an impact...Continue Reading

• Future of data storage technology: Transformational trends for 2018

  Risk-averse enterprises finally accepted the cloud in 2017, and we didn't even notice. Expect the same for these data storage technology trends in the new year.Continue Reading

• IT infrastructure automation boosts digital initiatives

  Embracing automation through concepts like composable infrastructure cuts back on the use of manual IT tasks, which inhibit the success of digital business.Continue Reading

• Persistent storage-class memory to revolutionize data centers

  Since it doesn't lose data during power outages, persistent memory will revolutionize direct-attached storage in particular and the cost/performance ratio of computing overall.Continue Reading

• What's behind the rise of the software-defined storage market

  The software-defined approach to storage is catching on. However, for now, enterprises prefer preconfigured SDS products bundled with hardware for easier deployment.Continue Reading

• Eight data storage startup vendors to watch in 2018

  Even as other storage startup companies fail, newcomers have appeared to take on established enterprise vendors. Can they ride the momentum for flash, hybrid cloud and SDS?Continue Reading

• NVMe flash storage doesn't mean tape and disk are dying

  The advent of NVMe, software-defined storage and other newer storage technologies doesn't mean we'll be looking at all-silicon-based storage any time soon.Continue Reading

• SDS, HCI and CDP are key to dream enterprise storage system

  Easy to implement and manage may be the buzzwords of the day for enterprise data storage systems, but too often daily experiences of IT professionals belie that rosy scenario.Continue Reading

• NVMe SSD storage costs won't hinder market takeover

  Storage vendors agree that NVMe will become the default for solid-state drives, but it must still overcome cost and configuration challenges.Continue Reading

• Hybrid storage arrays join multiple storage types to cut costs

  Despite being more complex than all-flash or all-hard disk drive systems, hybrid systems offer the speed and low latency of flash and the economy of HDDs, tape or cloud.Continue Reading

• Cloud storage providers: What should you look for?

  With so many cloud storage options on the market, it's hard to choose the right one. To start, determine whether you need a business service or if a consumer cloud will suffice.Continue Reading

• The hottest data storage technology trends for 2018

  For the past 15 years, Storage magazine has identified the hottest data storage technology trends you'll want to follow in the coming year. All of our selections may be "newish" tech, but they're also tried and true, having demonstrated their...Continue Reading

• Four rules to craft an enterprise data archiving strategy

  Follow these four rules to redesign your data archiving system in a way that ramps it up gradually, keeps data flowing from primary storage to the archive and makes everyone happy.Continue Reading

• Is Caringo leading the next wave in object-level storage?

  Caringo facilitates and simplifies cross-platform data movement by bridging its proprietary object storage system to Microsoft Azure object storage service.Continue Reading

• Software-defined storage: Making sense of the data storage technology

  Use this guide to help understand what vendors mean by 'software-defined storage,' what experts think of it and how to use it in your environment.Continue Reading

• Do users need 3D NAND flash memory?

  The population of users who need 3D NAND flash chips on their computers is limited to those who run extremely large workloads, such as big applications or multiple virtual machines.Continue Reading

• Features disaster recovery-as-a-service providers must offer

  A cost-effective disaster recovery as a service lets organizations of all sizes implement a dependable disaster recovery plan. Disaster recovery-as-a-service providers replicate or back up customer data to cloud data centers and then -- should ...Continue Reading

• Are you ready for NVMe storage and the future of flash?

  Three factors to consider beyond technical capabilities before designing and investing money and resources in a low-latency NVMe flash storage network.Continue Reading

• Demand for cold data storage heats up

  The exponential rise in unstructured data is one of many reasons for the upsurge in demand for cost-effective cold storage products, services and media.Continue Reading

• Cloud storage adoption decisions weigh capacity and cost

  Acquiring storage capacity -- particularly for backup, archiving, DR and collaborative purposes -- dominates as the main reason for storage cloud adoption trends in the enterprise.Continue Reading

• Solid-state drive performance metrics go beyond latency, IOPS

  In determining performance and lifespan of an SSD, companies must consider the drive's architecture, the storage controller and write amplification in addition to IOPS and latency.Continue Reading

• Hybrid storage arrays offer the best of all storage worlds

  Hybrid flash arrays provide performance benefits over all-flash and all-hard disk storage systems and can address the varying workload demands of today's organizations.Continue Reading

• Hard disk vs. flash storage: The fight of the century?

  When deciding which storage method you want in your corner, the benefits of flash storage are very appealing. But should you forget about hard disk arrays entirely?Continue Reading

• Gen 6 Fibre Channel helps support flash, but lacks adoption

  Sixth generation Fibre Channel has the potential to solve fabric-level bottlenecks, but companies tend to choose Ethernet because it has evolved more rapidly.Continue Reading

• Secondary data storage: A massively scalable transformation

  Capitalize on flash with interactive, online secondary data storage architectures that make a lot more data available for business while maximizing flash investment.Continue Reading

• Buying NAS: Do you want performance and scalability?

  Although SANs still rule the modern the data center, the NAS array maintains a position high up on tech buyers' shopping lists for new primary storage.Continue Reading

• A year later: Pros and cons of the Dell and EMC merger

  Our experts take measure of the Dell EMC acquisition, the storage and technology merger of the century, a little more than 12 months after the deal closed.Continue Reading

• A long hot summer for the enterprise storage market

  Use of magnetic tape in enterprise storage is set to break out, even as the cloud market slows and software-defined storage and hyper-converged infrastructure stumble.Continue Reading

• Multicloud storage mitigates risk of public cloud lock-in

  Multicloud storage strategy allows for the shifting of data across public clouds so you can avoid lock-in to a single provider, reduce cost and improve workload efficiency.Continue Reading

• Investigate how copy data management systems curb data sprawl

  The top copy data management vendors offer innovative products to reduce the staggering amount of data that organizations create by replicating multiple copies of production data.Continue Reading

• Navigating the all-flash array storage buying process

  Companies of all sizes are turning to all-flash storage arrays to meet their storage capacity, performance, reliability and data protection requirements.Continue Reading

• How NVMe over Fabrics will change the storage environment

  Expect NVMe to supplant SCSI and SAS protocols for SSD storage and NVMe over Fabrics to find a place in high-end networking deployments for transporting data.Continue Reading

• Persistent data storage in containerized environments

  The most significant challenge to the rise of containerized applications is quickly and easily providing enterprise-class persistent storage for containers.Continue Reading

• Persistent storage readied for containerized applications

  Traditional application architectures are limited in their ability to scale and meet the demands of today's fast-growing data, cloud and IT environments. Containerization -- with its support for Agile design, development and deployment methodologies...Continue Reading

• The copy data management market is starting to go mainstream

  Products from copy data management vendors protect and manage production data to lower storage costs, speed data access and streamline self-service access to data copies.Continue Reading

• Demystifying flash pricing

  What do math problems and determining the true cost of flash have in common? You need all the facts to get the right answer, and they're both really hard.Continue Reading

• How to determine the true cost of flash

  If you want to add flash storage, it's important to consider the cost per IOPS and gigabyte compared to HDD volumes, as well as the difference between consumer and enterprise SSDs.Continue Reading

• Selecting the best object-based storage platform for your needs

  Object-based storage systems can provide the scalability needed to meet organizations' increasing unstructured data storage requirements. Learn how to pick the right platform.Continue Reading

• The leading object storage vendors offer broad range of options

  Explore how the leading object storage systems can be accessed, how they integrate with the cloud, what data security they provide and the various deployment options they offer.Continue Reading

• Copy data management vendors expand breadth of offerings

  This roundup of copy management systems from the leading vendors shows the distinct categories and implementation models this cost-saving technology can provide.Continue Reading

• Compare XtremIO vs. Unity all-flash storage system for VDI

  Dell EMC offers two all-flash storage options geared toward VDI shops. One suits companies with fewer than 500 persistent machines, and the other is for larger deployments.Continue Reading

• What the leading copy data management vendors offer

  Copy management systems from the leading vendors offer unique features that can help IT departments consolidate their secondary storage into a single product.Continue Reading

• How the leading all-flash array vendors meet storage demands

  This in-depth overview of the features and capabilities of the leading AFA storage products can help you determine which configurations may best meet your needs.Continue Reading

• Disaggregation enables on-demand resource pool management and creation

  Disaggregation may not be a new concept, but it has become more important to IT in recent years. Here, it means breaking computers down to the core elements of compute, memory, I/O, storage, cache, network fabric and so on, to enable resource pool ...Continue Reading

• Forget all-flash arrays, aim for flash-optimized storage first

  Look for simple, cost-effective products that are optimized for flash and meet your needs rather than focusing on the all-flash array storage that vendors are pushing.Continue Reading

• HDD vs. SSD: Is there room for disk in a solid-state world?

  Although SSD vs. HDD speed is vastly different, for the foreseeable future, hard disks will have a place in our increasingly solid-state and even DRAM-centered data centers.Continue Reading

• Hybrid cloud technology gets the most out of primary storage workloads

  Learn what to look for in a hybrid cloud platform so you can take advantage of the scalability, agility and cost benefits it has to offer primary storage.Continue Reading

• Disaggregating network, compute and storage allocation demystified

  Explore the ways disaggregation concepts and principles are being applied to create and allocate pools of compute and storage resources to serve applications on demand.Continue Reading

• Software-defined storage products don't negate hardware's importance

  Software-defined storage, positioned as the cure-all for vendor lock-in, suggests that hardware may not be as important to IT infrastructure as it once was.Continue Reading

• Everything you need to know about OpenStack modules

  OpenStack continues to evolve in an effort to compete with AWS. The modules that are available now make OpenStack a viable enterprise option.Continue Reading

• Making the case for an all-flash data center

  Companies should ditch hard disk drives and outfit their data centers entirely with flash storage; vendors have solved old solid-state problems, such as wear time and cost.Continue Reading

• Is enterprise object storage ready to lead?

  As object storage benefits become more enticing to enterprises for internal storage uses and not just for cloud, vendors are overcoming its drawbacks.Continue Reading

• Analyzing products from the leading object storage vendors

  When evaluating the leading object-based storage systems, it is important to consider which product can best support your uses cases and unique site requirements.Continue Reading

• The object storage market is moving beyond the cloud to the enterprise

  The resistance to enterprise object storage may not be futile yet, but advances in software and hardware are moving that day closer, and block and file storage might soon be passe.Continue Reading

• Should you use a private cloud chargeback model?

  The idea of chargebacks is to help organizations use private cloud resources efficiently by making departments pay for what they use, but the practice can backfire.Continue Reading

• Hyper-converged infrastructure vendors offer range of storage options

  Hyper-converged infrastructure vendors have integrated software-defined storage, compute and networking into easy-to-use, turnkey appliances. But the transition from a traditional, three-tier architecture to a hyper-converged data center can take ...Continue Reading

• IT infrastructure transformation: Backbone of the digital revolution

  Maximizing the value of incoming and outgoing data as a core business strategy demands transforming your IT infrastructure into a more agile and flexible entity.Continue Reading

• Caching vs. tiering: Comparing storage optimization techniques

  There are many factors to consider when choosing between caching and tiering storage techniques to optimize storage. Knowing how and when to use either can make a big difference.Continue Reading

• Object-level storage poised to replace NAS in the enterprise

  Many vendors offer highly scalable object storage-based products with file interfaces, making the technology more accessible than ever as an alternative to NAS.Continue Reading

• Chief concerns when buying cloud storage include cost and capacity

  Enterprises look for the best deal from the vendor with the best reputation when turning to the cloud to tame growing data volumes for archiving, backup and more.Continue Reading

• Wanna laugh? Data protection techniques give ransomware the boot

  Done right, data protection such as cloud-based disaster recovery is the best countermeasure organizations have against insidious ransomware attacks.Continue Reading

• Determine your requirements before buying a copy management system

  Before evaluating copy data management systems, examine the pros and cons of the deployment models, as well as the most important features to look for in a product.Continue Reading

• How is private cloud support divided between IT and providers?

  When companies choose a private cloud storage provider, it's important that they understand what the internal IT department is responsible for, as opposed to what the provider will support.Continue Reading

• What are the benefits of private cloud over popular alternatives?

  Don't overlook the advantages of private cloud when choosing a cloud storage implementation. Security, cost and ease of transition make it a viable option.Continue Reading

• GlusterFS vs. Ceph: Weighing the open source combatants

  When considering open source storage software, GlusterFS and Ceph share that designation and little else. Knowing how each option works can help in the selection process.Continue Reading

• DevOps doesn't need stateful containers with storage, but apps do

  DevOps is giving up its hold on the container world, as persistent storage makes the stateless environment work for end-user applications, not just developers.Continue Reading

• Solving enterprise-class storage challenges in the age of convergence

  In this age of data center convergence, with technology evolving faster than ever, planning how to transition from traditional yet rigid environments to more agile software-defined ones is among the trickiest challenges facing IT shops today. ...Continue Reading

• New use cases for flash data storage benefit enterprises

  Adoption of protocols such as NVMe and memory bus-based flash DIMMs helps flash storage devices keep pace with the most demanding use cases.Continue Reading

• Multiprotocol unified storage systems poised for growth

  With support for block, file or both types of data on the same device, unified storage architecture is a flexible storage option for the modern data center.Continue Reading

• Questions to ask object storage vendors before evaluating products

  Before investing in object storage architecture, it is vital to understand your options, including whether you should buy software, hardware or a combination of both.Continue Reading

• Price of cloud storage may be fuzzy

  Cloud storage services offer convenience and can cut IT spending, but not in every case. Make sure to do the math before you commit to putting your critical data in the cloud.Continue Reading

• Examining what products the leading all-flash array vendors offer

  Although there are many factors to consider when selecting the right all-flash storage arrays for your organization, the first step is to assess your functional specifications.Continue Reading

• Speeds of storage networking technologies rise as flash use spikes

  Speeds of storage networking technologies are rising as faster flash storage is gaining adoption, giving IT organizations more options to meet their performance needs.Continue Reading

• Private cloud technology presents promising prospects

  The benefits of a private cloud implementation are becoming increasingly obvious as costs continue to decline and interoperability with its public relatives continues to improve.Continue Reading

• Phase change memory technology: Where is it headed?

  With the release of Intel's Optane, a product based on phase change memory is finally on the market. Where PCM goes is dependent on quite a few factors.Continue Reading

• Optane memory: Opening the window on Intel's latest technology

  Now that Optane products are on the market, the future of fast memory for storage and processing looks bright. But will Optane match the claims Intel has been making?Continue Reading

• Object storage systems ease data capacity and archival concerns

  If your organization can identify with any of the object storage use cases noted here, it might be time to consider adding this technology to your storage portfolio.Continue Reading

• Planning is paramount for a private cloud environment

  Almost any organization of any size can enjoy the flexibility and cost savings that often accompany a private cloud implementation. It's not just for startups.Continue Reading

• Helpful steps toward an easy private cloud implementation

  There are many aspects of an overall private cloud infrastructure that affect your organization's cloud storage plans, and knowing what to look for is vital.Continue Reading

• Quantifying the benefits of investing in copy management technology

  There are many benefits to implementing copy data storage, including cost reduction and increased operational efficiency while maintaining service-level objectives.Continue Reading

• All-flash data center still an idea in development

  The concept of the all-flash data center isn't new, and as the cost of SSDs continue to decline, vendors are pushing the of the all-flash data center like never before. Reality is a different matter, though. When it comes to older data, slower ...Continue Reading

• Data center storage architecture gets smarter with AI

  Trends, such as event-triggered computing, as exemplified by Lambda Architectures, converge on data center storage to hasten data center intelligence evolution.Continue Reading

• Use the cloud to enhance the functions of primary storage

  Learn some of the best ways to leverage public cloud as a storage tier to complement primary storage and make data centers more efficient.Continue Reading

• Scalability drives SAN market growth

  Better performing, more scalable and capacious storage area networks are required for ever-growing amounts of unstructured data, demanding applications and big data analytics.Continue Reading

• Is an all-flash data center worth it?

  The elevated cost of flash technology is a reason to limit flash usage. Find out what other factors go into a flash purchase and how it's used in today's data centers.Continue Reading

• Symbolic IO IRIS a breakthrough in server, storage architecture

  Intensified RAM Intelligent Server from newcomer Symbolic IO questions fundamental and often unstated foundations of contemporary server and storage design.Continue Reading

• Evolution of storage technology ending one-size-fits-all approach

  Some storage vendors want you to think that one type of storage will work for all scenarios and enterprises. Thanks to changes in storage technology that's not always the case.Continue Reading