Interesting piece on Storage technology (not the stock). I relocated the article again and will try posting now: Interested on any comments regarding the application of this technology to EMC's business.
In-Depth News Analysis
Storage Technology Starts To Get NAS-ty
By Rivka Tadjer Is it time for a RAID on your network storage setup? Now that NAS (network-attached storage) is finally shedding its vapor status and moving into reality, this evolving network storage technology deserves a hard look. Even skeptics wary of the inevitable hype accompanying any new, elaborate network storage systems concede that NAS represents a genuine enhancement in storage solutions.
"The new network-attached storage technologies really signal a difference in the way people will access storage devices," says Marc Nicolett, storage service analyst at Gartner Group (www.gartner.com). "Instead of querying a server, which in turn accesses the storage device--whether it be a RAID or tape--clients on the network will directly query the storage device." The coup for NAS is that such direct access bypasses the server middleman, a frequent culprit in retrieval bottlenecks.
NAS is defined as any storage device that is directly attached to the network, hanging onto the linkup like any other node. Essentially, the storage device has an intelligent controller that runs a NOS.
The most popular of these new devices are RAID systems, such as those from Digital Equipment Corp. and Sun Microsystems, says Nicolett, though any traditional storage device could theoretically become NAS. Of particular interest are the NAS-style Fibre Channel RAID systems, which use a new gigabit protocol and promise data retrieval at up to 200 Mbps.
Fibre Channel RAID storage has both a SCSI adapter (for the disks) and an Ethernet adapter (for the network). The Fibre Channel arbitrated-loop architecture means that instead of a SCSI interface between the storage device and the world, you have a closed-loop, fully duplexed path capable of roughly 200-Mbps retrieval.
"It's essentially an awesome gigabit protocol," says Craig Williams, CEO of enterprise integrator and consultancy Optical Image Network Group.
Suppose you have multiple servers going to your Web site and one physical server dedicated to the Web. NAS makes it easier and faster to share data. "You set up servers and just point them to the storage device sitting as a node on the intranet," Williams says.
Nicolett says that even storage veterans such as StorageTek (www.storagetek.com), which reap the bulk of their revenue from traditional devices such as tape backup, hard disks and optical disks, are starting to jump on the NAS bandwagon.
Storage vendor officials recognize that their traditional products must become faster because speedy retrieval will be needed across an intranet universally, not just on one or two servers. And given the presence of 200-Mbps options, they have to compete quickly. NAS-enhanced devices perform faster retrieval simply by virtue of their ability to provide direct client access.
NAS versions of traditional devices will be much less expensive than Fibre Channel devices. Consider the current average access speeds and prices for hard disks, tape and optical drives:
· High-speed hard disks are very economical--the really big ones, such as the 23-GB model from Seagate Technology, and the 9-GB ones from vendors such as IBM Corp. and Quantum Corp., will cost you about $100 per gigabyte.
· Optical disks run you about $70 per gigabyte, but while they're less expensive than high-speed hard disks, they're not as fast. Hard disks deliver about 9-Mbps retrieval time; with optical, it's about 6 Mbps; with tape, it's about 3 Mbps. But remember that tape costs only $10 to $12 per gigabyte.
Speeding up all of these low-budget options through NAS will be a boon to businesses that have hefty storage needs.
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