Welcome to InfoStor online. Here, you’ll find information on mass data storage devices, such as enterprise storage arrays used for storage area networks (SANs), RAID arrays, network attached storage (NAS) devices, tape libraries, and other mass data storage devices. This information can be found in current and archived articles from our print issues, Web-exclusive articles, sponsored white papers, and Webcasts.
The amount of data that businesses have to manage is increasing faster than ever, especially when companies must keep data for longer periods of time to comply with government regulations. The types of mass data storage devices vary and choosing the equipment that is right for your company can be tricky. InfoStor’s articles include product announcements from vendors on the newest technologies. InfoStor also recaps mass data storage device studies by respected analyst firms, such as Gartner (see “Double-digit growth for disk arrays”).
Many companies protect their data by using mass data storage devices, such as redundant arrays of independent disks (RAID) (view articles). In the past 10 years, RAID has matured from simple redundancy to a number of different levels of RAID with varying degrees of sophistication. InfoStor discusses the latest of these, RAID 6, in the article, “Get ready for RAID 6.”
Storage area networks (SANs) remove data storage from the LAN, place it on mass data storage devices, and form separate Fibre Channel or iSCSI networks (view articles). When SANs were first introduced, they were extremely expensive and difficult to implement, but SANs have become both more affordable and easier to deploy. As the cost of Fibre Channel has come down and iSCSI SANs are taking hold, they are becoming more popular (see “SAN market ends year on high note”).
When network attached storage (NAS) devices hit the market, companies were attracted to the ease of installation, file sharing, and relative low cost of the mass data storage devices (view articles). Many companies bought multitudes of NAS devices and ended up with big storage management headaches. Consolidating NAS devices makes management of those devices easier and lowers overall costs (see “Lower TCO with NAS consolidation”).
A time-honored mass data storage device is the tape library or autoloader (view articles). Despite trends toward disk-based backup and recovery, the tape market is not dead, contrary to numerous predictions. For a look at tape trends, tape security, and tape products, check out the article, “Tape drive/library trends: LTO surges.”
Data Storage Information, Resources and Articles from InfoStor online. Search current and archived articles from our print issues, Web exclusive articles, white papers, and Webcasts.
