Wednesday, July 23, 2014

EMC CLARiiON AX4 Allows SMBs to Build Custom Architectures Affordably


"Lowe’s experience with deploying the EMC CLARiiON AX4 in a custom-designed, high-availability architecture highlights what sets the system apart when pitted against other SMB storage solutions in its class. Unlike most other products, the AX4 is not merely a rigid set of hardware crammed into a controller box. Instead, it is a full-fledged SAN with features and capabilities you’d expect from a similar enterprise-level solution, albeit in a much-scaled-down version. Unlike preassembled storage hardware, the highly customizable EMC AX series SANs allow storage architects to design and build systems of varying size, complexity, and priority. For the IT departments of SMBs, this means being able to provide a storage solution uniquely suited to the specific needs of their parent organizations while staying within the company’s prescribed IT budget."
http://www.tabdatasystems.com/emc-clariion-ax4-allows-smbs-to-build-custom-architectures-affordably/

Monday, July 21, 2014

What Type of EMC Storage Hardware is Right for Your Organization?


"Unified Storage Unified storage combines block-level storage and file-level storage into one platform. A popular example is the EMC VNX unified storage line, which can use both mechanical and solid-state EMC hard drives, available from storage providers, like Tab Data Systems. Storage managers are given free rein over what portions of the storage unit are used as either block-level or file-level storage. Good for: Organizations that see heavy use of both block-level and file-level storage. Reducing processing overhead and improving storage performance by replacing volumes on block-level storage designed strictly for file-level storage use. Reducing the amount of physical space needed to house an organization’s entire storage infrastructure when the organization uses both block-level and file-level storage devices."
http://www.tabdatasystems.com/what-type-of-emc-storage-hardware-is-right-for-your-organization/

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Implications of Google Study on Used EMC CLARiiON Hard Drive Industry


"The study was also able to find meaningful correlation between four SMART signals—all of which were indicative of bad sectors—and increased chance of failure over the study period. In used drives, it is a given that some of the drives vendors obtain for resale will have raised one of these four SMART signals. To account for this, great care is taken to test and classify drives before they are released back on the market. Typically, drives are given a grade; for example A, B and C. When a drive is found to have raised any of the four SMART signals Google researchers identified, they are given a grade of B or C, and priced accordingly. B drives may have some “soft” errors or specific types of re-allocation errors that allow for limited use in non-critical situations. C grade drives are often sold as parts or properly recycled. It is useful to note that only 56 percent of failed drives in the Google study raised such errors. Additionally, of the set that did raise those four signals,
http://www.tabdatasystems.com/implications-of-google-study-on-used-emc-clariion-hard-drive-industry/

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Google Study Reinforces the Reliability of Used EMC Storage Hardware


"The study produced some very interesting, if not disappointing, results. First, it was unable to find a useful correlation between the age of a drive and its annualized failure rate (AFR) beyond the two year point. Like us, drives have a finite life and age does become a predictor years down the road. Yet observed rates in the study period were more strongly influenced by particular drive models than by the actual overall vintage. In fact, when looking at specific drive models, many had a decrease in failure rates after a spike in year 3. This went against conventional wisdom that hard disk drive failure scaled proportionally with age. Instead, data gathered showed that the AFR of hard disk drives was noticeably influenced by the infant mortality phenomenon during their first year of life, highest to the 3 month data point and receding thereafter to a low of less than 2% at the one year point. After a seemingly strange model driven jump in the period beginning the third year, the A
http://www.tabdatasystems.com/google-study-reinforces-the-reliability-of-used-emc-storage-hardware/