Solid-State Storage Appliances Make Good Business Sense

That is the title a certain storage vendor gave a press release that arrived in my mailbox today. Regular readers might have noticed that I tend to take press releases with a grain of salt; but this one was a real gem. I won’t give the name of the company that sent it [...]

October 28th, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Humor | One comment

StorSpeed presents direct competitor for Avere FXT series caching appliances

Caching for NAS and SAN systems has been a hot topic the last few days. Late last month Dataram presented their XcelaSAN appliance that sits between a Fibre Channel SAN and the clients accessing it, storing data in RAM. A couple of days ago, Avere Systems announced the FXT series of NAS caching appliances using both RAM and traditional SAS disks. And yesterday, Storspeed launched their own solution: the SP5000 NAS cache. Continue reading StorSpeed presents direct competitor for Avere FXT series caching appliances

October 9th, 2009 | Tags: , , | Category: Networked storage, Other | Leave a comment

Dataram launches SAN caching appliance

Dataram finally launched their “mystery product”; it turns out I was on the right track with my predictions about this last month:

My best guess at this moment is that their new product will be a caching appliance that can be inserted transparently between a storage system and the clients; probably only for NAS devices at first, since I think that will be easier to implement. I’d also guess that the appliance and the included software will automatically detect data hotspots and cache only data that is accessed frequently.

The only bit I got wrong was the NAS part; instead, the product is meant for SANs. It’s called the XcelaSAN; the short summary is that it’s a 2U rack mount unit housing dual power supplies, a small UPS, SSDs for “durable” storage, and 128GB of RAM. Continue reading Dataram launches SAN caching appliance

September 28th, 2009 | Tags: | Category: Networked storage | One comment

Dataram gives more details about their mystery product

The mystery new product Dataram has been talking about appears to be a plug-in transparent caching appliance that can be inserted between a storage system and client systems; but this technology has already been patented by a company called Storspeed. [...]

August 26th, 2009 | Tags: , | Category: Networked storage | 2 comments

Dataram to compete against Density Dynamics?

Dataram, a company new to the storage industry that currently specializes in RAM memory modules, just announced plans to enter the storage business:

Dataram Corporation [NASDAQ: DRAM], a worldwide leader of advanced memory solutions, today announced plans to launch a unique storage product line that will deliver application performance improvements as well as cost savings without the need for an expensive storage upgrade or replacement. This product launch supports Dataram’s corporate strategy to deliver data center solutions that optimize performance, leverage existing IT investments, and make measurable reductions in the total cost of ownership associated with these assets.

The products will be revealed at SNW in Phoenix in October. The press release and their existing products hint at a product that will be comparable to Density Dynamics’ Jet.io module: a hard drive replacement using RAM. Continue reading Dataram to compete against Density Dynamics?

August 20th, 2009 | Tags: , | Category: Direct-attached storage | One comment