Storage
What is a RAID Controller & Salient points you need to know about RAID Controllers
This post talks about what a RAID Controller is, and some salient points you need to know about RAID Controllers and RAID Arrays. If you want a general introduction to RAID and RAID Recovery, head here. »
Data De-duplication can help you reduce a lot of storage space
Any storage system will have a lot of redundant data (same files, etc) stored by the same person, or different people. Data De-duplication removes all that redundant data from the storage system by retaining just one copy and having pointers to this original copy, everywhere else. This saves a lot of storage space, especially... »
Advantages of File level storage (vs) Advantages of Block level Storage
There are basically two types of technologies that are popular with storage systems – File level storage which are popular with NAS Systems & Block level storage which are popular with SAN systems. In this article, we will look at what they are, and the advantages of File Level Storage systems Vs Advantages of... »
Advantages of a NAS Box over External Hard-disk drive for Storage/Backup in SOHO/SMB
For a small business / SOHO there may be relatively few documents and files to store, but the available budget and the technical expertise is limited. In such cases, why not consider a NAS (Network Attached Storage) Box instead of External Hard-disk Drive for storage / back-up? An entry level NAS box might give... »
RAID Basics & RAID Recovery
RAID Basics: RAID Systems (In Computers, Servers, NAS, etc) use multiple disk-drives to store data to prevent data loss when individual drives fail & to increase the read/write memory performance. Software based RAID systems provided by the operating systems use the system CPU to create and manage RAID drives while Hardware based RAID systems... »
Should you use self encrypting hard disk drives?
Self Encrypting hard disk drives just encrypt anything that you store on your desktop/ laptop hard-disk drives. One important reason to use encrypted drives is to ensure that sensitive data is not disclosed to third parties if your hard drive/ laptop is stolen. Let us see more about Self Encrypting hard disk drives, in... »
What is a Converged Network Adapter (CNA)?
In large enterprise companies, main servers have (at least) two adapters - FC HBA (FIber Channel Host Bus Adapter) & Ethernet NIC (Ethernet Network Interface Card) to connect to the storage network (Fiber Channel) and computer network (Ethernet). Converged Network Adapters converge the functionality of both the adapters into one. Read on, to... »
Why you need to implement a Storage Area Network using iSCSI over an IP Network
The first image defines what is iSCSI and what exactly its role is, in Storage Area Networks. Convergence is happening over IP everywhere (one reason why IP is exciting!), and even the Storage Area Network is expected to converge over IP networks through iSCSI especially with the anticipation of lossless Converged Enhanced Ethernet. The... »
Storage/Network Convergence with FCOE: Fiber Channel Over Ethernet – Need, Advantages & Limitations
FCOE or Fiber Channel Over Ethernet transports the SCSI storage data (used in FC networks) using Fiber Channel Protocol stack instead of TCP/IP stack; using the Ethernet infrastructure (NIC, Cables, Switches, etc). FCOE maps the FC commands and data directly into Ethernet frames (Fiber Channel frames are encapsulated in an Ethernet frame to create... »
What is Bare Metal Recovery and what are its Advantages/ Limitations?
If a server or a group of servers are totally destroyed (by a disaster like flood, fire etc), Bare Metal Recovery still enables the IT team to recreate them from scratch (on a different machine) including the Operating System, its configuration/ settings, patches, applications running on the operating system and (perhaps with the help... »
