New dual drives blur the Bluray/HD-DVD divide
* 5th December 2007
* Ian Grayson
* DVD drive, Gadgets, PC Hardware
Buoyed by the success of its earlier offerings, LG has unveiled two new DVD drives that further blur the line between the two competing high definition recording formats.
The Super Multi Blue drives combine Blu-ray and HD DVD capabilities in a single unit, meaning consumers don't have to lock themselves in to one of the format camps. This is an attractive thought as the battle for the hearts and wallets of next-generation DVD fans is far from over.
LG's latest dual-format high-def driveLG's latest dual-format high-def driveThe Super Multi Blue GGW-H20L can write Blu-ray discs (BD-R) at speeds of up to 6X and conventional DVD+/-R discs at speeds of 16X. It can also read HD-DVD ROM discs at 3X speeds.
The other model, GGC-H20L, can play both Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs, but can only write conventional DVD and CD formats, albeit at an impressive 16X speed.
At the heart of the drives is LG's innovative Optical Pickup technology. This development allows the drives to play both competing high-definition formats and write Blu-ray discs. It can also handle conventional DVD and CD formats.
Both internal drives are now on the Australian market. The GGW-H20L retails for $999 while the GGC-H20L is priced at $799.
Interestingly a new industry report released this week shows Blu-ray has cornered more than 95 per cent of the home entertainment hardware and software markets.
Released by GfK Marketing Services (in association with Blu-ray fan Sony) it says the format has secure a 95.2% market share, leaving just 4.8 per cent for rival HD-DVD changes.
( www.westcoastcomputer.com )
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
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Monday, August 27, 2007
Acer's Gateway Purchase
Deal for $710 Million
Adds to Heft in U.S.;
Threat to H-P, Dell
By JASON DEAN and LORETTA CHAO
August 27, 2007 2:06 p.m.
BEIJING -- Acer Inc.'s acquisition of Gateway Inc. for $710 million highlights the intensifying consolidation in the personal-computer business and strengthens an already fast-growing competitor against industry leaders Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. in their home market.
The deal, announced Monday, will put Taiwan-based Acer firmly in the No. 3 spot in global PC market share by unit shipments, supplanting Lenovo Group Ltd., which itself vaulted into the global top tier two years ago by purchasing the PC operations of International Business Machines Corp. The Gateway acquisition marks a major though potentially risky step for Acer, a company that once manufactured PCs for big-name Western brands and is now buying one.
Under terms of the agreement, Acer will launch a cash tender offer for all outstanding shares of Gateway, Irvine, California, for $1.90 a share, a 57% premium to the closing price of Gateway's shares on the New York Stock Exchange Friday. The companies said the deal has been approved unanimously by the boards of both companies and is expected to close by December.
PC PLAYERS SCORECARD
The combination of Acer, Gateway and Packard Bell would form a company with about 10% of the U.S. market.
Global PC Shipments U.S. Market Share Annual Revenue (in billions)
Dell 39.1 million 27.3% $57.1
H-P 38.8 million 23.6% $91.66
Lenovo 16.6 million 3.9% $14.6
Acer 13.6 million 4.8% $11.32
Gateway 5.0 million 6.3% $3.98
Packard Bell 841,235 NA NA
Source: IDC, WSJ.com research
Annual 2006 world-wide shipments. U.S. market share as of June 2007. Lenovo revenue for fiscal year ended March 31, 2007; H-P revenue for fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2006; Dell revenue for fiscal year ended Feb. 2, 2007
The union with Gateway gives Acer needed heft in an industry increasingly dominated by its top few players. The combined company would have had total revenue of more than $15 billion for 2006 and expects to ship about 25 million PCs this year, executives said. By selling itself, Gateway, long one of the best-known PC names in the U.S., admits defeat in its effort to battle larger U.S. rivals -- though Acer executives said they will continue to use the Gateway brand.
"Scale has never been more important" in the PC industry, Acer Chairman J.T. Wang said on a conference call. "And this transaction provides [us] the scale to compete in today's global market."
Owning Gateway will substantially increase Acer's foothold in the U.S., a market long dominated by Dell and H-P but where Acer has been making headway selling its laptop PCs through big retail chains such as Best Buy Co. If the deal closes, Acer will become the No. 3 U.S. PC company by unit shipments, far larger than Apple Inc., which would become the No. 4 U.S. player. Acer and Gateway together held about a 10.8% share of the U.S. PC market in the second quarter, nearly half the 23.6% share of second-ranked H-P, according to preliminary estimates by market-research firm IDC. Dell's share was 28.4%.
The tie-up could involve a double blow to Lenovo, one of China's best-known companies, which has been battling with Acer for the global market's No. 3 spot all year. Lenovo disclosed earlier this month that it was in talks to buy a stake in Packard Bell BV, a PC maker based in the Netherlands. That deal was aimed at giving Lenovo a leg up in the European consumer market, where Acer is especially strong.
But in a separate statement issued just before Monday's merger announcement, Gateway appeared to throw cold water on those talks, saying that it intends to exercise a "right of first refusal" to acquire all the shares of Packard Bell's parent company. Gateway said it acquired that right in June 2006 from John Hui, the Chinese-American businessman who owns Packard Bell and who sold eMachines to Gateway in 2004. Gateway said it had received a notice from Mr. Hui offering to sell all the shares of Packard Bell's parent company to Gateway at a price "based on an offer received by Mr. Hui from a third party." It is unclear what that price would be.
A Lenovo representative says it remains interested in acquiring Packard Bell. A representative for Packard Bell didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
The deal occurs at a time of major change in the U.S. PC market, as growth in business purchases of desktop PCs has slowed and consumer purchases, largely of laptops, have become more important. That shift is giving retailers much more clout in the industry because many consumers prefer to see and feel products before they buy them. Acer's focus on retail sales has helped it grow rapidly in the U.S. in recent years, a trend analysts said the Gateway acquisition could accelerate.
"I think this changes the global market," said Tracy Tsai, a Taipei-based analyst at research firm Gartner Inc. Other top PC vendors have already "noticed that Acer is moving quickly up the ranks, and it's forcing them to be more aggressive in holding on to their market share."
Analysts say Gateway had been looking for a buyer in the face of declining U.S. sales. The company has faced stiff competition in the past year from a re-energized H-P and pricing battles that have reduced margins across the industry. "Gateway was kind of a sinking ship," says Doug Bell, an analyst with IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts.
The Gateway union will bring new challenges to Acer, which has engineered a remarkable turnaround since hiving off its contract-manufacturing operations in 2000 to focus on its own brand. It will have to manage three brands -- eMachines in addition to its own name and Gateway, which could dramatically increase the complexity of its operations. Retailers may want to condense the shelf space they allot to the three brands, for example, when they are all owned by one company.
Acer's Mr. Wang acknowledged that the multibrand move is a "major change in corporate strategy" but said the strategy would be a strength, enabling the company to better target different segments of the consumer market.
Acer has been plotting an acquisition for about a year. Mr. Wang, the chairman, first disclosed the company's intention to do a deal in a March interview with The Wall Street Journal, although at the time he didn't disclose any possible targets. Mr. Wang said Monday that Acer and Gateway have been in contact for some time but that serious discussions about the merger began about six weeks ago.
Executives said they expect the union to save the combined company about $150 million next year, by giving it better purchasing power for components and by cost cuts through combining parts of overlapping operations such as customer services.
Gateway has been trying to sell its unit that sells PCs to businesses. Executives said that effort will continue and that its success or failure won't affect whether the Acer deal happens. Separately Monday, Acer reported a decline in net profit for the most recent quarter but said sales and operating profit grew sharply. Acer said its consolidated revenue, including subsidiaries, rose 28% to 93.52 billion New Taiwan dollars (US$2.84 billion) in the three months through June, from NT$72.86 billion in the same period a year ago. Net profit fell 36% to NT$1.98 billion from NT$3.08 billion.
Acer didn't explain the decline in earnings, but its profit figures are frequently influenced by disposals of its considerable holdings in affiliates. For that reason, Acer's operating profit often provides a better measure to compare performance of its core business. In the latest quarter, operating profit rose 29% to NT$1.96 billion from NT$1.52 billion.
Acer had NT$44.69 billion in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet at the end of 2006.
Adds to Heft in U.S.;
Threat to H-P, Dell
By JASON DEAN and LORETTA CHAO
August 27, 2007 2:06 p.m.
BEIJING -- Acer Inc.'s acquisition of Gateway Inc. for $710 million highlights the intensifying consolidation in the personal-computer business and strengthens an already fast-growing competitor against industry leaders Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. in their home market.
The deal, announced Monday, will put Taiwan-based Acer firmly in the No. 3 spot in global PC market share by unit shipments, supplanting Lenovo Group Ltd., which itself vaulted into the global top tier two years ago by purchasing the PC operations of International Business Machines Corp. The Gateway acquisition marks a major though potentially risky step for Acer, a company that once manufactured PCs for big-name Western brands and is now buying one.
Under terms of the agreement, Acer will launch a cash tender offer for all outstanding shares of Gateway, Irvine, California, for $1.90 a share, a 57% premium to the closing price of Gateway's shares on the New York Stock Exchange Friday. The companies said the deal has been approved unanimously by the boards of both companies and is expected to close by December.
PC PLAYERS SCORECARD
The combination of Acer, Gateway and Packard Bell would form a company with about 10% of the U.S. market.
Global PC Shipments U.S. Market Share Annual Revenue (in billions)
Dell 39.1 million 27.3% $57.1
H-P 38.8 million 23.6% $91.66
Lenovo 16.6 million 3.9% $14.6
Acer 13.6 million 4.8% $11.32
Gateway 5.0 million 6.3% $3.98
Packard Bell 841,235 NA NA
Source: IDC, WSJ.com research
Annual 2006 world-wide shipments. U.S. market share as of June 2007. Lenovo revenue for fiscal year ended March 31, 2007; H-P revenue for fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 2006; Dell revenue for fiscal year ended Feb. 2, 2007
The union with Gateway gives Acer needed heft in an industry increasingly dominated by its top few players. The combined company would have had total revenue of more than $15 billion for 2006 and expects to ship about 25 million PCs this year, executives said. By selling itself, Gateway, long one of the best-known PC names in the U.S., admits defeat in its effort to battle larger U.S. rivals -- though Acer executives said they will continue to use the Gateway brand.
"Scale has never been more important" in the PC industry, Acer Chairman J.T. Wang said on a conference call. "And this transaction provides [us] the scale to compete in today's global market."
Owning Gateway will substantially increase Acer's foothold in the U.S., a market long dominated by Dell and H-P but where Acer has been making headway selling its laptop PCs through big retail chains such as Best Buy Co. If the deal closes, Acer will become the No. 3 U.S. PC company by unit shipments, far larger than Apple Inc., which would become the No. 4 U.S. player. Acer and Gateway together held about a 10.8% share of the U.S. PC market in the second quarter, nearly half the 23.6% share of second-ranked H-P, according to preliminary estimates by market-research firm IDC. Dell's share was 28.4%.
The tie-up could involve a double blow to Lenovo, one of China's best-known companies, which has been battling with Acer for the global market's No. 3 spot all year. Lenovo disclosed earlier this month that it was in talks to buy a stake in Packard Bell BV, a PC maker based in the Netherlands. That deal was aimed at giving Lenovo a leg up in the European consumer market, where Acer is especially strong.
But in a separate statement issued just before Monday's merger announcement, Gateway appeared to throw cold water on those talks, saying that it intends to exercise a "right of first refusal" to acquire all the shares of Packard Bell's parent company. Gateway said it acquired that right in June 2006 from John Hui, the Chinese-American businessman who owns Packard Bell and who sold eMachines to Gateway in 2004. Gateway said it had received a notice from Mr. Hui offering to sell all the shares of Packard Bell's parent company to Gateway at a price "based on an offer received by Mr. Hui from a third party." It is unclear what that price would be.
A Lenovo representative says it remains interested in acquiring Packard Bell. A representative for Packard Bell didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
The deal occurs at a time of major change in the U.S. PC market, as growth in business purchases of desktop PCs has slowed and consumer purchases, largely of laptops, have become more important. That shift is giving retailers much more clout in the industry because many consumers prefer to see and feel products before they buy them. Acer's focus on retail sales has helped it grow rapidly in the U.S. in recent years, a trend analysts said the Gateway acquisition could accelerate.
"I think this changes the global market," said Tracy Tsai, a Taipei-based analyst at research firm Gartner Inc. Other top PC vendors have already "noticed that Acer is moving quickly up the ranks, and it's forcing them to be more aggressive in holding on to their market share."
Analysts say Gateway had been looking for a buyer in the face of declining U.S. sales. The company has faced stiff competition in the past year from a re-energized H-P and pricing battles that have reduced margins across the industry. "Gateway was kind of a sinking ship," says Doug Bell, an analyst with IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts.
The Gateway union will bring new challenges to Acer, which has engineered a remarkable turnaround since hiving off its contract-manufacturing operations in 2000 to focus on its own brand. It will have to manage three brands -- eMachines in addition to its own name and Gateway, which could dramatically increase the complexity of its operations. Retailers may want to condense the shelf space they allot to the three brands, for example, when they are all owned by one company.
Acer's Mr. Wang acknowledged that the multibrand move is a "major change in corporate strategy" but said the strategy would be a strength, enabling the company to better target different segments of the consumer market.
Acer has been plotting an acquisition for about a year. Mr. Wang, the chairman, first disclosed the company's intention to do a deal in a March interview with The Wall Street Journal, although at the time he didn't disclose any possible targets. Mr. Wang said Monday that Acer and Gateway have been in contact for some time but that serious discussions about the merger began about six weeks ago.
Executives said they expect the union to save the combined company about $150 million next year, by giving it better purchasing power for components and by cost cuts through combining parts of overlapping operations such as customer services.
Gateway has been trying to sell its unit that sells PCs to businesses. Executives said that effort will continue and that its success or failure won't affect whether the Acer deal happens. Separately Monday, Acer reported a decline in net profit for the most recent quarter but said sales and operating profit grew sharply. Acer said its consolidated revenue, including subsidiaries, rose 28% to 93.52 billion New Taiwan dollars (US$2.84 billion) in the three months through June, from NT$72.86 billion in the same period a year ago. Net profit fell 36% to NT$1.98 billion from NT$3.08 billion.
Acer didn't explain the decline in earnings, but its profit figures are frequently influenced by disposals of its considerable holdings in affiliates. For that reason, Acer's operating profit often provides a better measure to compare performance of its core business. In the latest quarter, operating profit rose 29% to NT$1.96 billion from NT$1.52 billion.
Acer had NT$44.69 billion in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet at the end of 2006.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Order the compact Acer 17-inch LCD today
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Paramount, Dreamworks abandon Blu-ray .
Paramount, Dreamworks abandon Blu-ray.
Viacom's Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG will release their next-generation DVD titles exclusively on HD DVD ahead of what they say could be the biggest holiday season ever for DVDs.
Paramount had sold titles in both the new high-definition formats - HD DVD and Blu-Ray - but settled exclusively on HD DVD after deciding that it offered better quality, lower-priced players and lower manufacturing costs, Kelley Avery, president of Paramount Home Entertainment, told Reuters.
"This has been the biggest summer on record for movies, it will be the biggest fourth quarter for popular movies for consumers," Avery said. "At the same time, we have HD DVD players that are truly affordable."
HD DVD and Blu-Ray are waging a battle to dominate the next generation of DVD players that promise better pictures, sound and in some cases more content in the multibillion-dollar home-entertainment arena.
So far, most of the major Hollywood studios are selling Blu-Ray titles, and HD DVD sales have lagged. But some HD DVD supporters hope to broaden their appeal to consumers based on cost. The lowest-priced, stand-alone HD DVD player sells for $US299, compared with $US499 for the lowest-cost Blu-Ray option.
Paramount's first releases under the exclusive HD DVD program include Blades of Glory on August 28, and the summer blockbusters Transformers and Shrek the Third, due for release later this (northern hemisphere) autumn.
DreamWorks Animation, maker of the blockbuster Shrek animated movie franchise, had not committed exclusively to either high-definition format but was swayed to HD DVD by the lower-cost player, DreamWorks Animation Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Katzenberg said.
"They have a high-quality consumer experience that is now being offered at a price point that we believe is going to connect with the consumer," Katzenberg told Reuters.
Katzenberg said timing also played a part, with the holiday season "sure to be the biggest quarter in the history of the home-video market" and consumers facing the 2009 switch to a high-definition broadcast signal.
"This seems to us to be the right product at the right price at the right time," Katzenberg said. He added that sales for high-definition discs were much too small to declare either format dominant.
DreamWorks Animation titles are distributed on home video and DVD by Paramount.
The exclusive agreement does not include movies directed by Steven Spielberg for DreamWorks SKG, a Paramount unit. It does include all other movies distributed by Paramount, DreamWorks, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films.
HD DVD was developed by Toshiba and backed by Microsoft and is supported by Warner Bros, Universal Studios, New Line Cinema, HBO and the Weinstein Co.
Blu-Ray discs use Sony-backed technology and are supported by most of the major US movie studios.
Both formats came on the market last year. Blu-Ray outsold HD DVD 2-to-1 in the United States in the first half of 2007. An estimated 3.7 million high-definition discs have been sold, overall, including 2.2 million in Blu-Ray and 1.5 million in HD DVD through July, according to Home Media Research.
You may not copy, republish or distribute this page or the content from it without having obtained written permission from the copyright owner. To enquire about copyright clearances contact clearance@fairfaxnz.co.nz.
Viacom's Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG will release their next-generation DVD titles exclusively on HD DVD ahead of what they say could be the biggest holiday season ever for DVDs.
Paramount had sold titles in both the new high-definition formats - HD DVD and Blu-Ray - but settled exclusively on HD DVD after deciding that it offered better quality, lower-priced players and lower manufacturing costs, Kelley Avery, president of Paramount Home Entertainment, told Reuters.
"This has been the biggest summer on record for movies, it will be the biggest fourth quarter for popular movies for consumers," Avery said. "At the same time, we have HD DVD players that are truly affordable."
HD DVD and Blu-Ray are waging a battle to dominate the next generation of DVD players that promise better pictures, sound and in some cases more content in the multibillion-dollar home-entertainment arena.
So far, most of the major Hollywood studios are selling Blu-Ray titles, and HD DVD sales have lagged. But some HD DVD supporters hope to broaden their appeal to consumers based on cost. The lowest-priced, stand-alone HD DVD player sells for $US299, compared with $US499 for the lowest-cost Blu-Ray option.
Paramount's first releases under the exclusive HD DVD program include Blades of Glory on August 28, and the summer blockbusters Transformers and Shrek the Third, due for release later this (northern hemisphere) autumn.
DreamWorks Animation, maker of the blockbuster Shrek animated movie franchise, had not committed exclusively to either high-definition format but was swayed to HD DVD by the lower-cost player, DreamWorks Animation Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Katzenberg said.
"They have a high-quality consumer experience that is now being offered at a price point that we believe is going to connect with the consumer," Katzenberg told Reuters.
Katzenberg said timing also played a part, with the holiday season "sure to be the biggest quarter in the history of the home-video market" and consumers facing the 2009 switch to a high-definition broadcast signal.
"This seems to us to be the right product at the right price at the right time," Katzenberg said. He added that sales for high-definition discs were much too small to declare either format dominant.
DreamWorks Animation titles are distributed on home video and DVD by Paramount.
The exclusive agreement does not include movies directed by Steven Spielberg for DreamWorks SKG, a Paramount unit. It does include all other movies distributed by Paramount, DreamWorks, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films.
HD DVD was developed by Toshiba and backed by Microsoft and is supported by Warner Bros, Universal Studios, New Line Cinema, HBO and the Weinstein Co.
Blu-Ray discs use Sony-backed technology and are supported by most of the major US movie studios.
Both formats came on the market last year. Blu-Ray outsold HD DVD 2-to-1 in the United States in the first half of 2007. An estimated 3.7 million high-definition discs have been sold, overall, including 2.2 million in Blu-Ray and 1.5 million in HD DVD through July, according to Home Media Research.
You may not copy, republish or distribute this page or the content from it without having obtained written permission from the copyright owner. To enquire about copyright clearances contact clearance@fairfaxnz.co.nz.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Google starts charging for extra storage.
Space shared between Picasa and Gmail runs $20 per year for 6GB more
Gregg Keizer (Computerworld) 13/08/2007 09:22:51
Just hours after Microsoft rolled out its Skydrive online storage service on Thursday, Google unveiled pricing for shared online storage available to both Gmail and Picasa, the search giant's Web-based e-mail and photo services, respectively.
The new storage space, which Google took pains to stress is in addition to the free allowance for each service (1GB for Picasa, 2.8GB for Gmail), is priced starting at US$20 a year for another 6GB. In the first 20 minutes after the paid storage debuted, however, Google sold the 6GB bump for just US$1 a year; that was quickly changed to US$20.
Other plans provide an extra 25GB for US$75 annually, 100GB for US$250, and 250GB for US$500.
In comparison, Microsoft's Windows Live Skydrive, which it relaunched Friday with interface changes and a name change from Live Folders, offers 500MB, about 18 percent of Gmail's free limit.
"When you reach the limit of free storage, consider this your overflow solution," said Ryan Aquino, a software engineer on Google's Picasa team, on Google's primary blog. Other Google products, like Docs and Spreadsheets, the company's offline applications, will be able to access the shared storage "soon," Aquino added.
At one time, Google touted an "Infinity+1" strategy for Gmail's online storage space, but later settled on the current 2.8GB.
In March, rival Yahoo announced unlimited storage for its Web mail service. However, Yahoo flags accounts that it thinks are being used for online storage, rather than simply storing e-mails.
Google was not available for comment Thursday night to answer questions about the $1-per-year offering -- typo or change of heart? -- or why it decided to abandon Infinity+1 and charge for storage.
More about Windows Live, Google, Microsoft, Infinity, Yahoo
Google to let users store Picasa Web Albums and Gmail for a fee
Google to let users store Picasa Web Albums and Gmail for a fee
* Print this story
* Digg this story
Gregg Keizer (Computerworld) 13/08/2007 09:22:51
Just hours after Microsoft rolled out its Skydrive online storage service on Thursday, Google unveiled pricing for shared online storage available to both Gmail and Picasa, the search giant's Web-based e-mail and photo services, respectively.
The new storage space, which Google took pains to stress is in addition to the free allowance for each service (1GB for Picasa, 2.8GB for Gmail), is priced starting at US$20 a year for another 6GB. In the first 20 minutes after the paid storage debuted, however, Google sold the 6GB bump for just US$1 a year; that was quickly changed to US$20.
Other plans provide an extra 25GB for US$75 annually, 100GB for US$250, and 250GB for US$500.
In comparison, Microsoft's Windows Live Skydrive, which it relaunched Friday with interface changes and a name change from Live Folders, offers 500MB, about 18 percent of Gmail's free limit.
"When you reach the limit of free storage, consider this your overflow solution," said Ryan Aquino, a software engineer on Google's Picasa team, on Google's primary blog. Other Google products, like Docs and Spreadsheets, the company's offline applications, will be able to access the shared storage "soon," Aquino added.
At one time, Google touted an "Infinity+1" strategy for Gmail's online storage space, but later settled on the current 2.8GB.
In March, rival Yahoo announced unlimited storage for its Web mail service. However, Yahoo flags accounts that it thinks are being used for online storage, rather than simply storing e-mails.
Google was not available for comment Thursday night to answer questions about the $1-per-year offering -- typo or change of heart? -- or why it decided to abandon Infinity+1 and charge for storage.
More about Windows Live, Google, Microsoft, Infinity, Yahoo
Google to let users store Picasa Web Albums and Gmail for a fee
Google to let users store Picasa Web Albums and Gmail for a fee
* Print this story
* Digg this story
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Users want more disk backup -- right now
Lucas Mearian, Computerworld
23/07/2007 10:24:04
Fed up with slow tape backup systems and under pressure by regulators and auditors to keep data online and readily available, large and midsize businesses are making disk-to-disk backup technology a top priority in their data centers this year.
More than 75% of 150 large companies recently surveyed by TheInfoPro Inc., a New York-based independent research firm, said disk-to-disk backup technology is being used in their data centers; this compares to 67% who were implementing it a year ago.
Still, in the most recent survey, only about a third said they are using virtual tape libraries (VTL), a form of disk-to-disk backup that essentially uses disk arrays to mimic tape for server backup jobs.
One in four IT managers surveyed said they believe poor archiving practices are a key reason for unchecked data growth. The average company has 250TB of active storage space dedicated to archive-related content. Moreover, the survey found that archive capacity among companies is expected to grow by 52% by the end of this year.
Sean O'Mahoney, manager of client/server computing at Norton Healthcare, which has more than 2,000 physicians, rolled out three disk-to-disk backup systems over the past year. It helped the organization deal with a 50% year-over-year archival data growth rate that pushed the backup window to 20 hours a day.
Since connecting the health care firm's Picture Archiving and Communications System to an EMC Clariion Disk Library 710 array and Clariion Disk Library 4100 array, Norton's backup window has been more than halved -- to eight hours a day. O'Mahoney also plugged his company's financial systems into an EMC Centera disk array, which is a WORM permanent archive system.
In all, Norton Healthcare has 200TB of capacity dedicated to disk-to-disk backup, the vast majority of which is used for storing radiological images such as X-rays, which do not lend themselves easily to compression.
Besides shrinking its backup window with disk-to-disk technology, the organization also improved data-restore times by as much as 75%.
It used to take four days to retrieve data from tape because Norton's AIT-2 tape drives have a maximum throughput of 6MB/sec., compared to the Clariion disk array's 60MB/sec. rate. "The speed of the media is vital," O'Mahoney said.
TheInfoPro's survey, released in May, revealed that IT managers consider backup activities among the most time-consuming, adding that staffing remains flat and budgetary pressure to cut costs is at an all-time high.
A study by Gartner earlier this year predicted that by 2010, disk and not tape will be the primary medium for data recovery and that by 2011, the ability to take continuous snapshots of data will be an embedded function in backup and data replication software and will no longer be a separate feature.
Currently, only 17% of companies have deployed continuous data protection, according to TheInfoPro's survey.
"The need for high-performance online recovery of data, combined with the availability of low-cost disk arrays, has influenced enterprises and small and midsize businesses to adopt a disk-based approach for backup and recovery," Dave Russell, author of Gartner's disk-based storage report, wrote.
Tony Asaro, an analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group Inc. in Milford, Mass., said the driving force behind disk-to-disk backup boom is a combination of massive data growth, which is expanding backup windows, and legal and auditing requirements that force firms to keep records online and accessible for longer periods.
"Everyone we know is doing some sort of disk-to-disk backup," Asaro said.
Most companies, however, are still relying heavily on tape backup for archive, keeping data on disk for 120 days or less, Asaro said.
O'Mahoney said he typically keeps data on his disk-to-disk backup systems for about three weeks. His company's auditors, however, recommend that he keep that data on disk for at least five weeks, something O'Mahoney is now planning to do.
O'Mahoney said the health care industry is struggling with how long to keep data on disk because "there's not a lot" of regulatory oversight. "As far as federal regulation of the health care industry from an IT perspective, we're way behind the public sector," he said.
While the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act addresses the security of patient data, it doesn't speak to data retention. Guidelines for data retention in the health care industry were simply carried over from the outgoing era of paper records, he said.
Some companies are even more aggressive about using disk-to-disk. About nine months ago, flooring manufacturer Shaw Industries Inc., a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.,deployed a NearStore VTL. The disk-based backup system from Network Appliance Inc. appears as a tape library to backup software.
In general, VTLs offload data far more quickly than tape drives do from primary disk arrays, which application servers use for shared external storage capacity. So users no longer have to quiesce application servers for backups.
Instead, customers can take repeated snapshots of data, offload them to the VTL and then at the end of the day -- or week or month -- store those snapshots on a tape library either on-site or off.
In Shaw's case, the VTL consolidates backups on the company's WAN, moving information from 24 remote sales offices around the country to the main data center in Dalton. The system currently has 10TB of capacity, but it will grow by another 20TB this year, according to Ben Worsham, Shaw Industries' infrastructure planning manager.
Worsham said he's been adding up to 40 servers a quarter, both in remote offices and in the main data center, and can no longer keep up with backups without disk-to-disk technology.
"The backup window runs pretty much 24 hours a day. We see adding capacity and servers to the VTL as a way to shrink that," Worsham said.
Like O'Mahoney, Worsham keeps data on his VTL less than 120 days before vaulting it to tape. He has yet to deploy disk-to-disk technology in his data center as a way to consolidate server backups, but he said it's one of the things at top of the list of new technology rollouts.
It's critical to get data backed up from branch offices to the main data center. "Primarily, our need to do this is from a [disaster recovery] perspective. You've got auditing issues," Worsham said.
Worsham said eventually the bulk of his company's backups will go first to his VTL and then be vaulted to a secondary disk array in an off-site location. But he's also convinced that long-term archive will always require some tape.
O'Mahoney said his disk-to-disk systems have shown his firm the potential to use other technologies, including storage resource management tools and storage virtualization. He said he hopes to someday roll out EMC's Invista switch-based virtualization software or IBM's SAN Volume Controller virtualization appliance.
"I think it is technology that has play in our environment, and I'll probably implement it over next couple of years." Being able to manage primary and secondary disk through a single interface allows for consolidation of assets, which will allow his systems administrators to manage greater amounts of capacity than they can currently.
According to TheInfoPro's survey of IT managers, almost 55% have deployed some type of storage resource management (SRM) software, and nearly 66% have deployed storage monitoring software.
SRM software manages physical and logical storage resources, including primary and secondary disk arrays, virtual devices and block and file-based data. Monitoring software provides a view into storage resources and how they're being used, but allows no control over those resources.
After seeing some proof of concepts that apply to his company's infrastructure, O'Mahoney also said his disk-to-disk systems will benefit somewhat from emerging de-duplication technology, which he hopes to roll out over the next year.
De-duplication ensures that only a single instance of structured or unstructured data is copied during backup. In many instances, the vendors claim, de-duplication can reduce capacity needs by as much as 80% on more costly disk-based subsystems.
De-duplication took the No. 1 spot on TheInfoPro's "heat index" of 25 technologies that companies are expecting to deploy more quickly than any other to meet their operating needs. "Forty percent of [Fortune 1,000] storage organizations have indicated that de-duplication is a key IT strategic enabler, given the difficulties of managing storage growth while maintaining flat staffing levels," the report stated.
Most companies said they were deploying EMC's Avamar de-duplication technology, followed by technology from Data Domain Inc. and Diligent Technologies Corp.
Previous - 1 2 3
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23/07/2007 10:24:04
Fed up with slow tape backup systems and under pressure by regulators and auditors to keep data online and readily available, large and midsize businesses are making disk-to-disk backup technology a top priority in their data centers this year.
More than 75% of 150 large companies recently surveyed by TheInfoPro Inc., a New York-based independent research firm, said disk-to-disk backup technology is being used in their data centers; this compares to 67% who were implementing it a year ago.
Still, in the most recent survey, only about a third said they are using virtual tape libraries (VTL), a form of disk-to-disk backup that essentially uses disk arrays to mimic tape for server backup jobs.
One in four IT managers surveyed said they believe poor archiving practices are a key reason for unchecked data growth. The average company has 250TB of active storage space dedicated to archive-related content. Moreover, the survey found that archive capacity among companies is expected to grow by 52% by the end of this year.
Sean O'Mahoney, manager of client/server computing at Norton Healthcare, which has more than 2,000 physicians, rolled out three disk-to-disk backup systems over the past year. It helped the organization deal with a 50% year-over-year archival data growth rate that pushed the backup window to 20 hours a day.
Since connecting the health care firm's Picture Archiving and Communications System to an EMC Clariion Disk Library 710 array and Clariion Disk Library 4100 array, Norton's backup window has been more than halved -- to eight hours a day. O'Mahoney also plugged his company's financial systems into an EMC Centera disk array, which is a WORM permanent archive system.
In all, Norton Healthcare has 200TB of capacity dedicated to disk-to-disk backup, the vast majority of which is used for storing radiological images such as X-rays, which do not lend themselves easily to compression.
Besides shrinking its backup window with disk-to-disk technology, the organization also improved data-restore times by as much as 75%.
It used to take four days to retrieve data from tape because Norton's AIT-2 tape drives have a maximum throughput of 6MB/sec., compared to the Clariion disk array's 60MB/sec. rate. "The speed of the media is vital," O'Mahoney said.
TheInfoPro's survey, released in May, revealed that IT managers consider backup activities among the most time-consuming, adding that staffing remains flat and budgetary pressure to cut costs is at an all-time high.
A study by Gartner earlier this year predicted that by 2010, disk and not tape will be the primary medium for data recovery and that by 2011, the ability to take continuous snapshots of data will be an embedded function in backup and data replication software and will no longer be a separate feature.
Currently, only 17% of companies have deployed continuous data protection, according to TheInfoPro's survey.
"The need for high-performance online recovery of data, combined with the availability of low-cost disk arrays, has influenced enterprises and small and midsize businesses to adopt a disk-based approach for backup and recovery," Dave Russell, author of Gartner's disk-based storage report, wrote.
Tony Asaro, an analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group Inc. in Milford, Mass., said the driving force behind disk-to-disk backup boom is a combination of massive data growth, which is expanding backup windows, and legal and auditing requirements that force firms to keep records online and accessible for longer periods.
"Everyone we know is doing some sort of disk-to-disk backup," Asaro said.
Most companies, however, are still relying heavily on tape backup for archive, keeping data on disk for 120 days or less, Asaro said.
O'Mahoney said he typically keeps data on his disk-to-disk backup systems for about three weeks. His company's auditors, however, recommend that he keep that data on disk for at least five weeks, something O'Mahoney is now planning to do.
O'Mahoney said the health care industry is struggling with how long to keep data on disk because "there's not a lot" of regulatory oversight. "As far as federal regulation of the health care industry from an IT perspective, we're way behind the public sector," he said.
While the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act addresses the security of patient data, it doesn't speak to data retention. Guidelines for data retention in the health care industry were simply carried over from the outgoing era of paper records, he said.
Some companies are even more aggressive about using disk-to-disk. About nine months ago, flooring manufacturer Shaw Industries Inc., a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.,deployed a NearStore VTL. The disk-based backup system from Network Appliance Inc. appears as a tape library to backup software.
In general, VTLs offload data far more quickly than tape drives do from primary disk arrays, which application servers use for shared external storage capacity. So users no longer have to quiesce application servers for backups.
Instead, customers can take repeated snapshots of data, offload them to the VTL and then at the end of the day -- or week or month -- store those snapshots on a tape library either on-site or off.
In Shaw's case, the VTL consolidates backups on the company's WAN, moving information from 24 remote sales offices around the country to the main data center in Dalton. The system currently has 10TB of capacity, but it will grow by another 20TB this year, according to Ben Worsham, Shaw Industries' infrastructure planning manager.
Worsham said he's been adding up to 40 servers a quarter, both in remote offices and in the main data center, and can no longer keep up with backups without disk-to-disk technology.
"The backup window runs pretty much 24 hours a day. We see adding capacity and servers to the VTL as a way to shrink that," Worsham said.
Like O'Mahoney, Worsham keeps data on his VTL less than 120 days before vaulting it to tape. He has yet to deploy disk-to-disk technology in his data center as a way to consolidate server backups, but he said it's one of the things at top of the list of new technology rollouts.
It's critical to get data backed up from branch offices to the main data center. "Primarily, our need to do this is from a [disaster recovery] perspective. You've got auditing issues," Worsham said.
Worsham said eventually the bulk of his company's backups will go first to his VTL and then be vaulted to a secondary disk array in an off-site location. But he's also convinced that long-term archive will always require some tape.
O'Mahoney said his disk-to-disk systems have shown his firm the potential to use other technologies, including storage resource management tools and storage virtualization. He said he hopes to someday roll out EMC's Invista switch-based virtualization software or IBM's SAN Volume Controller virtualization appliance.
"I think it is technology that has play in our environment, and I'll probably implement it over next couple of years." Being able to manage primary and secondary disk through a single interface allows for consolidation of assets, which will allow his systems administrators to manage greater amounts of capacity than they can currently.
According to TheInfoPro's survey of IT managers, almost 55% have deployed some type of storage resource management (SRM) software, and nearly 66% have deployed storage monitoring software.
SRM software manages physical and logical storage resources, including primary and secondary disk arrays, virtual devices and block and file-based data. Monitoring software provides a view into storage resources and how they're being used, but allows no control over those resources.
After seeing some proof of concepts that apply to his company's infrastructure, O'Mahoney also said his disk-to-disk systems will benefit somewhat from emerging de-duplication technology, which he hopes to roll out over the next year.
De-duplication ensures that only a single instance of structured or unstructured data is copied during backup. In many instances, the vendors claim, de-duplication can reduce capacity needs by as much as 80% on more costly disk-based subsystems.
De-duplication took the No. 1 spot on TheInfoPro's "heat index" of 25 technologies that companies are expecting to deploy more quickly than any other to meet their operating needs. "Forty percent of [Fortune 1,000] storage organizations have indicated that de-duplication is a key IT strategic enabler, given the difficulties of managing storage growth while maintaining flat staffing levels," the report stated.
Most companies said they were deploying EMC's Avamar de-duplication technology, followed by technology from Data Domain Inc. and Diligent Technologies Corp.
Previous - 1 2 3
[ Printer Friendly Entire Article ]
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Thursday, July 19, 2007
Disney music label offers new CD format
NEW YORK, July 18 (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co. (DIS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) music label Hollywood Records is offering a new CD format with extra features to encourage compact-disc purchases in a bid to reverse declining CD sales.
Hollywood Records on Wednesday unveiled its new CDVU+ (CD View Plus) format with digital magazine extras, song lyrics, band photos and other extras to boost fan loyalty.
The new format also replaces the traditional CD booklet and plastic jewel case with recyclable packaging.
Teen punk band Jonas Brothers will be the first act to use the technology when they release their self-titled album on Aug. 7.
Music companies have been seeking new ways to give buyers more value from recorded music sales in hopes of turning around declining sales trends of regular CDs.
U.S. CD sales were down nearly 20 percent in the first half of 2007 as more young buyers digitally download music and piracy runs rampant.
Disney executives hope to hold the interest of fans by offering content similar to the extras on movie DVDs and convince them that pure music products still offer good value.
Recorded music is also competing with video games and other forms of entertainment for a share of consumers' disposable income.
The content on a CDVU+ can be downloaded and accessed online and off. The label said the extra content had been produced for the new format rather than using the band's outtakes or widely available material, such as existing music videos.
"We really believe if you're going to give consumers what they want, we should do it in a way they're used to," said Ken Bunt, Hollywood Records' senior vice president of marketing.
Hollywood Records is a label within Disney Music Group, which last year had the two biggest selling CDs in the U.S., the High School Musical soundtrack and country singer Rascal Flatts' "Me And My Gang."
Other acts include Hilary Duff and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus. Bunt said the company is already making plans to release albums from Duff and two other big selling acts -- The Cheetah Girls and Atreyu -- on CDVU+.
(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved. |
Hollywood Records on Wednesday unveiled its new CDVU+ (CD View Plus) format with digital magazine extras, song lyrics, band photos and other extras to boost fan loyalty.
The new format also replaces the traditional CD booklet and plastic jewel case with recyclable packaging.
Teen punk band Jonas Brothers will be the first act to use the technology when they release their self-titled album on Aug. 7.
Music companies have been seeking new ways to give buyers more value from recorded music sales in hopes of turning around declining sales trends of regular CDs.
U.S. CD sales were down nearly 20 percent in the first half of 2007 as more young buyers digitally download music and piracy runs rampant.
Disney executives hope to hold the interest of fans by offering content similar to the extras on movie DVDs and convince them that pure music products still offer good value.
Recorded music is also competing with video games and other forms of entertainment for a share of consumers' disposable income.
The content on a CDVU+ can be downloaded and accessed online and off. The label said the extra content had been produced for the new format rather than using the band's outtakes or widely available material, such as existing music videos.
"We really believe if you're going to give consumers what they want, we should do it in a way they're used to," said Ken Bunt, Hollywood Records' senior vice president of marketing.
Hollywood Records is a label within Disney Music Group, which last year had the two biggest selling CDs in the U.S., the High School Musical soundtrack and country singer Rascal Flatts' "Me And My Gang."
Other acts include Hilary Duff and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus. Bunt said the company is already making plans to release albums from Duff and two other big selling acts -- The Cheetah Girls and Atreyu -- on CDVU+.
(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved. |
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
It's a high-tech world - - we just plug you into it...
Growing use of nanotechnology stirs hopes, fears
The future is now: Nanotechnology is already in hundreds of everyday products, but questions remain about long-term environmental effects
Ralph Hermansson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, July 9, 2007
It's a high-tech world - - we just plug you into it...
Bacteria-proof forks and knives. Pants that never get stains. Computer chips with a considerably better memory, making conventional chips seem almost senile. Sports equipment made of materials that are much harder yet more lightweight than today.
Science fiction? Not at all, these products are readily available -- thanks to nanotechnology.
The somewhat outdated mantra "less is more" has probably never been more accurate than when it comes to nanotechnology. In this science, it's all about tiny details (nanos is the Greek word for dwarf). One nanoscale is a billionth of a meter, about 50,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
At that extremely small scale, very unusual properties of matter emerge. If you bring aluminum down to 20 nanometers, the surface-area-to-volume ratio changes so dramatically that explosions occur. This is why aluminum is used in rocket fuel to give some additional boost.
When manipulating atoms and molecules at this small level, engineers can build products that are many times stronger than conventional materials and yet lightweight.
New bicycles that are much more robust and still much lighter than most bikes today are but one example. Tennis rackets, skis and golf clubs are other items for which nanotechnology offers great advantages over graphite in strength, durability and weight.
The new technology is also being used to make longer-lasting batteries. Today, there are more than 500 products on the market that use nanotechnology in one way or another.
But critics point out that there are risks inherent in nanotechnology.
One popular use of nanotechnology is adding an ultrathin silver coating on kitchenware such as knives and forks so that bacteria can't stick to the surface. But not all bacteria are bad. Some are beneficial and actually crucial to building the body's immune system. If the environment becomes too clean and too antiseptic, experts say, there can be health hazards.
"There are a couple of concerns," said Andrew Maynard, science adviser at the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, a government-funded policy research institute in Washington, D.C.
"There is a risk if bacteria develop a resistance to antibacterial materials. If and when this product gets out to the environment, there is also a potential risk."
Silver nano particles are of special concern. These germ-killing particles are used in shoe liners, food-storage containers and washing machines, among other things. Since there is a risk that the particles escape into the aquatic environment, beneficial bacteria and other organisms may be killed. For this reason, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is demanding evidence that these kinds of products are not harmful to the environment.
Other areas of concern are transparent sunscreens that block all ultraviolet rays just as efficiently as any zinc paste. When you apply this type of sunscreen to avoid skin cancer, small nanoscale particles can enter your system through the skin. The effects this might have in the long run are hard to predict.
Christine Peterson, vice president of the Palo Alto think tank Foresight Nanotech Institute, also stresses the need for more research.
"There are so many different nano particles that it's misleading to put them under one name," she said.
"All they have in common is the size. It's kind of like comparing butter, basketballs and a boulder -- you just can't. Some particles probably will have issues and some won't be dangerous."
Even if there are risks, Maynard is convinced that nanotechnology, or rather different nanotechnologies, can be revolutionary.
He points to three different areas of special interest. One is that nanotechnology can help build new, high-performance materials already used in sports equipment but which can also be used to build cars or airplanes in the future.
The medical market is also of special interest. With the help of nanotechnology, the hope is to design new, more efficient drugs with fewer or no side effects. Nanotechnology could enhance the precision of drugs that have one highly specialized mission, like finding and killing cancer cells or tumors.
"The research results so far have been totally promising," Peterson said. "The animal testings have been very hopeful, and I think that in five to 10 years there will be new, very efficient drugs to fight cancer on the market."
Computer science is another area where nanotech is said to have a great future. In May, IBM introduced the next generation of powerful computer chips using the technology. Not only will the chips have a 35 percent higher performance, thanks to microscopic vacuum channels, it won't overheat.
"All in all, I think nanotechnologies will mean a profound change in how we are doing things," Maynard said.
Nanotechnolgy is not really a new science. The term was coined back in 1986, and experts have been predicting major breakthroughs ever since.
"Some innovations are coming about slower than people anticipated," Maynard said.
However, in five or 10 years, Maynard thinks we may look back and see the seeds of great change:
"Thanks to nanotechnology, we can today engineer electronic things on a much smaller scale. In the future, I think that some of the rather trivial products you see out on the market now may very well represent the first step for new materials that will be used in much more sophisticated ways."
The future is now: Nanotechnology is already in hundreds of everyday products, but questions remain about long-term environmental effects
Ralph Hermansson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, July 9, 2007
It's a high-tech world - - we just plug you into it...
Bacteria-proof forks and knives. Pants that never get stains. Computer chips with a considerably better memory, making conventional chips seem almost senile. Sports equipment made of materials that are much harder yet more lightweight than today.
Science fiction? Not at all, these products are readily available -- thanks to nanotechnology.
The somewhat outdated mantra "less is more" has probably never been more accurate than when it comes to nanotechnology. In this science, it's all about tiny details (nanos is the Greek word for dwarf). One nanoscale is a billionth of a meter, about 50,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
At that extremely small scale, very unusual properties of matter emerge. If you bring aluminum down to 20 nanometers, the surface-area-to-volume ratio changes so dramatically that explosions occur. This is why aluminum is used in rocket fuel to give some additional boost.
When manipulating atoms and molecules at this small level, engineers can build products that are many times stronger than conventional materials and yet lightweight.
New bicycles that are much more robust and still much lighter than most bikes today are but one example. Tennis rackets, skis and golf clubs are other items for which nanotechnology offers great advantages over graphite in strength, durability and weight.
The new technology is also being used to make longer-lasting batteries. Today, there are more than 500 products on the market that use nanotechnology in one way or another.
But critics point out that there are risks inherent in nanotechnology.
One popular use of nanotechnology is adding an ultrathin silver coating on kitchenware such as knives and forks so that bacteria can't stick to the surface. But not all bacteria are bad. Some are beneficial and actually crucial to building the body's immune system. If the environment becomes too clean and too antiseptic, experts say, there can be health hazards.
"There are a couple of concerns," said Andrew Maynard, science adviser at the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, a government-funded policy research institute in Washington, D.C.
"There is a risk if bacteria develop a resistance to antibacterial materials. If and when this product gets out to the environment, there is also a potential risk."
Silver nano particles are of special concern. These germ-killing particles are used in shoe liners, food-storage containers and washing machines, among other things. Since there is a risk that the particles escape into the aquatic environment, beneficial bacteria and other organisms may be killed. For this reason, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is demanding evidence that these kinds of products are not harmful to the environment.
Other areas of concern are transparent sunscreens that block all ultraviolet rays just as efficiently as any zinc paste. When you apply this type of sunscreen to avoid skin cancer, small nanoscale particles can enter your system through the skin. The effects this might have in the long run are hard to predict.
Christine Peterson, vice president of the Palo Alto think tank Foresight Nanotech Institute, also stresses the need for more research.
"There are so many different nano particles that it's misleading to put them under one name," she said.
"All they have in common is the size. It's kind of like comparing butter, basketballs and a boulder -- you just can't. Some particles probably will have issues and some won't be dangerous."
Even if there are risks, Maynard is convinced that nanotechnology, or rather different nanotechnologies, can be revolutionary.
He points to three different areas of special interest. One is that nanotechnology can help build new, high-performance materials already used in sports equipment but which can also be used to build cars or airplanes in the future.
The medical market is also of special interest. With the help of nanotechnology, the hope is to design new, more efficient drugs with fewer or no side effects. Nanotechnology could enhance the precision of drugs that have one highly specialized mission, like finding and killing cancer cells or tumors.
"The research results so far have been totally promising," Peterson said. "The animal testings have been very hopeful, and I think that in five to 10 years there will be new, very efficient drugs to fight cancer on the market."
Computer science is another area where nanotech is said to have a great future. In May, IBM introduced the next generation of powerful computer chips using the technology. Not only will the chips have a 35 percent higher performance, thanks to microscopic vacuum channels, it won't overheat.
"All in all, I think nanotechnologies will mean a profound change in how we are doing things," Maynard said.
Nanotechnolgy is not really a new science. The term was coined back in 1986, and experts have been predicting major breakthroughs ever since.
"Some innovations are coming about slower than people anticipated," Maynard said.
However, in five or 10 years, Maynard thinks we may look back and see the seeds of great change:
"Thanks to nanotechnology, we can today engineer electronic things on a much smaller scale. In the future, I think that some of the rather trivial products you see out on the market now may very well represent the first step for new materials that will be used in much more sophisticated ways."
Friday, July 6, 2007
1TB optical disks now in prospect
Chris Mellor, Techworld.com
02/07/2007 10:17:49
Manufacturers are being offered the world's highest capacity optical storage technology to license, reportedly, leap-frogging 300GB holographic disks and offering 1TB in a DVD-size disk. But the technology has not been commercialized and product could be three to five years away.
It uses a 2-photon recording process to record bits in a three-dimensional inside a disk's recording media coating. Multiple layers of information can be stored within the 3D volume with less than a 10-micron layer of separation. This effectively allows the equivalent of 250 conventional DVD layers to be put onto one disk platter. The roadmap lays out fivefold capacity increase through greater layer densities. This could enable a disk to store high definition format movies.
It could also enable movies or equivalent data up to 50GB to be stored on 1-inch optical disks inside PDAs and mobile phone-format devices.
Call/Recall says that another advantage of its technology is its use of affordable, commercially available, off-the-shelf components. This approach allows optical hardware manufacturers to extend the roadmap of their existing technologies, such as DVD and Blu-ray Disc, while maintaining backward compatibility with their installed base. Additionally, other key components are designed as molded/replicated parts, enabling low-cost production on industry-standard production lines.
Call/Recall is a military- and commerce-funded very high capacity optical storage research company. A co-founder is Dr. Peter Rentzepis. He is a former head of Bell Laboratories and, according to the company, a world-renowned scientist who has authored approximately 85 patents; his innovations are referenced as prior technology by 45 of the world's top optical technology providers, including IBM, Panasonic and Hitachi. This gives the technology more credibility.
One storage research analysis has offered an opinion on it. ESG analyst Heidi Biggar said: "Advances in optical technologies, such as Call/Recall's 2-photon 3D technology which promises to offer multiple terabyte data capacities and significantly faster data access than tape, hold new promise for users as they look to build more efficient and effective archives."
This is not exactly fulsome as the same sentiments could be applied to future InPhase holographic disks and blue laser UDO disks from Plasmon. In fact, the delay before any commercialization could give InPhase with its holographic Tapestry disks time to deliver on its terabyte disk roadmap. Plasmon's UDO should also be in the terabyte area by then.
02/07/2007 10:17:49
Manufacturers are being offered the world's highest capacity optical storage technology to license, reportedly, leap-frogging 300GB holographic disks and offering 1TB in a DVD-size disk. But the technology has not been commercialized and product could be three to five years away.
It uses a 2-photon recording process to record bits in a three-dimensional inside a disk's recording media coating. Multiple layers of information can be stored within the 3D volume with less than a 10-micron layer of separation. This effectively allows the equivalent of 250 conventional DVD layers to be put onto one disk platter. The roadmap lays out fivefold capacity increase through greater layer densities. This could enable a disk to store high definition format movies.
It could also enable movies or equivalent data up to 50GB to be stored on 1-inch optical disks inside PDAs and mobile phone-format devices.
Call/Recall says that another advantage of its technology is its use of affordable, commercially available, off-the-shelf components. This approach allows optical hardware manufacturers to extend the roadmap of their existing technologies, such as DVD and Blu-ray Disc, while maintaining backward compatibility with their installed base. Additionally, other key components are designed as molded/replicated parts, enabling low-cost production on industry-standard production lines.
Call/Recall is a military- and commerce-funded very high capacity optical storage research company. A co-founder is Dr. Peter Rentzepis. He is a former head of Bell Laboratories and, according to the company, a world-renowned scientist who has authored approximately 85 patents; his innovations are referenced as prior technology by 45 of the world's top optical technology providers, including IBM, Panasonic and Hitachi. This gives the technology more credibility.
One storage research analysis has offered an opinion on it. ESG analyst Heidi Biggar said: "Advances in optical technologies, such as Call/Recall's 2-photon 3D technology which promises to offer multiple terabyte data capacities and significantly faster data access than tape, hold new promise for users as they look to build more efficient and effective archives."
This is not exactly fulsome as the same sentiments could be applied to future InPhase holographic disks and blue laser UDO disks from Plasmon. In fact, the delay before any commercialization could give InPhase with its holographic Tapestry disks time to deliver on its terabyte disk roadmap. Plasmon's UDO should also be in the terabyte area by then.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
DAT72 Summer @ www.westcoastcomputer.com
Stock up & save on all your back-up tapes
www.westcoastcomputer.com
This Summer,we are proud to offer the following:
* DAT 72 *
4mm DDS-5, 70m 36/72GB
New, factory-sealed & guaranteed tape from all manufacturers.
Compact and reliable, with superior cost-performance, DDS (4mm) Tapes are the ideal solution to high-volume backup and archiving requirements. These 72GB (compressed) capacity, easy-to-handle compact cartridges provide cost-efficient backup and long term archiving for years.
Need Open 30 day terms ? Fax your Company PURCHASE ORDER # to :
310-455-1805 or email : sales@westcoastcomputer.com
**promotional pricing good thru FRIDAY JUNE 15 2007 .
Thanks for your business!
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8 Items:
Fuji ~ # 26046172 ~ 4mm DDS-5, 170m, 36/72GBDAT 72
Fuji 26046172 Data Tape Cartridge 4mm DDS-5 DAT 72 170m 36/72GB
Item Number: 26046172
Learn More Your Price: $16.68 Add to Cart
HP ~ # C8010A ~ HP DAT72 40GB 170M
HP DAT 72 tape 40GB /170M
Item Number: C8010A
Learn More Your Price: $13.28 Add to Cart
IBM ~ 18P7912 ~ 36/72GB DAT72 4mm Tape Cartridge
IBM DAT 72 tapes.
Item Number: 18P7912
Learn More Your Price: $15.81 Add to Cart
Imation ~part#17204~DAT72 (170M LENGTH) 36GB/72GB
Imation DAT72 (170M LENGTH) 36GB/72GB
Item Number: 17204
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Maxell ~ # 200200 ~ 36-72GB DAT72 4mm Tape Cartridge
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'Solid-State' Makes Comeback
Could This Be 2007?
'Solid-State' Makes
Rare Tech Comeback
May 30, 2007; Page B1
Technology terms that have been used and then discarded usually don't get a second go at things. "Solid-state" is an exception. Several decades back, the phrase became synonymous with "modern," as solid-state television sets and radios dispensed with bulky, hot and unreliable vacuum tubes in favor of transistors. Very Space Age.
Now, "solid-state" is making a comeback, this time in the world of computer storage. The term is being resurrected to describe "disk" drives that dispense with spinning disks and instead store information on flash memory.
Flash has been around for ages. It's a computer chip like the one used for your computer's internal memory, but it doesn't forget everything when you turn the power off. Flash has long been used to make those thumb-size USB drives popular for transferring data between home and office. It's also inside Apple's iPod Nano music players.
What's new in flash is that it is just now becoming cheap enough that flash chips can be used as the innards of solid-state drives to replace traditional disk drives, which provide long-term storage on your computer.
This new breed of solid-state drives have the same housings and connections as hard-disk drives. Just unplug your disk drive and plug in a solid-state replacement. Your computer won't know the difference; except the solid-state drive will be lighter, quieter, more energy efficient and, absent moving parts, more reliable.
It will also be faster, though how much so depends on the application. If you were booting Windows off a solid-state drive, it would load twice as quickly as from a disk drive. But other chores are speedier still -- by six or eight times. These include snagging small bits of information from different files, a common occurrence in big data bases.
A traditional disk drive takes time to spin around and position itself so that the needed data are underneath the drive "head" that does the reading and writing. There is no such delay with flash, because it's all nonmoving, solid-state electronics. Earlier this month, Dell announced that it would offer solid-state drives from SanDisk as an option on some of its laptop computers, moving us closer to a computer with no moving parts at all. (The fan that cools the microprocessor is slowly being designed away.) The 32 gigabyte drives aren't cheap; they will run $450, or enough to buy 1,000 gigabytes of storage on a traditional hard disk drive.
But solid-state prices, always on a decline, are now falling faster than ever. One company in the solid-state business was buying bulk quantities of flash for $56 a gigabyte six months ago; the figure is now down to $9 a gigabyte and keeps heading south.
Jeff Janukowicz, who follows solid-state storage for IDC, says it's not yet clear how many laptop road warriors will be willing to pay the surcharge for solid-state drives.
In higher-end devices, there isn't much debate over whether solid-state drives will take off quickly. The advantages of rapid data retrieval and low power consumption are too compelling.
Concurrent Computer, a Duluth, Ga., company that makes servers used for the video-on-demand market that can cost millions of dollars, has just begun to ship products with solid-state drives supplied by STEC Inc. of Santa Ana, Calif. Concurrent's new machines contain both solid-state and traditional drives, though Bob Chism, its CTO, guesses that their products will be using only solid-state drives in just another few years.
Indeed, many in the solid-state industry talk in triumphalist terms about the ascent of solid-state storage. "I can't imagine in 2015 there being a motor in a storage product," says Al Dei Maggi, VP of marketing at Adtron, another leading solid-state drive maker.
Not everyone is as certain. Many people predict that hard-disk drives have a secure medium-term future ahead of them, largely because of the growing importance of multimedia files, especially video, which take up huge amounts of room and which will always be able to be stored more cheaply on hard-disk drives.
Indeed, the two will likely coexist. My own plan, as soon as I can afford it, is to have a 64-or-so gigabyte solid-state drive in my home desktop computer, loading my operating system and major applications faster than a hard-disk drive ever could. But there will also be a megacapacity disk drive or three for my data: text files, music, photos and the rest.
For consumers, the news with solid-state only gets better. A number of companies are pursuing new approaches to flash that are even speedier than today's technology. And as the solid-state market booms, more manufacturers are jumping into the business. Last week, Intel announced a flash partnership; other big suppliers include Samsung and Toshiba. Price wars seem inevitable.
One reason for the current interest in flash by manufacturers is the rapid acceptance of the device in consumer products such as the iPod. They have helped create the demand now drawing new suppliers into the market. So the next time you see someone listening to music on a Nano, thank them for helping hasten the day when computers are faster and more reliable. And you thought they were only ruining their hearing.
• Email me at Lee.Gomes@wsj.com.
'Solid-State' Makes
Rare Tech Comeback
May 30, 2007; Page B1
Technology terms that have been used and then discarded usually don't get a second go at things. "Solid-state" is an exception. Several decades back, the phrase became synonymous with "modern," as solid-state television sets and radios dispensed with bulky, hot and unreliable vacuum tubes in favor of transistors. Very Space Age.
Now, "solid-state" is making a comeback, this time in the world of computer storage. The term is being resurrected to describe "disk" drives that dispense with spinning disks and instead store information on flash memory.
Flash has been around for ages. It's a computer chip like the one used for your computer's internal memory, but it doesn't forget everything when you turn the power off. Flash has long been used to make those thumb-size USB drives popular for transferring data between home and office. It's also inside Apple's iPod Nano music players.
What's new in flash is that it is just now becoming cheap enough that flash chips can be used as the innards of solid-state drives to replace traditional disk drives, which provide long-term storage on your computer.
This new breed of solid-state drives have the same housings and connections as hard-disk drives. Just unplug your disk drive and plug in a solid-state replacement. Your computer won't know the difference; except the solid-state drive will be lighter, quieter, more energy efficient and, absent moving parts, more reliable.
It will also be faster, though how much so depends on the application. If you were booting Windows off a solid-state drive, it would load twice as quickly as from a disk drive. But other chores are speedier still -- by six or eight times. These include snagging small bits of information from different files, a common occurrence in big data bases.
A traditional disk drive takes time to spin around and position itself so that the needed data are underneath the drive "head" that does the reading and writing. There is no such delay with flash, because it's all nonmoving, solid-state electronics. Earlier this month, Dell announced that it would offer solid-state drives from SanDisk as an option on some of its laptop computers, moving us closer to a computer with no moving parts at all. (The fan that cools the microprocessor is slowly being designed away.) The 32 gigabyte drives aren't cheap; they will run $450, or enough to buy 1,000 gigabytes of storage on a traditional hard disk drive.
But solid-state prices, always on a decline, are now falling faster than ever. One company in the solid-state business was buying bulk quantities of flash for $56 a gigabyte six months ago; the figure is now down to $9 a gigabyte and keeps heading south.
Jeff Janukowicz, who follows solid-state storage for IDC, says it's not yet clear how many laptop road warriors will be willing to pay the surcharge for solid-state drives.
In higher-end devices, there isn't much debate over whether solid-state drives will take off quickly. The advantages of rapid data retrieval and low power consumption are too compelling.
Concurrent Computer, a Duluth, Ga., company that makes servers used for the video-on-demand market that can cost millions of dollars, has just begun to ship products with solid-state drives supplied by STEC Inc. of Santa Ana, Calif. Concurrent's new machines contain both solid-state and traditional drives, though Bob Chism, its CTO, guesses that their products will be using only solid-state drives in just another few years.
Indeed, many in the solid-state industry talk in triumphalist terms about the ascent of solid-state storage. "I can't imagine in 2015 there being a motor in a storage product," says Al Dei Maggi, VP of marketing at Adtron, another leading solid-state drive maker.
Not everyone is as certain. Many people predict that hard-disk drives have a secure medium-term future ahead of them, largely because of the growing importance of multimedia files, especially video, which take up huge amounts of room and which will always be able to be stored more cheaply on hard-disk drives.
Indeed, the two will likely coexist. My own plan, as soon as I can afford it, is to have a 64-or-so gigabyte solid-state drive in my home desktop computer, loading my operating system and major applications faster than a hard-disk drive ever could. But there will also be a megacapacity disk drive or three for my data: text files, music, photos and the rest.
For consumers, the news with solid-state only gets better. A number of companies are pursuing new approaches to flash that are even speedier than today's technology. And as the solid-state market booms, more manufacturers are jumping into the business. Last week, Intel announced a flash partnership; other big suppliers include Samsung and Toshiba. Price wars seem inevitable.
One reason for the current interest in flash by manufacturers is the rapid acceptance of the device in consumer products such as the iPod. They have helped create the demand now drawing new suppliers into the market. So the next time you see someone listening to music on a Nano, thank them for helping hasten the day when computers are faster and more reliable. And you thought they were only ruining their hearing.
• Email me at Lee.Gomes@wsj.com.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
The Shape of Computers to Come?
The Shape of Computers to Come?
The Latest Products Seek
To Explore New Forms, Uses
By ROBERT A. GUTH and DON CLARK
May 30, 2007; Page B1
It's time for computer designers to think outside the box. From Microsoft Corp. to Silicon Valley start-ups, technology companies are introducing computers with fundamentally new forms.
At a technology conference sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft today unveiled the fruits of six years of research pushed by Chairman Bill Gates -- a computer designed like a table with a touch-screen. The system, called Surface and aimed initially for use in hotels and casinos, includes features that allow users to buy tickets to events, wirelessly retrieve and display photos and play games. It goes on sale later this year.
[Microsoft Corp.'s new Surface computer is a table with a touch-screen.]
Microsoft Corp.'s new Surface computer is a table with a touch-screen.
At the same event today, an Oakland, Calif., start-up called Livescribe Inc. will introduce a pen-shaped computer that can make audio recordings and link them to written notes.
And Palm Inc. co-founder Jeff Hawkins, who helped lead the design of the Silicon Valley company's pocket computers and Treo smartphone, plans to disclose what Palm calls a "new category" of mobile device. Though few details are known, one industry executive expects the gadget to be somewhat larger than Palm's existing products and to include wireless networking.
The new products, to be shown at the "D: All Things Digital" conference in Carlsbad, Calif., are just a few examples of the quest by large and small technology companies to change the shape of computers. After an initial innovation boom, most PC makers for years have churned out cookie-cutter desktops and laptops. Though they have on the whole become less expensive and smaller, other major changes have been rare.
But the picture is changing, inspired by innovations such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod and other stylish products. Besides working on esthetics, companies are experimenting with new uses for computers and new ways for people to interact with them -- including wider use of voice input, styluses and touch-screens. Hewlett-Packard Co., for instance, sells a PC called TouchSmart, at $1,800, that is designed for a kitchen counter and tasks such as looking up a recipe or a phone number without using a keyboard.
[Clockwise from top left: Hewlett-Packard's TouchSmart; and two prototypes in Intel's contest to design living-room PCs -- the Argon skull by NS Optimum, and a model by Slipperyskip Computers]
Clockwise from top left: Hewlett-Packard's TouchSmart; and two prototypes in Intel's contest to design living-room PCs -- the Argon skull by NS Optimum, and a model by Slipperyskip Computers
"The PC is running away as fast as it can from what it used to be," says Mark Rolston, a senior vice president at frog design inc., a consultancy that has helped Hewlett-Packard and other companies develop hardware and software designs.
Which new variations will catch on widely remains to be seen. Many of the new items require big changes in the way people use computers, and are often pricey. At the same time, their success depends on a critical mass of software companies building applications that consumers find useful.
One reason PC makers haven't taken more creative risks in the past is the narrow profit margins in the fiercely competitive business, which leave manufacturers little money to spend on product design. Microsoft and Intel Corp. -- which have healthier profit margins from their near-exclusive positions in PC operating systems and microprocessors, respectively -- have been among the leaders in trying to spur new uses and designs for PCs.
Intel, as part of a branding effort called Viiv, this spring held a contest to encourage innovative designs by companies that make the living-room PCs that allow TVs to play digital movies and other Internet content. Trigem Computer Inc., a South Korean company, won a $700,000 first prize for a stylish system called the Black Crystal that looks like a piece of high-end stereo equipment. NS Optimum Ltd., a British company, developed a PC called Argon that looks like a metallic skull with glowing red eyes. Both Trigem Computer and NS Optimum are expected to sell the items, but have not disclosed the timing or pricing.
Genevieve Bell, an Intel senior researcher and anthropologist who studies how different cultures view technology, says many designers haven't caught up to the way PCs are increasingly used for entertainment and networking. "People are inherently quite social," she says. "The challenge is, how do we make designs that echo that."
[A rendering of the Smartpen by Livescribe Inc.]
A rendering of the Smartpen by Livescribe Inc.
Building a computer into a table that several users can gather around is one way that researchers are tackling that challenge. Hewlett-Packard, for example, is using the approach in a research prototype called Misto.
For Mr. Gates, Surface is part of a quest to expand the definition of the PC. "I've been saying the last few years that the thing people are underestimating the most is how 'natural interface' will change computing," he said in an interview. For many years, he has promoted speech input, stylus-based computing and, with Surface, visual recognition.
So far, those variations on the keyboard have been slow to catch on. Microsoft five years ago introduced the Tablet PC, which features a large screen that can be controlled with a stylus rather than a keyboard. While some companies use them as portable computers, they still haven't caught on widely.
Surface, a table with a square acrylic top measuring 30 inches on the diagonal, combines five cameras with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless networking to detect objects and movement. It uses a version of the Windows Vista operating system with additional Microsoft software. As users move their hands on the table top, cameras help translate the motions into commands. For instance, users can select a color by touching a virtual palette and then "paint" images on the screen with fingers or a brush.
Wireless technology transfers stored photos from a digital camera or cellphone placed on the table to the Surface screen. A motion of the hand on the touch-screen can make the images larger or smaller. They can be moved to another camera or a hard drive by sliding the images across the table -- much as one would slide a picture across a regular table.
In a recent demonstration, Microsoft executives showed how the object-recognition feature could work for Harrah's Entertainment Inc. Placing a loyalty card for the casino operator on the table summons a map of Caesar's Palace. Tapping on the casino's different venues reveals show times, menus, descriptions of nightclubs and other information, allowing a guest to book tickets, make reservations or even gamble. The executives see new ways for establishments to interact with customers. Placing a wine glass with a tag similar to a bar code on the table, for example, could call up details about the wine and its vineyard.
Harrah's, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. and T-Mobile USA Inc., a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, expect to use the system, the companies say. (T-mobile would use it at its stores to give customers information on new products and services.) International Game Technology, a distributor of gaming machines, will distribute Surface. Starting at $5,000 to $10,000, and needing considerable customization, Surface isn't suited for individual consumers now. But Microsoft expects high-profile hotel and restaurant operators to bring exposure.
From the D Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer tells WSJ's Rob Guth that it's important for the health and growth of company to be both an enterprise and consumer entity. (May 30)
"Literally millions of people will see it through the different partners we have," Mr. Gates says. "But the big numbers come when our hardware partners pick it up and build devices for the office and home environments." Mr. Gates expects that in three to five years greater sales volumes will help drive down the cost of the Surface technology, enabling the company to "get to price points that are under a thousand dollars for broad usage," he says.
Livescribe's pen-shaped computer, meanwhile, is initially aimed at college students. It builds on technology that was invented by Sweden's Anoto Group AB and used in the popular Fly Pentop Computer from LeapFrog Enterprises Inc.
Livescribe's founder and chief executive, Jim Marggraff, previously worked at LeapFrog and for Anoto. The approach relies on special paper with tiny dots that help a sensor in the pen distinguish locations on a page, and assign them special functions. With The Fly, for example, users can draw a calculator and then touch the numbers to trigger a calculation heard through a speaker or ear phones.
Livescribe's "Smartpen" adds a microphone and a small display on the side of the pen. A user can tap on a section of written notes, for example, and call up a recording in the pen of what an instructor was saying when those words were written. Mr. Marggraff, who expects to deliver the device in October for less than $200, plans to create a community of programmers to write exchange applications for the Smartpen. "I believe this will affect the way people think," he says.
Write to Robert A. Guth at rob.guth@wsj.com and Don Clark at don.clark@wsj.com
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Storage Strategies
Need more room for your files?
Here are your options.By JESSICA E. VASCELLAROMay 14, 2007 WSJ:
********************
Computer users' hard drives are bursting at the seams thanks to the floods of digital photos, videos and music they regularly consume. Now, numerous new products and services are trying to help manage the deluge.
Older storage strategies such as transferring files to discs are giving way to potentially time-saving solutions like external hard drives with pipelines into online storage accounts and home-network hubs that store and share files for multiple computers.THE JOURNAL REPORT [See the full report]1As businesses rely more on mobile devices2, wireless companies are improving their coverage -- building by building. Plus, for a century, architects have speculated3 about the house of tomorrow. Where did they go wrong?• See the complete Technology report4.
Online-only services that enable users to upload their files to the Web and store them there are also growing more popular, despite often painfully slow upload speeds and concerns about data privacy and security.
Enterprises and small businesses have been adopting these more complicated storage methods for years. But now they are gaining more traction among consumers as new technologies drive prices down and households' needs for personal-data storage become more pressing.
A technology-savvy consumer can easily require an additional 20 or 30 gigabytes of space to house their digital content. One gigabyte holds around 250 songs; about half of a two-hour movie; or around 1,000 photos, although it varies depending on their resolution.
Here is a look at various personal data storage options and what to expect when you try them:
EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES: Driven by strong consumer demand, sales of external hard drives are skyrocketing. U.S. retail sales of external drives, which plug directly into a computer for extra capacity often in the range of 100 gigabytes or more, rose 73% from 2005 to 2006, according to NPD Group. "External storage remains far and away the simplest, easiest and most understandable method for the vast majority of consumers," says Stephen Baker, an analyst at NPD Group.
Manufacturers are trying to differentiate their products by selling drives that are more compact and stylish and that integrate with increasingly popular Internet storage services. Last month, for example, Fabrik Inc. launched a new line of SimpleTech drives designed by Pininfarina SpA, an Italian company that helps design Ferrari sports cars. The devices, which start at $99 for 160 gigabytes of space, come bundled with two gigabytes of free online storage through Fabrik's Internet data-storage service, MyFabrik.com5. The product allows users to upload files to an online account, where they can share data with friends and create slide shows. Fabrik, of San Mateo, Calif., purchased the consumer-product business of SimpleTech Inc. in February.
Seagate Technology Inc.'s new FreeAgent Go, which starts at around $100 for 80 gigabytes of space, comes in an espresso color with a glowing amber strip. In addition to storing files, the lightweight device can carry passwords, contacts and settings between machines as well. FreeAgent Pro, a more robust device that starts at around $150 for 320 gigabytes, sits on the desktop but comes with an additional 500 megabytes of storage through Seagate's online-storage service.
Jon van Bronkhorst, executive director of product-line management for Seagate, says the new products are designed to help consumers access their files in multiple places without compromising the reliability and fast speeds of using an external drive. "It is about giving consumers the flexibility to use their stuff whenever and wherever they want to," he says.
ONLINE STORAGE: Plummeting bandwidth costs and higher broadband penetration are inspiring a flurry of new online-storage offerings that tout the convenience of being able to access stored data from any Internet-connected computer.
Penetration of the services is still relatively low in part because consumers are wary of trusting their data to a third party that may go out of business. Only 9% of U.S. Internet users say they have used an online-storage service, according to research firm Parks Associates, compared with 51% who say they back up their files with CDs or DVDs.
New products and services are trying to win new business through lower prices and additional features like integration with Internet software applications.
Sites like Omnidrive Inc., based in Menlo Park, Calif., Box.net, Palo Alto, Calif., and Xdrive, a unit of Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, often offer as much as a few gigabytes of storage free and charge several dollars a month for additional capacity. Others, like ElephantDrive Inc., Los Angeles, focus on backing up files, offering one gigabyte of space free and $9.95 a month for unlimited backup.
The services often let users upload files either through a software client or through their browsers. Or users can preselect certain files they want backed up automatically, in which case the program will save copies of the files online at regular intervals.
Alex Iskold of Livingston, N.J., uses ElephantDrive.com6 to back up 10 gigabytes of music, hundreds of photos, and documents for work like PowerPoint presentations. "It is really powerful to have things stored online," says Mr. Iskold, the 34-year-old chief executive of AdaptiveBlue, a Web-personalization start-up.[image]
But other users complain that such services, even on a broadband Internet connection, are slow, taking hours to upload hundreds of pictures. And some users complain that their files aren't always available. For example, Larry Medina, 51, of Danville, Calif., recently stopped storing photos on Mozy.com7, from Berkeley Data Systems Inc. of American Fork, Utah. After twice being unable to access the pictures (he says after logging in he received a message that the service was waiting for a response), he decided to store backups of them in a remote location on DVDs instead.
Josh Coates, chief executive of Berkeley, says the errors were likely "glitches" related to back-end software upgrades.
NETWORK STORAGE: Consumers now also have the option of replicating the convenience of an online storage service on their own home network. The solutions, offered by companies like Cisco Systems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., enable a user to store files on a separate home-network device that can be accessed from multiple computers in the house.
Mike Sweeney of Orange, Calif., recently set up a $250 SimpleTech network-storage device in order to more easily share files, photos and documents across some half a dozen home computers. To date, he has stored some 200 gigabytes of files on the device for easy access and safekeeping. "It is very cheap insurance," says Mr. Sweeney, a 46-year-old network-security administrator.
But setting up such services can require a substantial investment of dollars and time. Such devices can range in price from a few hundred to nearly a thousand dollars, depending on the capacity of the device and whether the user is building a home network from scratch. In the latter case, the setup can be trying. The user must first link the computers through a network router -- basically a central switchboard -- and then plug the storage device into the network router as well. Once the computers in the network recognize the Internet address of the attached storage device (which may require the user to disable certain firewalls), it acts as a separate standalone drive, to which the user can drag and drop files.
To entice consumers to make the investment, storage companies are rolling out products that are smaller and cheaper, and adding features such as the ability to stream multimedia from the Internet to the home network without hogging space on their computers.
Linksys, a division of Cisco, plans this summer to launch a network appliance and storage device that can store more than a terabyte of data on two hard drives, and stream data from the storage device to a digital television or stereo. The base price of the device is $179.99. The hard drives are sold separately.
H-P's Media Vault similarly acts as a bridge between various home computers that have installed the Media Vault software. The device costs $349 for 320 gigabytes of storage or $499 for 500 gigabytes.
Here are your options.By JESSICA E. VASCELLAROMay 14, 2007 WSJ:
********************
Computer users' hard drives are bursting at the seams thanks to the floods of digital photos, videos and music they regularly consume. Now, numerous new products and services are trying to help manage the deluge.
Older storage strategies such as transferring files to discs are giving way to potentially time-saving solutions like external hard drives with pipelines into online storage accounts and home-network hubs that store and share files for multiple computers.THE JOURNAL REPORT [See the full report]1As businesses rely more on mobile devices2, wireless companies are improving their coverage -- building by building. Plus, for a century, architects have speculated3 about the house of tomorrow. Where did they go wrong?• See the complete Technology report4.
Online-only services that enable users to upload their files to the Web and store them there are also growing more popular, despite often painfully slow upload speeds and concerns about data privacy and security.
Enterprises and small businesses have been adopting these more complicated storage methods for years. But now they are gaining more traction among consumers as new technologies drive prices down and households' needs for personal-data storage become more pressing.
A technology-savvy consumer can easily require an additional 20 or 30 gigabytes of space to house their digital content. One gigabyte holds around 250 songs; about half of a two-hour movie; or around 1,000 photos, although it varies depending on their resolution.
Here is a look at various personal data storage options and what to expect when you try them:
EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES: Driven by strong consumer demand, sales of external hard drives are skyrocketing. U.S. retail sales of external drives, which plug directly into a computer for extra capacity often in the range of 100 gigabytes or more, rose 73% from 2005 to 2006, according to NPD Group. "External storage remains far and away the simplest, easiest and most understandable method for the vast majority of consumers," says Stephen Baker, an analyst at NPD Group.
Manufacturers are trying to differentiate their products by selling drives that are more compact and stylish and that integrate with increasingly popular Internet storage services. Last month, for example, Fabrik Inc. launched a new line of SimpleTech drives designed by Pininfarina SpA, an Italian company that helps design Ferrari sports cars. The devices, which start at $99 for 160 gigabytes of space, come bundled with two gigabytes of free online storage through Fabrik's Internet data-storage service, MyFabrik.com5. The product allows users to upload files to an online account, where they can share data with friends and create slide shows. Fabrik, of San Mateo, Calif., purchased the consumer-product business of SimpleTech Inc. in February.
Seagate Technology Inc.'s new FreeAgent Go, which starts at around $100 for 80 gigabytes of space, comes in an espresso color with a glowing amber strip. In addition to storing files, the lightweight device can carry passwords, contacts and settings between machines as well. FreeAgent Pro, a more robust device that starts at around $150 for 320 gigabytes, sits on the desktop but comes with an additional 500 megabytes of storage through Seagate's online-storage service.
Jon van Bronkhorst, executive director of product-line management for Seagate, says the new products are designed to help consumers access their files in multiple places without compromising the reliability and fast speeds of using an external drive. "It is about giving consumers the flexibility to use their stuff whenever and wherever they want to," he says.
ONLINE STORAGE: Plummeting bandwidth costs and higher broadband penetration are inspiring a flurry of new online-storage offerings that tout the convenience of being able to access stored data from any Internet-connected computer.
Penetration of the services is still relatively low in part because consumers are wary of trusting their data to a third party that may go out of business. Only 9% of U.S. Internet users say they have used an online-storage service, according to research firm Parks Associates, compared with 51% who say they back up their files with CDs or DVDs.
New products and services are trying to win new business through lower prices and additional features like integration with Internet software applications.
Sites like Omnidrive Inc., based in Menlo Park, Calif., Box.net, Palo Alto, Calif., and Xdrive, a unit of Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, often offer as much as a few gigabytes of storage free and charge several dollars a month for additional capacity. Others, like ElephantDrive Inc., Los Angeles, focus on backing up files, offering one gigabyte of space free and $9.95 a month for unlimited backup.
The services often let users upload files either through a software client or through their browsers. Or users can preselect certain files they want backed up automatically, in which case the program will save copies of the files online at regular intervals.
Alex Iskold of Livingston, N.J., uses ElephantDrive.com6 to back up 10 gigabytes of music, hundreds of photos, and documents for work like PowerPoint presentations. "It is really powerful to have things stored online," says Mr. Iskold, the 34-year-old chief executive of AdaptiveBlue, a Web-personalization start-up.[image]
But other users complain that such services, even on a broadband Internet connection, are slow, taking hours to upload hundreds of pictures. And some users complain that their files aren't always available. For example, Larry Medina, 51, of Danville, Calif., recently stopped storing photos on Mozy.com7, from Berkeley Data Systems Inc. of American Fork, Utah. After twice being unable to access the pictures (he says after logging in he received a message that the service was waiting for a response), he decided to store backups of them in a remote location on DVDs instead.
Josh Coates, chief executive of Berkeley, says the errors were likely "glitches" related to back-end software upgrades.
NETWORK STORAGE: Consumers now also have the option of replicating the convenience of an online storage service on their own home network. The solutions, offered by companies like Cisco Systems Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., enable a user to store files on a separate home-network device that can be accessed from multiple computers in the house.
Mike Sweeney of Orange, Calif., recently set up a $250 SimpleTech network-storage device in order to more easily share files, photos and documents across some half a dozen home computers. To date, he has stored some 200 gigabytes of files on the device for easy access and safekeeping. "It is very cheap insurance," says Mr. Sweeney, a 46-year-old network-security administrator.
But setting up such services can require a substantial investment of dollars and time. Such devices can range in price from a few hundred to nearly a thousand dollars, depending on the capacity of the device and whether the user is building a home network from scratch. In the latter case, the setup can be trying. The user must first link the computers through a network router -- basically a central switchboard -- and then plug the storage device into the network router as well. Once the computers in the network recognize the Internet address of the attached storage device (which may require the user to disable certain firewalls), it acts as a separate standalone drive, to which the user can drag and drop files.
To entice consumers to make the investment, storage companies are rolling out products that are smaller and cheaper, and adding features such as the ability to stream multimedia from the Internet to the home network without hogging space on their computers.
Linksys, a division of Cisco, plans this summer to launch a network appliance and storage device that can store more than a terabyte of data on two hard drives, and stream data from the storage device to a digital television or stereo. The base price of the device is $179.99. The hard drives are sold separately.
H-P's Media Vault similarly acts as a bridge between various home computers that have installed the Media Vault software. The device costs $349 for 320 gigabytes of storage or $499 for 500 gigabytes.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Tape backup continues its role in long-term storage.
Tape backups have proven to be remarkably resilient as a storage technology. According to research from the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), less than a third of the respondents backed up to tape only, less than one quarter backed up to disk only and about 50% used a mix of disk and tape. "We've all known that tape backup isn't our best solution," says Heidi Biggar, analyst at ESG in Milford, Mass. "But as users bring disk into their environment, they're not throwing away their tape investment." Consequently, storage professionals must understand tape technology and its role in the enterprise. This article highlights the basics of tape backup, outlines the main implementation considerations, explores the experiences of several real users and looks ahead to the future of this long-standing storage technology.
Understanding tape backup technology
Magnetic tape remains a quintessential storage technology. Early on, a long strip of thin plastic coated with magnetic recording media was simply spooled onto reels. Later, the reels were packaged into cassettes or cartridges to ease loading/unloading, simplify storage, protect the media from accidental damage and improve reliability by blocking dust. Once a cartridge is inserted into a tape drive mechanism, the media is passed at a constant speed across a stationary read/write head. These basic principles have gone virtually unchanged in over 50 years. As time went on, tape drives diversified into unique architectures, such as Travan, DDS, DLT and more recently, LTO. These tape backup architectures are not interchangeable, so tape systems must be selected for their technological longevity and media costs. You can learn more details about tape technology in our All-In-One Backup Research Guide.
Tape backup technology proved appealing for several reasons. The cost per gigabyte is still very low compared to disk. An LTO-3 cartridge with 400 GB of native capacity costs less than $100 (about 25 cents per gigabyte) -- half that with 2 to 1 compression enabled. Tape backup also offers "endless" storage capacity. Where a disk storage system has a fixed maximum capacity, tape storage can be expanded simply by using more cartridges. "You can see the leverage you'd get with 10 cartridges [in a single tape drive] versus 10 disk drives," says Robert Abraham, analyst at Freeman Reports in Ojai, Calif. Further, tape offers a "write once" nature that is ideal for long-term archival storage.
However, tape backup suffers from some disadvantages that have been exacerbated by the ready availability of disk systems. The principle problem is performance. Even the 160 megabytes per second (MBps) compressed transfer rates in LTO-3 tapes pale in comparison to disk systems. "The [tape] access times are very slow -- 1,000 times slower," Abraham says, noting that it's much more difficult and costly to retrieve data from tape. This wasn't such an issue years ago, but with corporate data volumes increasing from 50% to 100% each year, tape backup windows and recovery time objectives (RTO) have simply become prohibitive for many organisations, especially businesses that need to operate 24/7. The cost of disk is still seen as an advantage for tape, but disk costs are falling quickly and technologies, like data deduplication, are dramatically improving disk efficiency, allowing data to remain on disk for longer than ever before. (See Data deduplication explained for more details and user studies on deduplication technology.)
Today's tape backup technology and performance
While tape technology has changed very little, storage and recovery needs have evolved dramatically -- yet users are reluctant to discard their existing tape backup systems. This has changed the role of tape from a primary backup vehicle to long-term disaster protection. "Tape is [now] the doomsday tier," Biggar says.
There have been numerous tape backup technologies implemented in the enterprise, but the objective has always been the same -- achieve maximum capacity and performance with minimum cost. The LTO family has gained tremendous traction over the last few years, bolstered by its open nature and support from industry giants like IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), Quantum Corp. and Tandberg Data. Today, LTO-3 has emerged as one of the most important tape formats, offering 800 GB of compressed storage per cartridge and compressed data rates of 160 MBps. "Right now, it's all about LTO-3. It's very popular, almost ubiquitous. It has displaced DLT in the enterprise as the primary compact/small tape device," Abraham says. LTO-4 provides 1.6 TB of compressed storage per tape and should support compressed data transfers to 240 MBps. LTO-4 is expected around mid-2007 and will probably be available from all four vendors by the end of 2007. Encryption will be a common option in LTO-4 drives, allowing users to protect tape data without the need of encryption features in backup software.
Abraham segregates today's tape backup systems into three categories. A low-end tape system typically includes one tape drive and some form of basic autoloader that is normally limited to 10 cartridges or less. A midsized tape library is common in the enterprise, using four tape drives with autoloading space for up to several thousand tape cartridges. For example, a four-drive system with an 80 cartridge library is common, with prices in the $30,000 to $80,000 range. For the large enterprise, Abraham suggests a much larger library with up to 64 tape drives and the robotics necessary to swap tapes from a library of 5,000 cartridges or more.
Tape reliability and life expectancy
Tape has garnered a reputation for poor reliability, but this is a notion that experts are quick to debunk. "It's not unusual to see data reliability specified at one million hours right now," Abraham says, noting that some vendors call this "power-on hours" with 25% to 50% tape motion. Some tape cartridges have been certified to retain data for upwards of 30 years -- even up to 50 years on premium media.
So, why do tape backups seem to suffer from such poor recoverability? Experts say that recoverability problems are not in writing to the tape. "The tape drive records information when it's told to do a backup or an archive, and it verifies that the information is recorded properly at the same time its recording -- disk drives don't do that," Abraham says. Both Abraham and Biggar suggest that the problem isn't in the tape cartridge or drive, but rather in other tangible errors or oversights, such as operator errors, backup software bugs, changed/incompatible backup software versions, lost or mislabled tapes and poor tape storage conditions.
Implementing tape backup platforms
A tape system typically consists of four elements: the tape drive or library, the backup software, the backup server, which runs the backup software, and the tape cartridge(s). Although there is considerable flexibility in the choice of these four elements, experts note that the single greatest concern is backup server performance. It's crucial that the server be faster then the tape drive so that a steady stream of data is always available -- if the data buffer empties, the tape drive must stop and reposition the tape before more data can be written. This results in a repetitive back and forth motion of the tape called "shoeshining," which puts excessive wear on the tape and shortens its working life. Many LTO-3 drives can track to slower servers, but this is a waste of potential performance. Experts urge full-speed operation to get the most possible value from tape backup investments.
When deploying a tape backup system, it's important to plan for future growth. Since forklift upgrades can be extremely expensive and disruptive to the backup process, experts suggest selecting a tape platform that can accommodate growth with relatively inexpensive upgrades. For example, a user needing 40 cartridges might select a tape library with a 120 slot capacity, then incrementally add to the remaining 80 slots over time as needs change. Similarly, a user might select a tape library with bays for six tape drives, but only install two tape drives to start. The remaining four drives can be added over time to boost recording performance. Another way to increase both capacity and performance later on might be to upgrade the tape drive and cartridge types. "For example if you're using LTO-3 right now, at some point in the future you simply upgrade everything to LTO-4," Abraham says. "You don't have to replace the robotics."
Cartridge handling and management is another area where experts suggest added attention. With an increasing emphasis on security, data encryption should be used wherever possible. While encryption is primarily a software-based feature at the moment, Abraham notes that the LTO-4 standard will support native encryption at the drive itself, and DLT vendors will also be adding encryption on their high-end offerings. Tape backup cartridges can become difficult to manage, especially as the library size scales. RFID technology is also being introduced from vendors, like Imation Corp. to track and locate tape cartridges, or to identify tapes quickly within a library. Secure offsite storage should not be ignored.
The impact of tape backup
Experts and users all stress that tape backup does exactly the same job that it always did -- economically protect enterprise data over the long term.
For home furnishing retailer R.C. Willey Home Furnishings in Salt Lake City, the need to maintain accounting, inventory and other business data for auditors has been a challenge not met with disk storage. The company currently supports about 10 TB of data, though only about 2 TB is considered "production data" located on an EMC disk subsystem. The production data is backed up daily, with full tape backups performed on a weekly basis. "We don't believe in incremental backups," says Richard Sheridan, IT manager at R.C. Willey.
Sheridan uses an aggressive array of tape storage to address backup needs. One SpectraLogic Corp. Python T950 and two Python T120 tape libraries handle the local tape backups. Three SpectraLogic Python T50s support remote backups at remote distribution centers. To make the backup process as unobtrusive as possible, backups are staged to EMC business continuance volumes (BCV) and staggered to four SAIT drives in the T950. "We're taking backups throughout the day," Sheridan says. "At any given time, we could have three or four backups happening." The daily tape backups are also performed twice, so one copy is kept onsite, while the duplicate tape is carried to a fire safe nearby location. With four hours to backup 500 GB, Sheridan estimates the total daily backup window runs between eight and 10 hours. Security concerns are met by encrypting the backup data at the server.
This daily backup strategy yields a recovery point objective (RPO) of 24 hours, though the recovery time objective (RTO) is considerably shorter. "I can take my whole production environment and put it back on a BCV in four hours." Shreidan says, noting that tapes are available back to January 2000. Recovery testing is an ongoing process, and Sheridan typically restores one tape per week to locate lost files. Recovery is tested more formally on a monthly basis by restoring to the company's disaster recovery site 45 miles to the north.
The SAIT drives were a big improvement over older DLT technology, but Sheridan is eagerly anticipating future tape drive upgrades. "We're staying on tape with LTO-4," he says. "With SAIT, it's probably a dead end." The ultimate goal is capacity, and 800 GB (compressed) per LTO-4 tape makes the economics and management needs of tape media far more appealing.
Compliance issues
Long-term backups are also important in the gaming industry, and American Casino and Entertainment Properties (ACEP) must be able to furnish gaming data demanded by regulators. "All gaming-pertinent data has to be stored for seven years," says Aaron Perez, ACEP IT network manager. "We have huge safes full of tapes." Complicating matters even further, recent company acquisitions have caused ACEP's data to rocket from 8 TB to 20 TB in the course of just a year -- nightly tape backups were just not adequate.
Today, 20 TB backup jobs are first staged to Dell Inc. PowerEdge 1950 servers and onto two Dell PowerVault MD1000 disk platforms before being sent to an Overland Storage Inc. NEO 8000 tape library with six LTO-3 tape drives, each running about 50% of the time. "It's not all backed up at the same time," Perez says. "We have three or four backup servers running concurrent backups and dragging everything to tape." There are currently 200 tapes in the NEO library, but Perez rotates about 10 to15 of those tapes to the library each month.
The ability to take tape backups off site is a key element of the ACEP disaster recovery strategy. Perez relies on a NEO 4100 tape system located in another casino for emergency recovery. Efficiency is also a major aspect of tape economy, and Perez points out that the move to 400 GB (uncompressed) LTO-3 from older 50 GB AIT-2 tapes lets ACEP save far more data per tape in less time.
RTOs vary depending on the system that needs to be restored, but Perez notes a documented RTO of eight hours for "minimum usability." Slot systems with 80 GB to 100 GB of data may take far less time to recover, while email systems with 400 GB to 500 GB will take considerably longer. Recovery testing, however, is usually an ongoing process. "We test regularly when we have to restore a lost user file -- that happens three or four times each week," Perez says, adding that formal biannual testing also helps to verify the recovery process.
Looking toward the future, Perez expects to expand the NEO 8000 with additional tape slots, drives and servers, though a migration to LTO-4 isn't in the immediate roadmap. "I'd consider it, if the cost is right. But then you'd have to do a full overhaul [of the tape system and process]." The big dilemma for ACEP now is tape encryption, though Perez isn't yet satisfied with the capabilities of encryption in backup software. "Some software manufacturers aren't stepping up to the plate."
The future of tape backup
The demise of tape backup has been predicted for years, especially now that disk technologies, like continuous data protection (CDP), snapshots, replication and virtual tape libraries (BTL) have emerged in the data center. Still, experts are quick to emphasise that many disk technologies are basically used for buffering tape -- removing the backup burden from primary disk. Experts also underscore the benefits of mobility and long-term retention, noting that tape's reputation for questionable reliability is undeserved. "It's very easy to verify recorded data as you write it, so the reliability is never affected as it might be with disk," Abraham says.
The current market is stable, due in part to the current investments made in tape technology, and experts see LTO vendors with sales growth in the high single digits. "The total market size on average seems to be at a steady state or a slight increase," Abraham says. "That overall trend will probably continue for about five years." Experts say that the future of tape backup lies with the open, performance-oriented technologies, such as LTO. The eventual release of LTO-4 should support an incremental increase in storage capacity and speed, and the inclusion of encryption in the drive itself should attract attention from storage organisations concerned about security and compliance issues. The entire LTO roadmap promises growth to 6.4 GB of compressed storage with transfer rates to 540 MBps. "LTO is not on its deathbed," Biggar says.
Content provided by TechTarget
Understanding tape backup technology
Magnetic tape remains a quintessential storage technology. Early on, a long strip of thin plastic coated with magnetic recording media was simply spooled onto reels. Later, the reels were packaged into cassettes or cartridges to ease loading/unloading, simplify storage, protect the media from accidental damage and improve reliability by blocking dust. Once a cartridge is inserted into a tape drive mechanism, the media is passed at a constant speed across a stationary read/write head. These basic principles have gone virtually unchanged in over 50 years. As time went on, tape drives diversified into unique architectures, such as Travan, DDS, DLT and more recently, LTO. These tape backup architectures are not interchangeable, so tape systems must be selected for their technological longevity and media costs. You can learn more details about tape technology in our All-In-One Backup Research Guide.
Tape backup technology proved appealing for several reasons. The cost per gigabyte is still very low compared to disk. An LTO-3 cartridge with 400 GB of native capacity costs less than $100 (about 25 cents per gigabyte) -- half that with 2 to 1 compression enabled. Tape backup also offers "endless" storage capacity. Where a disk storage system has a fixed maximum capacity, tape storage can be expanded simply by using more cartridges. "You can see the leverage you'd get with 10 cartridges [in a single tape drive] versus 10 disk drives," says Robert Abraham, analyst at Freeman Reports in Ojai, Calif. Further, tape offers a "write once" nature that is ideal for long-term archival storage.
However, tape backup suffers from some disadvantages that have been exacerbated by the ready availability of disk systems. The principle problem is performance. Even the 160 megabytes per second (MBps) compressed transfer rates in LTO-3 tapes pale in comparison to disk systems. "The [tape] access times are very slow -- 1,000 times slower," Abraham says, noting that it's much more difficult and costly to retrieve data from tape. This wasn't such an issue years ago, but with corporate data volumes increasing from 50% to 100% each year, tape backup windows and recovery time objectives (RTO) have simply become prohibitive for many organisations, especially businesses that need to operate 24/7. The cost of disk is still seen as an advantage for tape, but disk costs are falling quickly and technologies, like data deduplication, are dramatically improving disk efficiency, allowing data to remain on disk for longer than ever before. (See Data deduplication explained for more details and user studies on deduplication technology.)
Today's tape backup technology and performance
While tape technology has changed very little, storage and recovery needs have evolved dramatically -- yet users are reluctant to discard their existing tape backup systems. This has changed the role of tape from a primary backup vehicle to long-term disaster protection. "Tape is [now] the doomsday tier," Biggar says.
There have been numerous tape backup technologies implemented in the enterprise, but the objective has always been the same -- achieve maximum capacity and performance with minimum cost. The LTO family has gained tremendous traction over the last few years, bolstered by its open nature and support from industry giants like IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP), Quantum Corp. and Tandberg Data. Today, LTO-3 has emerged as one of the most important tape formats, offering 800 GB of compressed storage per cartridge and compressed data rates of 160 MBps. "Right now, it's all about LTO-3. It's very popular, almost ubiquitous. It has displaced DLT in the enterprise as the primary compact/small tape device," Abraham says. LTO-4 provides 1.6 TB of compressed storage per tape and should support compressed data transfers to 240 MBps. LTO-4 is expected around mid-2007 and will probably be available from all four vendors by the end of 2007. Encryption will be a common option in LTO-4 drives, allowing users to protect tape data without the need of encryption features in backup software.
Abraham segregates today's tape backup systems into three categories. A low-end tape system typically includes one tape drive and some form of basic autoloader that is normally limited to 10 cartridges or less. A midsized tape library is common in the enterprise, using four tape drives with autoloading space for up to several thousand tape cartridges. For example, a four-drive system with an 80 cartridge library is common, with prices in the $30,000 to $80,000 range. For the large enterprise, Abraham suggests a much larger library with up to 64 tape drives and the robotics necessary to swap tapes from a library of 5,000 cartridges or more.
Tape reliability and life expectancy
Tape has garnered a reputation for poor reliability, but this is a notion that experts are quick to debunk. "It's not unusual to see data reliability specified at one million hours right now," Abraham says, noting that some vendors call this "power-on hours" with 25% to 50% tape motion. Some tape cartridges have been certified to retain data for upwards of 30 years -- even up to 50 years on premium media.
So, why do tape backups seem to suffer from such poor recoverability? Experts say that recoverability problems are not in writing to the tape. "The tape drive records information when it's told to do a backup or an archive, and it verifies that the information is recorded properly at the same time its recording -- disk drives don't do that," Abraham says. Both Abraham and Biggar suggest that the problem isn't in the tape cartridge or drive, but rather in other tangible errors or oversights, such as operator errors, backup software bugs, changed/incompatible backup software versions, lost or mislabled tapes and poor tape storage conditions.
Implementing tape backup platforms
A tape system typically consists of four elements: the tape drive or library, the backup software, the backup server, which runs the backup software, and the tape cartridge(s). Although there is considerable flexibility in the choice of these four elements, experts note that the single greatest concern is backup server performance. It's crucial that the server be faster then the tape drive so that a steady stream of data is always available -- if the data buffer empties, the tape drive must stop and reposition the tape before more data can be written. This results in a repetitive back and forth motion of the tape called "shoeshining," which puts excessive wear on the tape and shortens its working life. Many LTO-3 drives can track to slower servers, but this is a waste of potential performance. Experts urge full-speed operation to get the most possible value from tape backup investments.
When deploying a tape backup system, it's important to plan for future growth. Since forklift upgrades can be extremely expensive and disruptive to the backup process, experts suggest selecting a tape platform that can accommodate growth with relatively inexpensive upgrades. For example, a user needing 40 cartridges might select a tape library with a 120 slot capacity, then incrementally add to the remaining 80 slots over time as needs change. Similarly, a user might select a tape library with bays for six tape drives, but only install two tape drives to start. The remaining four drives can be added over time to boost recording performance. Another way to increase both capacity and performance later on might be to upgrade the tape drive and cartridge types. "For example if you're using LTO-3 right now, at some point in the future you simply upgrade everything to LTO-4," Abraham says. "You don't have to replace the robotics."
Cartridge handling and management is another area where experts suggest added attention. With an increasing emphasis on security, data encryption should be used wherever possible. While encryption is primarily a software-based feature at the moment, Abraham notes that the LTO-4 standard will support native encryption at the drive itself, and DLT vendors will also be adding encryption on their high-end offerings. Tape backup cartridges can become difficult to manage, especially as the library size scales. RFID technology is also being introduced from vendors, like Imation Corp. to track and locate tape cartridges, or to identify tapes quickly within a library. Secure offsite storage should not be ignored.
The impact of tape backup
Experts and users all stress that tape backup does exactly the same job that it always did -- economically protect enterprise data over the long term.
For home furnishing retailer R.C. Willey Home Furnishings in Salt Lake City, the need to maintain accounting, inventory and other business data for auditors has been a challenge not met with disk storage. The company currently supports about 10 TB of data, though only about 2 TB is considered "production data" located on an EMC disk subsystem. The production data is backed up daily, with full tape backups performed on a weekly basis. "We don't believe in incremental backups," says Richard Sheridan, IT manager at R.C. Willey.
Sheridan uses an aggressive array of tape storage to address backup needs. One SpectraLogic Corp. Python T950 and two Python T120 tape libraries handle the local tape backups. Three SpectraLogic Python T50s support remote backups at remote distribution centers. To make the backup process as unobtrusive as possible, backups are staged to EMC business continuance volumes (BCV) and staggered to four SAIT drives in the T950. "We're taking backups throughout the day," Sheridan says. "At any given time, we could have three or four backups happening." The daily tape backups are also performed twice, so one copy is kept onsite, while the duplicate tape is carried to a fire safe nearby location. With four hours to backup 500 GB, Sheridan estimates the total daily backup window runs between eight and 10 hours. Security concerns are met by encrypting the backup data at the server.
This daily backup strategy yields a recovery point objective (RPO) of 24 hours, though the recovery time objective (RTO) is considerably shorter. "I can take my whole production environment and put it back on a BCV in four hours." Shreidan says, noting that tapes are available back to January 2000. Recovery testing is an ongoing process, and Sheridan typically restores one tape per week to locate lost files. Recovery is tested more formally on a monthly basis by restoring to the company's disaster recovery site 45 miles to the north.
The SAIT drives were a big improvement over older DLT technology, but Sheridan is eagerly anticipating future tape drive upgrades. "We're staying on tape with LTO-4," he says. "With SAIT, it's probably a dead end." The ultimate goal is capacity, and 800 GB (compressed) per LTO-4 tape makes the economics and management needs of tape media far more appealing.
Compliance issues
Long-term backups are also important in the gaming industry, and American Casino and Entertainment Properties (ACEP) must be able to furnish gaming data demanded by regulators. "All gaming-pertinent data has to be stored for seven years," says Aaron Perez, ACEP IT network manager. "We have huge safes full of tapes." Complicating matters even further, recent company acquisitions have caused ACEP's data to rocket from 8 TB to 20 TB in the course of just a year -- nightly tape backups were just not adequate.
Today, 20 TB backup jobs are first staged to Dell Inc. PowerEdge 1950 servers and onto two Dell PowerVault MD1000 disk platforms before being sent to an Overland Storage Inc. NEO 8000 tape library with six LTO-3 tape drives, each running about 50% of the time. "It's not all backed up at the same time," Perez says. "We have three or four backup servers running concurrent backups and dragging everything to tape." There are currently 200 tapes in the NEO library, but Perez rotates about 10 to15 of those tapes to the library each month.
The ability to take tape backups off site is a key element of the ACEP disaster recovery strategy. Perez relies on a NEO 4100 tape system located in another casino for emergency recovery. Efficiency is also a major aspect of tape economy, and Perez points out that the move to 400 GB (uncompressed) LTO-3 from older 50 GB AIT-2 tapes lets ACEP save far more data per tape in less time.
RTOs vary depending on the system that needs to be restored, but Perez notes a documented RTO of eight hours for "minimum usability." Slot systems with 80 GB to 100 GB of data may take far less time to recover, while email systems with 400 GB to 500 GB will take considerably longer. Recovery testing, however, is usually an ongoing process. "We test regularly when we have to restore a lost user file -- that happens three or four times each week," Perez says, adding that formal biannual testing also helps to verify the recovery process.
Looking toward the future, Perez expects to expand the NEO 8000 with additional tape slots, drives and servers, though a migration to LTO-4 isn't in the immediate roadmap. "I'd consider it, if the cost is right. But then you'd have to do a full overhaul [of the tape system and process]." The big dilemma for ACEP now is tape encryption, though Perez isn't yet satisfied with the capabilities of encryption in backup software. "Some software manufacturers aren't stepping up to the plate."
The future of tape backup
The demise of tape backup has been predicted for years, especially now that disk technologies, like continuous data protection (CDP), snapshots, replication and virtual tape libraries (BTL) have emerged in the data center. Still, experts are quick to emphasise that many disk technologies are basically used for buffering tape -- removing the backup burden from primary disk. Experts also underscore the benefits of mobility and long-term retention, noting that tape's reputation for questionable reliability is undeserved. "It's very easy to verify recorded data as you write it, so the reliability is never affected as it might be with disk," Abraham says.
The current market is stable, due in part to the current investments made in tape technology, and experts see LTO vendors with sales growth in the high single digits. "The total market size on average seems to be at a steady state or a slight increase," Abraham says. "That overall trend will probably continue for about five years." Experts say that the future of tape backup lies with the open, performance-oriented technologies, such as LTO. The eventual release of LTO-4 should support an incremental increase in storage capacity and speed, and the inclusion of encryption in the drive itself should attract attention from storage organisations concerned about security and compliance issues. The entire LTO roadmap promises growth to 6.4 GB of compressed storage with transfer rates to 540 MBps. "LTO is not on its deathbed," Biggar says.
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