Storage UPDATE, November 17, 2003

1. Commentary

- Is Tape Obsolete?

2. News and Views

- Exabyte and Imation Form Alliance

- Adaptec Reaches 3Gbps Serial Attached SCSI

3. Announcements

- New Windows & .NET Magazine Web Site Unveiled!

- We've Added 3 New Web Seminars

4. Resource

- Windows 2000 DNS/DHCP Backup and Recovery

5. Event

- Have You Checked Out Windows & .NET Magazine's Archived Web Seminars Lately?

6. New and Improved

- NAS for the Home

- NAS Gateway Certifies ATA RAID Array

- Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt!

7. Contact Us

- See this section for a list of ways to contact us.

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==== 1. Commentary ====

by Elliot King, [email protected]

Is Tape Obsolete?

Tape storage is the granddaddy of storage technology. People who grew up in the 1960s won't forget science fiction movies showing white-coated technicians working in huge data centers in which the walls were lined with tape drives, each one larger than a person.

With tape storage's deep roots in computing, people periodically argue that tape storage has outlived its usefulness. The debate is unsurprising--after all, what other computing technology from the 1960s is still viable today?

The arguments are well known. As the cost of disk storage continues to drop, disk drives will replace tape as the backup medium of choice. After all, restoring data from disks is faster than restoring data from tapes, particularly when you need to retrieve only a limited subset of data. Moreover, the argument goes on, tape drives are complicated and prone to failure. Even if the drive doesn't quit, the media might be bad. And tape jukeboxes have many mechanical parts--and thus many potential points of failure.

But despite arguments that seem compelling on the surface, tape is poised to maintain an important, if somewhat different, role in the storage infrastructure. In the past several weeks, IBM and Quantum have released innovative new technology in the midrange tape-storage arena, which is one of the most rapidly growing segments of the market. Earlier this fall, Quantum also unveiled significant new technology for the high end of the market.

Much of the action in the tape arena is in the midrange market. At the end of October, IBM introduced a new format into the tape storage market that it claims provides the world's highest cartridge capacity to date. Called the IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Tape Drive 3592, the cartridge has an uncompressed capacity of 300GB and a transfer rate of 40MBps. According to IBM, the 3592's capacity exceeds that of Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Generation 2 (LTO-2), a standard developed by a consortium of companies including IBM, and Super DLT (SDLT), Quantum's proprietary format in the midrange market. LTO-2 and SDLT have uncompressed capacities of 200GB. Although both SDLT and Sony's Super Advanced Intelligent Tape (S-AIT), yet another tape format competing in this space, have achieved or will soon achieve 300GB uncompressed capacities, IBM officials argue that because their product roadmap for the 3592 calls for it to rapidly ramp to 1TB capacities, the 3592 will be able to maintain its position as the capacity leader.

The IBM announcement came just weeks after Quantum had unveiled its latest generation of SDLT drives, the SDLT 600. According to Quantum, the SDLT 600, which has a compressed capacity of 600GB, has reestablished SDLT as the price/performance/capacity leader in the midrange market. Furthermore, the SDLT 600 is backward compatible with earlier SDLT drives.

More important, Quantum officials said, is that SDLT had successfully met the challenge posed by LTO-2. According to market research shared by Quantum officials, SDLT grabbed 38 percent of the market in 2002, up from 30 percent in 2001. At LTO-2's release, analysts anticipated that because it was considered to be an open standard supported by industry heavyweights such as IBM and HP, it could shove aside Quantum's proprietary format. That hasn't proven to be the case, according to Quantum officials.

Quantum has also released drives that support the LTO-2 format. And Quantum's new MAKO PX720 enterprise tape library, an important new technology for large-scale data centers, is compatible with LTO technology and all generations of SDLT.

So what do all these goings-on mean for the future of tape? Primarily, they mean that tape should remain an important archiving technology for the foreseeable future. As vendors supply higher capacity and higher throughput tape technology, the cost per gigabyte stored remains compelling. Moreover, a vast amount of information is already stored on tape, and that information must be managed.

Nevertheless, other storage technologies will play an increasingly larger role in the space between primary storage and archiving. Storage infrastructures will become more nuanced, with specific technologies deployed to solve specific problems, such as backup and mirroring in settings in which rapid restore features are important. But as long as tape storage vendors continue to innovate, they should be able to provide attractive solutions for specific storage applications. Tape is far from obsolete, but its role is changing.

==== 2. News and Views ====

by Keith Furman, [email protected]

Exabyte and Imation Form Alliance

In an agreement with tape-backup system manufacturer Exabyte, data storage media company Imation will become the exclusive worldwide distributor of Exabyte brand media. As part of the agreement, Imation will make an equity investment in Exabyte; the investment will represent less than 5 percent of Exabyte's total equity. The entire transaction is valued at $20 million, which includes the cost of distribution rights. Exabyte currently isn't profitable, and the deal is expected to help the company remain financially viable.

Imation will market, distribute, and sell all of Exabyte's media products worldwide. Exabyte's media products include media for its VXA and Mammoth backup technologies. According to Exabyte, the agreement will enable the company to invest more in future products and technology development for its VXA products. "Imation is a widely recognized business and technology leader in the data storage media market. Our relationship with Imation represents a major vote of confidence for the exciting opportunity we all see for VXA technology and the future of Exabyte," said Tom Ward, Exabyte president and CEO. DLT and Linear Tape-Open (LTO) are among the tape formats that compete with VXA technology. The transition will begin on November 17, 2003, and be finished by year-end.

http://www.exabyte.com

http://www.imation.com

Adaptec Reaches 3Gbps Serial Attached SCSI

The Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) format was designed to support 3Gbps transfers, and storage solution company Adaptec claims to be the first to achieve the full transfer speed for first-generation SAS, using the company's application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology. Adaptec expects the accomplishment to enable it to be the first to market with a 3Gbps SAS solution, which will be useful for bandwidth-intensive applications, such as streaming video and high-volume databases. Other companies will demonstrate similar speeds at an industry plug fest event that's planned for early 2004.

Adaptec is gearing up its solutions to provide full support for first-generation and future versions of SAS. Adaptec's SAS ASIC is designed to run at speeds of 6Gbps in second-generation SAS. The company's road map includes plans to support transfer rates of as much as 12Gbps. SAS systems are on track to be on the market by mid-2004. "\[SAS\]'s support for storage of both high-demand transactional data and archived reference information, combined with its ability to deliver greater system throughput and scalability, could make it a significant part of the enterprise market starting in 2005," said John Monroe, a Gartner research vice president.

http://www.adaptec.com/serialattachedscsi

==== 3. Announcements ====

(from Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners)

New Windows & .NET Magazine Web Site Unveiled!

We are proud to announce the new and improved Windows & .NET Magazine Web site. Discover the fresh, new look and a more simplified way to find answers, news, strategic guidance, and how-to information. Check out our new Web site at

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We've Added 3 New Web Seminars

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==== 4. Resource ====

Windows 2000 DNS/DHCP Backup and Recovery

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==== 5. Event ====

(brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine)

Have You Checked Out Windows & .NET Magazine's Archived Web Seminars Lately?

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==== 6. New and Improved ====

by Renee Munshi, [email protected]

NAS for the Home

XIMETA Technology announced new distribution channels--CompUSA.com, PC Mall, and TigerDirect.ca--and increased sales for its NetDisk Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. XIMETA markets the devices for home entertainment and small office/home office (SOHO) use. The NetDisk product offerings include an 80GB model for $219, a 120GB model for $269, and a 160GB model for $329. For more information about XIMETA, see the company's Web site.

http://www.ximeta.com

NAS Gateway Certifies ATA RAID Array

Spinnaker Networks announced that its SpinServer Network Attached Storage (NAS) gateway now supports Infortrend's IFT-6330 ATA RAID array. Adding IFT-6330 ATA RAID arrays to a SpinServer cluster adds ATA storage to existing Fibre Channel or Storage Area Network (SAN) storage and lets you manage it all in the same file system namespace and as a single pool of storage. For more information, visit Spinnaker Networks' or Infortrend's Web site.

http://www.spinnakernet.com

http://www.infortrend.com

Tell Us About a Hot Product and Get a T-Shirt!

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==== 7. Contact Us ====

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