Quantum reported third fiscal 2010 quarter revenues of $182m, down 11 per cent from the year-ago quarter but up 4 per cent from the preceding quarter. However, [...]]]> Fujitsu is understood to be OEM’ing Quantum’s DXi deduplication technology across its recently enhanced product line. Conversely, EMC and Dell may have dropped DXi deduplication because of slow restore speed.

Quantum reported third fiscal 2010 quarter revenues of $182m, down 11 per cent from the year-ago quarter but up 4 per cent from the preceding quarter. However, the year ago quarter’s loss of $329m was turned into a profit of $5m. It’s a small profit, but it’s Quantum’s third successive profitable quarter and a humungous turnaround from a year ago. Revenues were down – because EMC had cancelled the DXi supply arrangement – but not dreadfully so, and Quantum has stabilised its tape automation business.

Indeed, Quantum CEO Rick Belluzzo said in the Quantum earnings call: “Next quarter we will release a new enterprise library that is an extension of our current Scalar i2000 and expands our market opportunity into larger enterprise segments.”

Belluzzo also said that Quantum had also gained an OEM for its DXi deduplication software technology: “We are in the final stages of completing the details of our first OEM agreement. This relationship will expand our channel and technology reach.” He wouldn’t name the new OEM, however Fujitsu has just announced the addition of deduplication across its CS product line.

CS stands for CentricStor, the well-respected Fujitsu Siemens Computer virtual tape library (VTL) for both mainframe and open systems servers, which Fujitsu inherited when it bought out the Siemens interest in FSC. A new model – the CS800 – has been announced for the mid-market, joining the CS1000 to CS5000 enterprise products.

Fujitsu doesn’t say much about the adopted deduplication technology’s process details beyond this: “In-line adaptive operation up to 2.0 TB/h”. That word “adaptive” points to Quantum’s DXi technology. Here is a Quantum deduplication white paper (pdf) extract: “The adaptive method, which Quantum pioneered, de-duplicates during ingest but creates a disk buffer as well.”

The only other main deduplication product doing inline deduplication is EMC’s Data Domain. As a subsidiary of Fujitsu’s main storage array competitor, EMC, Data Domain is unlikely to be Fujitsu’s choice for deduplication software technology.

EMC has dropped the DXi from its offering since buying Data Domain and is swapping out DXi installations in its base for Data Domain product. Dell was going to supply DXi deduplication but, since EMC bought Data Domain, has not said anything about it. Indeed, it has adopted Symantec and Simpana deduplication products and is expected to take EMC’s Data Domain products as part of an expanded EMC relationship.

Storage blogger and backup expert W Curtis Preston thinks Dell and EMC dropped DXi deduplication partly because of the slow restore speed of deduped data. He writes:

When Quantum first released the DXi, restores from the block pool were 90 per cent slower than restores from the cache. This limitation was confirmed by one of EMC’s bloggers. Those same sources have verified that they have improved things quite a bit, but that there is still a 50 per cent performance hit when restoring from the block pool.

It may well be the case that Quantum has improved restore performance since then. Both Quantum and Fujitsu have been asked to confirm the existence of a DXi OEM relationship between them and to comment on the restore performance but weren’t able to immediately respond.

Quantum also said it had expanded the geographical scope of its tape library reselling agreement with Fujitsu. It was previously a central Europe-based agreement, but is now world-wide, apart from Japan.

As well as introducing the new CS800 model, Fujitsu has also updated its Eternus storage array line. This introduces new management software, a DX90 model featuring storage-based replication capabilities – asynch or synchronous, and the availability of base units for use with 2.5-inch drives. Solid state drive (SSD) options have already been added

The new Eternus SF Express management software enables the monitoring and management of multiple ETERNUS DX systems via just one centralised console. It also manages advanced copy functions for snapshots and clones.

Belluzzo’s faith in DXi technology and his refusal to let Quantum be knocked by the EMC/Data Domain debacle have both been shown to be sound. The Fujitsu CS line of VTLs has a solid reputation which the addition of deduplication will enhance. If that restore speed hiccup is no longer in evidence, then things are looking up for both Quantum and Fujitsu.

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Earlier this month Toshiba researchers presented a couple of papers concerning bit-patterned media (BPM) and associated head technologies at a Magnetism and Magnetic Materials Intermag conference in Washington DC. They have been working towards an areal density of 5Tbit/sq in for hard disk drives and this was by way of a progress report.

One paper with [...]]]> From: theregister

Earlier this month Toshiba researchers presented a couple of papers concerning bit-patterned media (BPM) and associated head technologies at a Magnetism and Magnetic Materials Intermag conference in Washington DC. They have been working towards an areal density of 5Tbit/sq in for hard disk drives and this was by way of a progress report.

One paper with the somewhat lengthy title of “Fabrication of Ridge-and Groove Servo Pattern Consisting Self-Assembled Dots for High-Density Bit Pattern Media” discussed how bit-patterned media (BPM) composed of 1 bit size magnetic dots on a recording surface was made in a self-assembly process. This achieved a 2.5Tbit/sq in density and the dots were laid out in tracks along with servo signal patterns.

A second paper discussed advanced read/write head technology and was called “MR Ratio and RA Design of CCP-GMR Film for Over 2Tb/in2 Read Sensors.”

Toshiba has extended its Nano Contact Magneto-Resistive (NCMR) head technology to enable ultra-high sensitivity with a nano magnetic domain wall. The paper described research simulation results and key specifications of CCP-GMR (Current Confined Path – Giant Magneto-Resistance) and the resistance range for 2-to-5 Tbit/sq in NCMR heads.

Toshiba’s MK6465GSX 2.5-inch hard disk drive has an areal density of 528.5Gbit/sq in meaning 320GB per platter and 640GB in the 2-platter product. The BPM paper talks about 2.5Tbit/sq in, roughly five times denser. If it were applied to Toshiba’s current 2.5-inch drive it would give us 1.6TB/platter and a 3.2TB product. Extrapolate that to the 3.5-inch format and the numbers are even larger.

For example, Seagate’s Barracuda XT offers 2TB with four 500GB platters and a 347Gbit/sq in areal density, seven times less than the Toshiba researcher’s 2.5Tbit/sq in. If the Barracuda used the Toshiba researcher’s BPM then the resulting capacity would be 14TB. Toshiba has indicated it wants to enter the 3.5-inch drive market.

Such areal density improvement delights won’t be appearing in products for several years. The hard disk drive industry might achieve a doubling of capacity every three years say, and that would deliver a 14TB 3.5-inch drive in 2018. You could plug in a different capacity doubling period to this algorithm and get a different year. Seagate reckons we have another two or three perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) media generations ahead of us before we need to move to new technologies such as BPM though.

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Since the HD Doctor Suite only provides solutions for Seagate, Maxtor, [...]]]> After two years’ research work conducted by the world-advanced R&D team, SalvationDATA is going to announce the release of HD Doctor for Samsung. This maybe one of the best new year gifts for people who have long expected the data recovery solutions for Samsung hard drives.

Since the HD Doctor Suite only provides solutions for Seagate, Maxtor, WD and IBM/Hitachi, users have expressed many times the strong need for Samsung solution which can fix the physical data recovery problems. Samsung hard drives are widely used by computer providers for years and now there is a lot of data recovery cases of Samsung drives in USA, South Korea, India, Israel, and most of European countries. As Samsung hard disks are noteworthy for their combination of good performance ,high reliability and attractive price ,current models (SP series )are hardly ever called in for repairs ,unlike earlier models (Wiener series )most of which are already out of use. However, there is still quite a lot of data recovery cases for other reasons like physical damage or natural disaster. Owing to the unique technology adopted by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., date recovery is very difficult because of the specific design of these disks.

But with the help of gifted data recovery technicians, SalvationDATA finally worked out the key problems and enabled the user to access the firmware-level operations of Samsung hard drives.
SD is planning to release HD Doctor for Samsung and add it into the HD Doctor Suite, which makes this suite much more attractive than before. “HD Doctor for Samsung will be the best tool for data recovery engineers who want to recover data from physical problem Samsung drives.” Said the CTO, Mr. Fan who has worked in field of hard drive solutions for more than ten years. Let’s expect the formal release day of this tool, which accumulates the essence of the brilliant ideas of the data recovery technicians.

VIP users who are interested in this tool please kindly send emails to info@salvationdata.com and apply for free try-out of SD new technology.

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This is the perfect accessory for Netbook users. It has a tray Loading Drive for easy access to media even when the drive [...]]]> At only 14.9 ounces in weight the Samsung Writer is a sleek and lightweight External Drive for the MAC or PC. It has full 8x DVD functionality in an ultra slim tray load design.

This is the perfect accessory for Netbook users. It has a tray Loading Drive for easy access to media even when the drive is turned off.

It has 8x DVD+R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD+R DL, 8x DVD R, 6x DVD-RW and 5x DVD-Ram. It also has Nero Software Suite (Nero Burning ROM, NERO Showtime, Power DVD) included.

The Stylish Samsung USB 8x DVD Writer External Drive for Mac and PC is available on Amazon for $44.99

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August 3, 2009 — With the release of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 just a few months away, questions about its storage impact abound. In this interview with InfoStor, Astrid McClean, senior Exchange technical product manager with Microsoft’s Exchange Server team, explains the ins-and-outs of Exchange 2010 storage, addresses rumors of a move to SQL Server [...]]]> By Kevin Komiega

August 3, 2009 — With the release of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 just a few months away, questions about its storage impact abound. In this interview with InfoStor, Astrid McClean, senior Exchange technical product manager with Microsoft’s Exchange Server team, explains the ins-and-outs of Exchange 2010 storage, addresses rumors of a move to SQL Server as the Exchange database of choice, and a range of new performance improvements and storage options found in Exchange 2010.

InfoStor: Has Microsoft made any changes in Exchange 2010 that will directly impact the storage infrastructure?

McClean: We rewrote the book on storage for Exchange 2010 to enable lower-cost mailboxes for our customers. We reduced the IOPS required by 70% from Exchange 2007 and about 90% [when compared to] Exchange 2003.

InfoStor: How will the reduction in IOPS affect users?

McClean: We changed the way we write data by moving away from random, small disk I/Os to a fewer number of sequential writes. Low-cost SATA disks do not like random I/O so we smoothed out our I/O write patterns to take advantage of low-cost disk. The reduction in disk I/O allows for the use of slower, cheaper SATA disks and makes a RAID-less infrastructure feasible.

InfoStor: Is Exchange 2010 dependent upon certain types of storage or can customers choose any storage infrastructure they wish?

McClean: Exchange 2003 required a shared storage cluster. With 2007, we expanded the options to include DAS. With Exchange 2010, there is no dependency on back-end storage for advanced functions. Exchange 2010 offers complete flexibility in terms of the types of storage you can use. We have increased the options to include SAN, DAS, RAID or RAID-less, SATA-based JBODs.

InfoStor: How do you implement a “RAID-less” infrastructure for Exchange 2010?

McClean: Our Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) and Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) technologies have evolved since Exchange 2007. They are now unified to manage all aspects of failover. Exchange 2007 was restricted to just two copies of the database. In Exchange 2010, you can have up to 16 copies. Log shipping used to be an SMB process, but is now using a TCP socket. The essential process is the same, but we used to do that at the storage group level. Storage groups do not exist in Exchange 2010. Everything is done at the database level and no longer requires RAID storage [when using the Exchange 2010 HA solution].

InfoStor: Does the use of SATA-based storage affect mailbox sizes?

McClean: Using high capacity SATA disks lowers storage costs and gives users larger mailboxes. There is no ceiling [for mailbox sizes] in terms of the design, but there is a recommended mailbox size limit of 10GB and 100,000 items per folder for performance reasons. This is compared to Exchange 2007, which allowed 5GB mailboxes and 20,000 items per folder for reasonable performance.

InfoStor: In a recent blog post, you stated that Microsoft has tested SQL Server as a possible replacement for the current Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) database used by Exchange 2003 and 2007. Are there performance benefits to be had using SQL instead of the ESE database?

McClean: A lot of customers asked us about integrating SQL Server with Exchange because they heard that we were testing it, not because there is a performance advantage of any kind. Our team did test SQL and did get it working and working well, but it was really a question of where we wanted to invest our money. It was a business decision and we decided to make further investments in the existing ESE database. We did not see enough of an advantage in going to SQL at this time.

InfoStor: You said “at this time.” Does that mean a move to SQL is possible for future versions of Exchange?

McClean: It is something that we look at with every version of Exchange and we will continue [to do so] to make sure we are putting our investments in innovation in the right place.

InfoStor: What have you done on the archiving front?

McClean: We are introducing something called the personal archive in Exchange 2010. It is effectively a secondary mailbox stored on the Exchange server that looks just like a .PST file in terms of the folder structure. It will be a familiar experience for users, but, from an administration point of view, it is just another mailbox. We are targeting this built-in archiving feature at the 80% of customers that don’t have any archiving in place.

InfoStor: Do you think Exchange 2003 users will eventually move to Exchange 2007 or will they most likely leapfrog that product in favor of Exchange 2010?

McClean: There are a lot of customers out there still on Exchange 2003. A significant number of those customers will look at their environment and at Exchange 2010 and see that they get all of the features from 2007 and 2010 in one with Exchange 2010. From a storage point of view, a lot of customers struggle with Exchange 2003 because it is I/O-bound. Exchange 2010 is not.

InfoStor: When will Exchange 2010 be generally available to customers?

McClean: We will be releasing Exchange 2010 by the end of the year.

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It holds up to 1TB of data and comes with USB 2.0 and eSATA connectivity. Bundled software backs up and restores files, and also the entire attached PC system. The drive comes with a USB cable and an AC adaptor [...]]]> Toshiba has introduced its first external 3.5-inch format disk product, and it probably uses a third-party drive.

It holds up to 1TB of data and comes with USB 2.0 and eSATA connectivity. Bundled software backs up and restores files, and also the entire attached PC system. The drive comes with a USB cable and an AC adaptor and is both PC and Mac-compatible.

Toshiba manufactures its own 2.5-inch format disk drives and uses them in its notebooks and in a line of USB bus-powered external portable drives. Regarding this larger capacity and format external hard drive, it says it comes from a trusted brand.

Why bother stressing this? It didn’t say it actually manufactured the 5400rpm SATA drive inside the box though, though, and the likelihood is that it has been externally sourced. No Toshiba source was immediately available to discuss this point.

Michael Cassidy, a director at Toshiba America Information Systems, said: “We designed the external hard drive to provide consumers an easy-to-use back up option that not only performs above (the) competition, but is also a stylish accessory for their PC.” Toshiba says the product’s design has a sleek high gloss finish with a vaporized metallic silver rim and LED activity light with white glow effects. It is mounted upright on a cradle stand.

The hard drive is available now through Toshiba America’s channels, priced at $129.99 for 640GB and $159.99 for 1TB; both these are Toshiba’s suggested retail price. It is backed by a 3-year limited warranty

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Ranked number six worldwide by iSuppli, Fujitsu’s HDD business is loss-making, and Western Digital (number 2) was a rumoured buyer before Toshiba emerged. The global HDD industry is seeing a contraction in demand due to the deepening recession. Both Seagate (number [...]]]> Fujitsu has agreed to sell its hard disk drive (HDD) business to Toshiba, according to reports.

Ranked number six worldwide by iSuppli, Fujitsu’s HDD business is loss-making, and Western Digital (number 2) was a rumoured buyer before Toshiba emerged. The global HDD industry is seeing a contraction in demand due to the deepening recession. Both Seagate (number one) and Western Digital have announced staff cuts and other cost-saving measures.

Exactly what Toshiba (number five) is buying is unclear, but read/write head manufacturing is not included. Fujitsu has announced that its HDD head manufacturing operation at Nagano, Japan will terminate. The plant will revert to only making printed circuit boards for servers and telecoms kit, which it currently does alongside the read/write heads, after March 31.

None of its 360 employees will lose their jobs with reassignments to other parts of Fujitsu likely. The company will book a ¥5bn ($56m) loss to cover this transition and attribute it to the final 2008 quarter.

There has also been speculation that Fujitsu’s Yamagata drive media plant may not be included in a Toshiba purchase.

Fujitsu has hard drive manufacturing operations in the Philippines and Thailand. There is speculation that the Fujitsu HDD manufacturing operation in Thailand could close with around 7,000 jobs threatened. The apparent logic here is that with the current depressed state of demand for 2.5-inch drives Toshiba has no need of the plant’s capacity. It seems far-fetched.

The key to profitability in the HDD business is spreading manufacturing and other costs amongst as many hard drives as possibly. If you are currently making a loss, as Toshiba HHD operations are, then you need more manufacturing capacity, not less.

No selling price has been revealed, although one in the area of 30 to 40 billion yen ($340m – $450m) has been suggested. If and when the sale does go through that will open a route for profitability for Toshiba’s HDD operation but leave Samsung, currently the fourth-largest HDD manufacturer, still in the loss-making mire. ®

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