* Serial attached ATA and serial attached SCSI technologies likely to have most profound impact on SMB storage
Increasingly, SMB storage is being pushed out onto the network, affording SMB managers many of the same performance and manageability benefits that larger sites get. As mentioned last week, along with this gradual move to networked storage, we are also seeing a perceptible shift in preference that favors making those networked storage nodes arrays, rather than just JBODs.
But there is something else likely to be going on there as well.
Of the several new technologies that the vendors have provided over the last 18 months, none is likely to have so profound an impact on the industry as the one-two punch provided by serial attached ATA (SATA) and serial attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives.
Enterprise sites use SATA devices in nearline storage and virtual tape libraries (VTL), where they provide “good enough” storage protection and performance at a very compelling price point. These SATA drives going onto enterprise shop floors are not the same ones going into desktop machines of course. While they are tested against a less rigorous specification than are the more expensive SCSI or Fibre Channel drives, they are quite a bit more reliable than those ATA drives found in most of today’s desktops. For the tasks to which they are assigned, they are indeed good enough.
SAS and SATA share a common command set and, assuming the backplane being used is the slightly more expensive SAS version rather than a SATA backplane, the two types of drives are plug compatible. Users can, exercising proper discretion, mix and match SAS and SATA devices within the same array. What does this mean for SMBs? The fact that these two technologies operate together so well creates an interesting new option for SMB storage buyers, and means they not only have a chance to put better drives in their shops, they also have the option to implement storage tiering.
SMBs, like the rest of us, are shifting over from parallel ATA to SATA due to ATA’s impending end-of-life status. This is fine, and ATA will be good enough at many SMB sites. But for many there will also be a need for better than “good enough.” Enter SAS.
Because of SATA’s plug compatibility with SAS, SMB has an easily and cheaply implemented upgrade path to better performing and more reliable storage. SAS will be an easy choice, and one we are likely to see being made with some frequency.
Keep in mind that the SAS-SATA combination arrives at a time when even smaller companies are starting to wonder if there might be some value for them in Information Lifecycle Management (ILM). SAS devices offer such sites a much less painful option than Fibre Channel, and one that is likely to be much less costly as well.
Next time, one added choice for SMBs.
***
It is almost time to write off to the storage Santa, a time each year when this column writes off to the jolly old guy asking for IT goodies that the vendors have yet to provide. Much of the input for this comes from my readers.
Want to make your Symmetrix interface with your iPod? Want something less fun but more practical? This is an opportunity for you to tell the vendors what you would like to see from them in the coming year. If you want to make a point, zing a vendor, or just engage in some healthy venting, e-mail a list of the things you’d like to see from the storage vendors some time during the next two weeks. If you don’t contribute, you have no right to complain. If you do… well, who knows what you might find under your blade server on the big day?
