The Problem We Solve
The Storage
Performance Bottleneck
Storage system
growth is exploding. “Storage is projected to grow 6X over the
next 3 years.” -ESG Survey, July 2009. While storage system
density has dramatically increased in the last 5 years, storage
read and write access has not kept pace. One big problem –
Storage systems filled with higher numbers of lower cost, higher
capacity drives, are increasingly prone to normal vibration
levels in the Data Center. Normal levels of vibration in Data
Centers are generated by other Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), fans,
air conditioning, power supplies, and the facility site itself.
Conventional methods of bolting a storage system to the floor
cannot control the impact of Data Center vibration on your
storage systems.
The adverse
effects of vibration on your Data Center operations are
evidenced by:
Reduced
Storage Performance
Data Center
Vibration = Reduced Data Throughput and IOPS. Despite the
enormous advances in storage capacity, vibration in Data Centers
forces HDDs to have to work much harder to seek, read, and write
data. Re-reads and re-writes add time to I/O operations and
create a vexing bottleneck to Data Center performance. Data
Center engineers employ a variety of strategies attempting to
compensate for The Storage Performance Bottleneck:
These approaches
attempt to treat slow throughput symptoms but can’t solve the
real problem, vibration from multiple sources in the Data
Center. And they introduce additional cost and complexity,
requiring more equipment purchases and more administration to
achieve desired levels of performance.
Lower Energy
Efficiency
Normal Data
Center Vibration means more time spent on I/O operations. And
slower disk I/O means more energy is spent on the extra disk
reads and writes to save or get the data your applications need.
EEtimes stated in May 2009, “Data Center energy use is growing
20% per yr… The bottleneck is the disk and disk subsystem. ”The
explosive and continuing growth in Data Centers and the energy
they consume is impressive but unsustainable. According to the
2007 EPA Report, US servers and Data Centers used 61.4 billion
kWh in 2006, double that of 2000, and analysts say that will
double again by 2011.
Initial Markets
