#105 – Introduction to VAST Data (Part I) with Howard Marks (Sponsored)

#105 – Introduction to VAST Data (Part I) with Howard Marks (Sponsored)

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Guest Speakers, Sponsored, Storage Hardware, Storage Unpacked Podcast

This week, Chris and Martin talk to Howard Marks, Chief Storyteller at VAST Data.  You may know Howard as an independent analyst and author for a range of online publications.  Howard recently joined VAST to help explain and promote understanding of their data platform architecture. The VAST Data platform uses three main technologies that have only recently emerged onto the market.  QLC NAND flash provides long-term, cheap and fast permanent storage.  3D-XPoint (branded as Intel Optane) is used to store metadata and new data before it is committed to flash.  NVMe over Fabrics provides the …

#82 – Storage Predictions for 2019

#82 – Storage Predictions for 2019

Chris EvansGarbage Collection

The idea of this episode was to put some structure around a set of enterprise storage predictions for 2019.  As you will hear from the dialog, that’s not quite what we achieved!  However, Chris Evans, Chris Mellor and Martin Glassborow do raise some interesting points on the direction of the industry in 2019.  The conversation starts with a look at media.  QLC flash is likely to be a hot topic, but what about storage class memory?  Have hard drives had their day or is the technology moving into a state of equilibrium? The conversation moves …

#79 – Learning More About QLC Storage with Steve Hanna

#79 – Learning More About QLC Storage with Steve Hanna

Chris EvansAll-Flash, Guest Speakers

This week Chris and Martin talk to Steve Hanna, Senior Product Manager for Enterprise SSDs at Micron.  Steve looks after the 5210 ION QLC SSD product line, which was introduced earlier this year.  As an evolution of existing flash technology, QLC offers greater capacities at lower cost.  But what are the issues? The conversation covers how QLC has reduced the price to 1/100th of that seen in early enterprise SSDs.  Although endurance is lower than previous flash generations, in reality for many use cases the ability to write up to 1 DWPD is enough.  However, …