storage

All indications are that IT spending growth will be below the rate of inflation in 2009, thus budgets will actually decrease in real terms.

If things get worse as many experts predict, it could get really ugly. Nevertheless, there are some technology areas that are close to a sure thing in 2009. Here is my non-exhaustive list:

• Virtualization. This ship has sailed and is producing real benefits. The only thing holding up massive virtualization thus far is immature management and operations tools, which will also improve throughout the year. Look for users to buy bigger Intel servers in 2009 … Read more

Just got some interesting news from the makers of Eye-Fi, the Wi-Fi-enabled SD card that wirelessly beams photos from your camera to your PC (and/or an online service like Facebook or Snapfish): There's a new 4GB Anniversary Edition of the card, and you can get one for just $99. The catch? You'll have to walk into your local Costco.

Yeah, I know, that kinda bites. And $99 is still about $90 more than the price of a regular 4GB SD card. On the other hand, it's $30 less than the Web price ($129.99 at Eye-Fi'… Read more

While computers continue to get smaller, they're constantly being pushed to do more. Whether they're doubling as a phone, a camera, or an MP3 player, there seems to be no end to the tasks we expect them to carry out. And as always, we say we want them to "do all that stuff and be smaller."

A limitation of the miniaturization process is that the more computers are asked to do, the more memory they require. One of the computer's basic elements, the transistor, could soon reach its miniaturization limit. The smaller we make transistors, the more susceptible they are to quantum phenomena like electrons tunneling through the barriers between wires. Which, while ticklish for the barrier, can just be really annoying.

This has apparently annoyed researchers at the U.K.'s University of Nottingham, as well, albeit for different reasons. This transistor dilemma has led them to look into the viability of carbon nanotubes to help create fast, cheap, and compact memory that uses little power. … Read more

The last time I posted a 1TB external drive for less than $100, the deal vanished faster than Sarah Palin after the election (thank you, thank you, I'm here all week). Fortunately, another drive came along to take its place: Newegg has the Hammer Morespace 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive on sale for $99.99 (after a $20 mail-in rebate). Shipping will run you about $11.

No, I didn't make up the name. And, no, I never heard of the Hammer brand before today. The reviews I've seen are mostly positive, but one concern is … Read more

"We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the data began to take hold." That's what you may be saying when you get your hands on one of the latest Mimobot flash drives, which appears (to my hopefully coherent mind) to be a tribute to Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The gonzo drive is one of six winners of the Vimobot Design Contest, a do-it-yourself vinyl art toy challenge that sought innovative character designs to add to the ever-expanding line of quirky drives from Boston-based design studio Mimoco. … Read more

There are few foods that stack up against a good ol' hamburger. There are even fewer foods (tuna salad does come to mind) that benefit more from homemade customization. While ordering a burger from your favorite burger joint may be great, there is no comparison to having one made just the way you like it. You get to put in the mix exactly what you want, from onions to green peppers, with only your pantry (and imagination) limiting the type of toppings to pile on to your personal creation.

Whether you enjoy them fried or grilled, first you gotta make '… Read more

Sun Microsystems unveiled Monday its Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems line, as it seeks to turn around its ailing business by once again turning to open source.

The Sun Storage 7000 line, formerly known as "Amber Road," is intended to bolster the company's storage business by adding open source to its hardware, in a move to make it easier for customers to install and configure the systems and reduce costs. The line will be part of the company's Unified Storage Systems.

Sun's three open-source storage are designed to increase the performance while lower cooling … Read more

Despite a recent write-down on the value of its StorageTek acquisition, Sun is banking on updates to its open-storage initiative to drive revenue growth for the company, according to The Wall Street Journal. Is it putting too much faith in storage, and open-source storage at that, to repair its fortunes?

For me, it's not a question of whether Sun's open-storage business is viable, but whether it's big enough to save Sun in time. In other words, as the Journal points out, open storage is growing at a torrid pace, but will it be enough?

Sun's open … Read more

LOS ANGELES--At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference here, Microsoft talked about the future of USB 3.0 and how delays have hampered rollout of the specification.

Microsoft's talk Thursday was predicated on the expected finalization of the specification later this month. On Wednesday, Jeff Ravencraft of Intel said that he expects the final specification to be announced in San Jose, Calif., on November 17. Ravencraft is also the chairman and president of the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) industry trade association.

Microsoft expressed caution about USB 3.0--which is expected to offer 10 times the performance of USB 2.0--because … Read more