3D NAND stacks flash cells vertically rather than shrinking them further, overcoming the physical limits of 2D planar NAND. This article explains how V-NAND and charge trap flash work and why they matter for enterprise storage.
Hybrid flash arrays promise the best of disk and flash, but they exist only to bridge a gap that is already closing. This article uses the hybrid electric vehicle as a lens to argue that HFAs are a transitory solution – and that the gap is closing faster than they can fill it.
This summer I made the decision to leave my previous employer and join another vendor in the All Flash Array space - a company called Kaminario. A lot of people have been in touch to ask me about this, so I thought I'd answer the question here... Why Kaminario? To answer the question, we first need to … Continue reading Why Kaminario?
Should an all flash array use commodity SSDs or custom flash modules? This article compares the two architectures across time-to-market, economics of scale and design agility – and explains why the answer isn't as obvious as it might seem.
All flash array vendors quote capacity in three very different ways – raw, usable and effective. This article explains the differences, warns against vendor smoke and mirrors, and argues that usable capacity at 1:1 reduction is the only figure that matters when buying.
There's a joke among some of the longer-serving employees of Violin Memory that "Violin years" are like dog years: every normal year feels like a decade. It's not meant in a negative way, it's just that things change so quickly and dramatically in the flash industry that whenever we take a moment to look back it … Continue reading Goodbye Violin…
Filling a legacy disk array with SSDs doesn't make it a true all flash array. This article builds a disk array from first principles to show why every architectural decision made for disk turns out to be the wrong one for flash.
A full re-test of Oracle's ASM Filter Driver a year on – correcting earlier mistakes and giving a definitive verdict on AFD behaviour with 4k Advanced Format devices.
All flash arrays come in three distinct categories: hybrid, SSD-based and ground-up designs. This article explains the differences, cuts through competing industry definitions from IDC and Gartner, and sets out a clear definition for what actually qualifies as an AFA.
In a proud moment for me, it appears that Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle, has mentioned my flashdba blog during the Oracle Q4 2015 results call. At least, that's what I'm reading into this section from the transcript published by Seeking Alpha: We grew in storage in the quarter and this is -- really we are … Continue reading Was I Mentioned During Oracle’s Q4 2015 Results Call?
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