Storage Nation

Last week’s news reports that COPAN Systems are back from the dead after their purchase by SGI.  The newly branded arrays have been tweaked (for example 50% of drives can be spinning on the SGI incarnation) but essentially the concept is the same; store shedloads of inactive data.

The rumor is that Copan is shuttindg down.  If so, I suspect MAID storage will quickly become an afterthought now, except for a small number of customers and applications that will keep the technology on life support.  The problem with MAID is that there aren't enough applications for selectively-spinning disks.  Selectively spinning disk drives are more expensive than tape for archiving and are more problematic than standard disk systems for backup.  That leaves applications such as video on demand, which is not a large enough market to float a serious startup these days. Thin provisioning for primary storage and dedupe for backup have become the technologies of choice for customers looking to increase the efficiency of storage.  The outcome of Copan's failure means that tape will continue to be the most prevalent technology for archiving . In turn, that means archiving software will continue to be tied to tape for some time, including all the problems inherent in maintaining metadata for it