45Drives has been a cloud-scale staple for some time, delivering some of the first purpose-built storage servers for service providers. Over time the company has added many more servers, most recently an exciting 15-bay rig designed specifically for the homelab enthusiast.

45Drives has been a cloud-scale staple for some time, delivering some of the first purpose-built storage servers for service providers. Over time the company has added many more servers, most recently an exciting 15-bay rig designed specifically for the homelab enthusiast.

Doug Milburn joins the podcast to discuss the origins of 45Drives and the considerations that went into the HL15. Doug also discusses some of the roadmap for the homelab line, which should get enthusiasts bubbling in the event the HL15 isn’t your cup of tea.

Doug describes himself as a “geek by birth.” He likes everything electronic, computer, mechanical, whatever, studying physics for a couple of degrees, a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, and picking up everything else along the way.

We are just starting our test and review of the HL15, to get up to speed on our progress check out our unboxing and setup video here.

The podcast was done live on Discord – join Discord to keep up to date with all the latest from the SR Lab!

We are transcribing the podcast here, so you can skip to sections that might be more interesting to our listeners. However, if you have time, catch the podcast in its entirety. You won’t be disappointed. The YT video in embedded below for those who prefer the visuals.

00:00  Introduction

05:00  Integrating everything

10:00  Get up to speed on the HL15

15:00  Working with government agencies

20:00  Cold storage

25:00  Delivering a clean build to customers

30:00  Building affordable home lab equipment

35:00  Built in North America

40:00  People have their own idea of what they want

45:00  You can’t please all the people all the time

50:00  Looking at the hardware build design

55:00  Question from Discord audience

60:00. Things you should and shouldn’t try

63:00  Wrapup

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The post Podcast #125: 45Drives and the Creation of the HL15 Homelab Storage Server appeared first on StorageReview.com.

Brian invited Seagate’s Colin Presly to the podcast this week to discuss research and developments in hard drives. Colin has been with Seagate for 20 years and is currently the Senior Director in the Office of the CTO. Originally from the UK, Colin moved to Minnesota over 20 years ago. The headline? HAMR is sampling with customers and 50TB HDDs are possible.

Brian invited Seagate’s Colin Presly to the podcast this week to discuss research and developments in hard drives. Colin has been with Seagate for 20 years and is currently the Senior Director in the Office of the CTO. Originally from the UK, Colin moved to Minnesota over 20 years ago. The headline? HAMR is sampling with customers and 50TB HDDs are possible.

Having grown up in the UK, Colin is a big sports enthusiast supporting teams like Liverpool Football Club (good pick), Formula 1, Rugby, and cricket. He is still a fan and continues to follow his teams from Shakopee, MN.

From a technology perspective, Colin considers himself to be an experienced engineering leader and technologist with over 20 years of broad technical and managerial experience in the disc drive industry. He has a proven track record managing diverse cross-functional teams, developing precision capital equipment, and productizing enterprise-quality disc drives.

After a few minutes of talking sports, Brian and Colin got serious about the real topic of this podcast: hard drives. The great thing about Colin is his enthusiasm for sport and technology.

This is a great discussion between two people who have been in the storage industry for a long time and still have the passion to get excited about what’s around the corner. Hear what is around the corner in hard drive development.

Streamed live with StorageReview Discord members.

Full video on YouTube

You should give this podcast a view in its entirety, but if you are stretched for time, the timestamp is below.

00:00 – Introduction

05:00 – Let’s talk spinning disks

10:00 – Hard drive direction

15:00 – Comparing Flash

20:00 – The appeal of one interface

25:00 – Intent to launch larger hard drive

30:00 – Executing heating of an area

35:00 – Challenges in thermal and magnetic stability

40:00 – Replacing  older 4TB drives with 20TB drives – energy savings

45:00 – GenAI driving storage capacity

50:00 – Referencing CORVAULT 106 Drive System

55:00 – Wrap-up

Seagate HAMR

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This podcast features a conversation between Brian and Jeffrey Gregor (he prefers Gregor).  Gregor is the General Manager for OVHcloud® US, a leading cloud provider with a global presence. Prior to joining OVHcloud, Gregor was a Navy Officer,  a highly decorated Navy Officer, with over 15 years serving the US.

This podcast features a conversation between Brian and Jeffrey Gregor (he prefers Gregor).  Gregor is the General Manager for OVHcloud® US, a leading cloud provider with a global presence. Prior to joining OVHcloud, Gregor was a Navy Officer,  a highly decorated Navy Officer, with over 15 years serving the US.

OVHcloud was established in 1999, with some borrowed funds and hardware,  as a web-hosting startup in northern France and has grown steadily, expanding across Europe. Following the expansion into Canada in 2015,  OVHcloud opened offices in the US. Gregor joined OVHcloud when the company opened offices in northern Virginia. And the expansion continues.

We recently posted a deep-dive review for OVHcloud US, focusing on GPUs in the cloud and how to approach cloud training for AI. The review is worth the time as it provides background on OVH, how we performed our tests, and the results.

Gregor explains the

Streaming live on the StorageReview Discord.

00:00 Introduction

06:00  Competition

11:00  Expanding OVH

16:00  Making it cost-effective

20:00  Helping customers move to the cloud

26:00  Security

30:00  GPU Instances ties everything together

35:00  Geeky, Nerdy Engineers

40:00  Toronto Data Center

45:00 Wrap-up

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OVHcloud US

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The post Podcast #123: Cloud-Based GPUs For AI appeared first on StorageReview.com.

This week Brian sits down with our own AI expert, Jordan Ranous, to discuss and speculate on the challenges facing enterprises and small businesses as they try to get a grip on the hot topic of the decade, Artificial Intelligence. If you have been following StorageReview, then you are aware of some of the tests, reviews, and trials we have been exploring in our lab. Jordan is engaged in almost all AI content posted on our site.

This week Brian sits down with our own AI expert, Jordan Ranous, to discuss and speculate on the challenges facing enterprises and small businesses as they try to get a grip on the hot topic of the decade, Artificial Intelligence. If you have been following StorageReview, then you are aware of some of the tests, reviews, and trials we have been exploring in our lab. Jordan is engaged in almost all AI content posted on our site.

Jordan is an experienced AI technologist with a background working with financial institutions. Brian always offers his guests some tough questions, and Jordan gets the same treatment. AI is such a hot topic, and the buzz in the industry just keeps getting louder, generating more questions than answers. Jordan has a rare talent of being an expert in AI and being able to articulate answers that can be easily understood.

This is the first podcast that we’re actually integrating live with our Discord community so they can interact and ask questions on topics we are hitting at that moment.

If it’s AI-related, Brian and Jordan talk about it. It is certainly worth watching the podcast in its entirety, but if you would like to hop around, we have the time-stamped transcript below.

Join the Discord to participate in future pods in real-time.

00:00 Introduction

05:00  Finetuning the model

10:00 Chatbots for customer service

15:00 Security is paramount

20:00 Active Directory for access levels

25:00 What’s the on-ramp for small businesses

30:00 What’s a good starting point

35:00 What about the hardware

40:00 Dell’s latest CPU servers

45:00 Where cloud can benefit AI

50:00 Wrap-up

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span> Podcast video

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Dell XE9680 Review

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The post Podcast #122: Navigating The AI Landscape: Real-World Insights And Challenges appeared first on StorageReview.com.

We recently spent some time with the Dell PowerProtect Appliance, posting an in-depth review that illustrates the operational simplicity often overlooked when securing mission-critical data. Dell put a lot of thought into ensuring simplicity in the setup, configuration, and management of the PowerProtect Appliance.  The intuitive interface walks a user through the entire process, from installation to data protection.

We recently spent some time with the Dell PowerProtect Appliance, posting an in-depth review that illustrates the operational simplicity often overlooked when securing mission-critical data. Dell put a lot of thought into ensuring simplicity in the setup, configuration, and management of the PowerProtect Appliance.  The intuitive interface walks a user through the entire process, from installation to data protection.

Brian went to Hopkinson to get an up-close introduction to the new PowerProtect Appliance and was duly impressed with the design and the software that powers the appliance. As a follow-up, Brian invited David Noy, the Vice President of Product Management at Dell Technologies, to join him for a podcast and find out what went into the design and where the product is headed in the future. The discussion gives us a better understanding of this seamlessly integrated appliance that can be up and running in just 15 minutes, ensuring data protection from the start.

David has been with Dell Technologies since 2021, but this was an encore, having worked with Dell EMC between 2012 and 2017. His background covers data protection and storage, so this was a perfect fit. David spent time with Cohesity and Veritas in a previous life, and before rejoining Dell, he was the Vice President of Product Management At VAST Data. A solid history working with data storage and securing that data.

Securing data is a critical topic, and this podcast covers topics that help Dell stay at the top of its game. Give it a listen, but if you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, check the timestamps below to jump to the topics that interest you.

00:00  Introduction

05:00  Reducing cloud backups

10:00  Consolidating functions

15:00  Cybersecurity

20:00  What customers ask for

25:00  Kubernetes integration

30:00  Unifying management on a single product

35:00  Create and test the playbook

40:00  Data Mobility

45:00  Conclusion

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The post Podcast #121: Simplifying Data Protection with an Integrated Appliance appeared first on StorageReview.com.

Recently, Brian took a trip to Longmont, Colorado, to look at the Seagate Exos CORVAULT, a high-density storage platform five years in the making! We followed up his visit by posting a deep dive into the CORVAULT, looking at everything from unboxing to setup and highlighting the many features associated with this technology.

Recently, Brian took a trip to Longmont, Colorado, to look at the Seagate Exos CORVAULT, a high-density storage platform five years in the making! We followed up his visit by posting a deep dive into the CORVAULT, looking at everything from unboxing to setup and highlighting the many features associated with this technology.

Brian’s guest on this show is Erik Salo, Seagate’s vice president of product and business marketing. Erik has been with Seagate for over ten years and has had his hands on everything from distribution, storage, and cloud-edge technology. With that kind of background, Erik was the perfect choice to get some background on this new storage platform.

The concept for CORVAULT was hatched during a meeting, thinking about all the sophisticated and innovative technology used in building Seagate products. Erik believed that, instead of thinking of storage in single 3.5-inch increments, it might be time to think in terms of hundreds of those 3.5-inch products in a high-density platform. The discussion moved to cloud storage, and the numbers just kept growing.

This is a podcast with plenty of detail about what goes into creating a product like CORVAULT. It is certainly worth a view, but if you need just to hit some highlights, the video is transcribed below.

00:00  Introduction (recorded on-site in Longmont, CO)

05:00  Dramatic changes in scale

10:00  Smart drives know

15:00  Building out infrastructures in the lab

20:00  Bigger, Bigger, Bigger

25:00 Helping customer figure out what’s next

30:00  How to get customers interested

35:00  Conclusion

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The post Podcast #120: Seagate Exos CORVAULT appeared first on StorageReview.com.

Brian invited Ernie Costa to join him for this podcast. Ernie is a Team Lead at Commvault and a Microsoft Azure Hybrid MVP (Most Valuable Professional). Ernie’s LinkedIn profile lists his background as a Systems Administrator, Engineer, and Architect with 20 years of Enterprise, SMB, Financial, Hospitality, and Educational experience.

Brian invited Ernie Costa to join him for this podcast. Ernie is a Team Lead at Commvault and a Microsoft Azure Hybrid MVP (Most Valuable Professional). Ernie’s LinkedIn profile lists his background as a Systems Administrator, Engineer, and Architect with 20 years of Enterprise, SMB, Financial, Hospitality, and Educational experience.

He was involved with data center operations, on-premises and cloud infrastructure design and implementation, networking architecting, project management, vendor contract negotiations, and multi-tier Help Desk procedures. Ernie knows his way around the data center and the cloud.

As mentioned above, Ernie is also a Microsoft MVP. To put the MVP title into context, Microsoft describes the “award” this way:

“Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are technology experts who passionately share their knowledge with the community. They are always on the “bleeding edge” and have an unstoppable urge to get their hands on new, exciting technologies. They have very deep knowledge of Microsoft products and services while also being able to bring together diverse platforms, products, and solutions to solve real-world problems. MVPs make up a global community of over 4,000 technical experts and community leaders across 90 countries/regions and are driven by their passion, community spirit, and quest for knowledge. Above all, and in addition to their amazing technical abilities, MVPs are always willing to help others – that’s what sets them apart.”

Taking advantage of Ernie’s MVP Award, their conversation gets into Microsoft Azure Arc, Managed SQL Server, HCI Stack, and more.

Podcast #87: What’s Next for Azure Stack HCI with Cosmos Darwin?

Podcast #119 timestamp:

00  Introduction

05  Hypervisor and HCI

10  Hybrid model

15  Virtual Appliance

20  Server Names

25  Azure Stack vs. Azure Cloud

30  Costs

35  Other services

40  Dispersed Workforce

45  Azure Stack HCI update cadence

50  Sandbox

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The post Podcast #118: Going Deep on Microsoft Azure Arc, Cloud, Managed SQL, AVD, HCI and More! appeared first on StorageReview.com.

Brian invited his friend Nishant Lodha, Marvell’s Director of Emerging Technologies to sit for the podcast. Nishant has been with Marvell for over 13 years. His key responsibilities include subject matter expert, technology evangelist, driving growth in emerging markets, competitive analysis, product positioning, outbound marketing, and hands-on technology analysis.

Nishant has worked with StorageReview on several topics, most recently on Innovation and Reliability Make Fibre Channel the Choice for Data Center SANs. Nishant strongly believes that Fibre Channel is the best solution for SAN deployment, and he is not alone. Look to other vendors, and they will echo his thoughts (although maybe not as loudly).

This is an excellent discussion about SAN technology, where it is, and where it is going. It is worth the 45 minutes, but the time stamp is below if you need to jump around in the video.

00:00  Introduction

05:00  It just works because of the engineering effort

10:00  Deployment cycle

15:00  What about DPUs

20:00  CXL potential

27:00  CPU Interactions

30:00  Economics

35:00  More on VM-ID

40:00  Performance dynamics

46:00  Edge challenges

50:00  Wrap up

Podcast Video

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From Marvell: This podcast contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, any statement that may predict, forecast, indicate or imply future events or achievements. Actual events or results may differ materially from those contemplated in this podcast. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Listeners are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and no person assumes any obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. 

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The post Podcast#117: Fibre Channel Still Tops for Virtualization appeared first on StorageReview.com.

Brian tackles the concept of data deletion on this podcast and why it is essential. Brian’s guest is Dr. Vincent Berk, Chief Strategy Officer at Quantum Xchange.

Brian tackles the concept of data deletion on this podcast and why it is essential. Brian’s guest is Dr. Vincent Berk, Chief Strategy Officer at Quantum Xchange.

Dr. Berk has a Ph.D. in AI/ML and describes himself as an “energetic technologist, entrepreneur, and animated thought leader in cyber security, driving growth through innovative SaaS solutions. He was the founder and CEO of FlowTraq, a cyber security company that Riverbed acquired.”  Dr. Berk is also a blogger, public speaker, and startup advisor. Before his current role, he was a computer science faculty member at Dartmouth College. He urged boards and executives to start viewing their hoarded data as a liability rather than a ticket to incredible growth. He stressed the importance of instituting policies that dealt with data destruction.

Why do we covet our data so passionately? According to Dr. Berk, the affordability, low maintenance, and ease of use of the cloud mean that organizations have an increasing tendency to hoard data. He asserts that this hoarded data is a corporate liability, a detriment to organizations that increases their appeal to bad actors. For example, from December 2022 through February 8, 2023, there have been nine data breach incidents. The unlucky targets included MailChimp, T-Mobile, JD Sports, and others. The Roomba data breach included leaked images from iRobot customers. Check your smart vacuum.

Brian wastes no time jumping right into the discussion by asking Dr. Berk how he got into the notion of people deleting data. It’s an interesting topic that gets overlooked. If you don’t have time to listen all the way through, the time stamps are listed below.

00:00  Intro (Jumping right into the topic)

05:00  Point of diminishing returns

10:00  Good hygiene for data

15:00 It’s hard

20:00  What are the processes

25:00  Philosophical

30:00  What happens when companies get acquired

35:00  Is there an easy button

40:00  Shared docs

45:00 Wrap-up

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The post Podcast #116: Delete those files! appeared first on StorageReview.com.

Brian sat down with ScaleFlux’s JB Baker for an interesting discussion about computational storage and the impact ScaleFlux has had on the industry. StorageReview has covered ScaleFlux news for several releases, most recently in early January. Check out the review on the CSD 3000 SSD for some background.

Brian sat down with ScaleFlux’s JB Baker for an interesting discussion about computational storage and the impact ScaleFlux has had on the industry. StorageReview has covered ScaleFlux news for several releases, most recently in early January. Check out the review on the CSD 3000 SSD for some background.

Before getting too far into the podcast, computational storage integrates computing resources in the storage itself instead of relying on the host system’s computing resources.

JB is a storage veteran, having worked with Intel, LSI, and Seagate prior to joining ScaleFlux as Sr Director of Product Management. He was recently promoted to VP of Marketing, “helping users efficiently scale data processing, storage, and management.”

It is a candid and relaxed conversation that starts with the evolution of computational storage. JB is not necessarily a fan of the term and explains why early on in the podcast. It’s a fairly short podcast and well worth the time. Watch or listen to the conversation or you can skip around by using the timestamp below. Enjoy.

00:00  Introduction

05:30  Computational Storage Participants

11:30  Technology

16:30  Gen4 Performance

21:00  DPU Technology

25:00  Form factors

31:00  Wrap-up

Podcast Video

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The post Podcast #115: Is Computational Storage Just a Fancy Name for Storage? appeared first on StorageReview.com.