Sarge's other interest - cyclocross

Everyone out there knows that the Sarge likes to discuss, berate, dictate, command, and editorialize on all things involving data storage. But occasionally Sarge likes to kick up his heels, and since I'm not allowed to declare war on people who cut the Sarge off in traffic, the sport of cyclocross has to suffice.

If Attila the Hun had to choose a cycling discipline, he would choose cyclocross.

Forget for a moment that many of the races take place in mud (where the Sarge feels very comfortable and stealth), or even that you can witness things like this during a race (which fills the Sarge's cold heart with joy). The fact is that the Sarge has to experience pain now and again, and cyclocross fits the bill. Plus, there is a side benefit of inflicting pain on others now and again.

So since we are approaching winter vis-a-vis fall, you may see the occasional cyclocross post. If you are purely a technology geek, consider it exercise for the right side of you brain, and be inspired to go charge up a muddy hill somewhere.

That is all.

5TB Drive? Better have RAID6 (or more)

The Sarge firmly believes that bigger is better. A big stick is better than a small stick; a big tank is better than a small tank. Does the same apply to drives? We've got 1TB drives now, thanks to perpendicular recording, and that technology should allow for drives of up to 5TB in the future.

Other drive geeks have said that using the same model (stacking to more than 1 level) will allow for a 50TB drive down the road.

Sarge wants to know who out there is comfortable with a 5TB drive, let alone a 50TB drive? Think RAID5 will protect you from a drive failure? Maybe you also think that the Sarge can't disable a man with a ham sandwich!

Well guess what? RAID5 won't protect you with larger drives, and the Sarge can absolutely disable a man with any type of sandwich.

The point is, you need dual parity RAID protection (also known as RAID6) when you are using a storage array with larger drives, simply because the larger drives take too long to rebuild.

If you have old arrays that only have RAID5 capability, better check out someone that can steer you in the right direction. That's an order!

At ease.

Expecting change when there is no change

You know, Comcast has a series of commercials out in which the customer has a major problem (such as very un-Sarge-like tiger tattos) and thinks that because they have Comcast voice service, their problems will go away.



The Sarge found minor amusement in this commercial (although Sarge thinks that a bit of scrubbing with a wire brush would remove any unwanted tatoos, unless the person in question is soft and can't handle extreme pain).

I have come across many worthless IT people who exhibit the same thinking - as in "I just got a brand new tape library, so my backups are fine now." Same exact thinking. Guess what? You still have tape, you're still dependent on tape, therefore your backups problems are NOT fixed.

Drop and give me 20, and see me when you realize that tape is for clones, and is worthless and weak.

SPF?

No, it's not a level of sunblock protection (as if the Sarge required such things - Sarge wears SPF 80,000 in the form of black tar on his face for protection). SPF, in the world that matters (not beaches and BBQs), means "Single Point of Failure."

Many storage companies are fond of saying they have no single point of failure on their equipment, but neglect to mention that often everything runs through one backplane (maybe with dual controllers). Everyone that thinks a backplane isn't a single point of failure needs to drop and give me 20! You're worthless and weak!

A backplane is just as likely to fail as a controller, meaning that if you have all controllers and storage going through a single backplane, you have SPF ZERO! You have a single point of failure!

The Sarge has one word for you: Cluster!! For high availability storage applications, you must cluster storage boxes for full redundancy. Not only will you impress your country club yuppie friends by dropping a word like "cluster," but you'll get processing power as well as storage.

Redundancy is important - that's why the Sarge has two weapons on his person at all times.

At ease!

Backing up to tape is funny - FUNNY HOW?

Funny like a clown? Funny ha-ha? Like tape amuses Sergeant Storage? Not exactly. Backing up to tape is funny like the guy who still has his 8 track tape collection, waiting for the (not so) inevitable day they come back in vogue. Funny like the guy who complains about what he brings for lunch everyday, even though he makes his own lunch.

In the words of the immortal Colonel Nathan R. Jessep: "No it isn't (funny). It's tragic."

But the Sarge isn't picking on tape. Much like football helmets without faceguards, they were the best that was to be had for a while. Unfortunately, that "while" was about 30 years ago. If there was a contest to pick the most volatile, fragile, slow and un-Sarge like media, tape wins hands down.

But the Sarge knows what you're thinking: "The cost of tape is less than disk! It will always be cheaper!" Yes, the battle-cry of tape lovers everywhere.

Guess what? Suits are cheaper at Walmart (although Sarge shops exclusively at the Army Surplus Store), but who buys a suit at Walmart? In some storage envionments, with certain tape based backup software, tape is cheaper.

Or, you can look a bit beyond 40 year old technology to realize the path to greater reliability, speed, security, scalability, and even COST SAVINGS!

Certain smart people know how to do this - it's not that hard.

At ease.

Atten-tion!

Congratulations on navigating your way to the correct and well-informed space of Sergeant Storage. In the weeks and months to come, you will be privy to the inner workings of Sergeant Storage's super computer-like mind.

Topics will include all things storage: SAN, NAS, DAS, Archiving and Backup.

The posts will range from the incredibly serious to (seemingly) random observations, to near utter hilarity.