Storage systems

[Slobodan]

I am writing a diploma thesis (or whatever it is called in english) on the subject of computer storage systems.

I am an electronics engineer, and this subject has nothing to do with electronics (I was forced to take this subject) and I do not know much about computers on advance level (especialy softwer, I know nothing related to software).

I have wrote a lot on this subject (history of storage systems, history of storage media, types of storage media, RAID, IBM FlashSystem 720 and 820) but I did not write anything about types of computer storage systems. And what computer storage systems actualy are (like an introduction), accept what I have wrote in the history section.

So, can you provide me with a literature that describes computer storage systems in general, tell me what types of storage systems exist (DAS, NAS, SAN, CAS, COS...?)? Also, their application (servers,...?).

[Slobodan]

Nobody knows anything about storage systems on a computer forum? Unbelievable...

[Slobodan]

Nobody can even tell me what types of computer storage systems exist? What computer storage systems are (in few sentences)? And what are they used for (like in servers and what else)?

[Slobodan]

Why no replays? Am I being trolled or what? I don't understand.

[Linuxxx]

Sorry to disappoint...

Why no replays? Am I being trolled or what? I don't understand.

... but Phoronix is a place filled with people who care which friggin' open-source license an open-source Software uses more than anything!

I'm not one of them, but unfortunately storage systems is something I don't really care about either (most of my pr0n is backed up over multiple drives).

Hope there are others who can help You!

[nanonyme]

I am an electronics engineer, and this subject has nothing to do with electronics (I was forced to take this subject) and I do not know much about computers on advance level (especialy softwer, I know nothing related to software).

Storage systems is *vague*. It could mean filesystems (I assume you know some examples) or it could mean data storage containers (eg S3). Both of which are still way too wide without narrowing the scope down further to write a thesis on. Sounds like whoever gave you the subject was trolling if you indeed aren't proficient enough on the subject to narrow it down yourself.

[Slobodan]

Like this: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/technotes/tips1003.pdf

This one uses flash memmory instead of hard drives.

I mean, "Computer data storage system" (yes, I forgot to add "data", but it is obvious) is the "official" name of those systems, what else could it be...

[fteoOpty64]

Storage systems is *vague*. It could mean filesystems (I assume you know some examples) or it could mean data storage containers (eg S3).

Well, schools asked to research things for the person to learn as part of the research and ask many questions on specific terms/technologies stated in the research. I CARE about storage systems and can contribute a few paragraphs.

I would approach the storage media first then focus on where it is used often in industry or home. From there discuss the issues the storage industry faces and what steps they are NOT taking to try remedy that.
Storage media comes in different technologies such as optical medium, magnetic medium and non-moving parts medium.
The classical optical medium was the CDROM, which was read only, then we have CDR-w, then goes into DVD, DVD-r, DVD-R+W, with the latest BlueRay disk. Find out their capacities and their (projected)lifespans.
Magnetic medium comes with mag tape in the old days. Many types research those from IBM, DEC etc.
Even in the consumer space there were tape cartidges such at DAT tape. DDS tapes. (I got a few of those).
Magnetic medium used by Disk drives of the old mainframes RM05 of PDP-11 era ...then modern harddisk-drive we see today.
Non-moving parts are Flash storage which used to come in propreitary connects, then standardized to consumer applications such as CF-card, then SD-card, microSD card for phones/tablets/cameras. SSD drives for PCs and lasptops.

A disk drive is a storage system. A bunch of USB2 external drives are the most common storage medium today and for the near future. The fact that you can get a 6TB drive for $300. Not long ago, many data centres do not have 6TB of backups in a year alone!!!. For the home, a NAS drive is a storage medium which is active and can be accessed by PCs and tablets using wifi or wired ethernet. People do backup of the NAS drive to external USB drive or external eSATA drive to safeguard their offline data.

Companies used commercial NAS for storage and SAN for huge data stores. SAN leverages huge bandwidth and larger distribution of storage cabinets to allow for expansion. All those storage systems are backup on magnetic tape drives every night and archived every 2 weeks or so. Storage of mag tapes are said to be good for 5 years and most diligent companies "refreshes" their tapes every 3 years by duplicating them on new tape medium and restoring the archive. Few companies do this as it is rather cost. I realised that a large portion of tapes in longterm storage (>3 years) are NOT readible, hence , useless. High-end storage systems uses Teired-Storage that leverages SSD systems tiered to HDD arrays for storage. These are for high performance databases such as trading systems that needed the speed in the huge volumes of transactions they do per second costing tens of millions of dollars.

Now if you want to go into file systems. Then your head might spin!. But check wikipedia for history of file systems. Talk about ZFS (world's most advanced FS yet few use it), and BTRFS which is an emerging Linux system to replace EXT4 on current Linux distro. EXT4 is a great FS, way better than the NTFS,HPFS+ bs that MS and Apple uses. And you might find out why MicroSoft GAVE up on WinFS!. So hopefully you have some framework for your thesis. Good Luck.

[Slobodan]

Thanks, but you misunderstood me. The testes is almost finished. As I said, I already have wrote a lot on this subject (history of storage systems, history of storage media, types of storage media, RAID, IBM FlashSystem 720 and 820 (which is the specific storage system that I have to describe in detail)) but I did not wrote anything about types of computer data storage systems (I have only wrote something about DAS and NAS). And what computer storage systems actualy are (like an introduction. I mean, I know what they are in general, but I don't know how to put it on writing), accept what I have wrote in the history section. I will not write anything on file systems (or anything related to software - for me file system counts as software).

[tuke81]

A bit old but check this:

http://bnrg.cs.berkeley.edu/~randy/Courses/CS294.S13/12.1.pdf

Hint I used a lot of google hacking when i was in university. I.e. you might better try to search pdf:s:

https://www.google.fi/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ie=UTF-8#q=data+storage+systems+in+hpc+filetype:pdf+white+paper