I remember those days too. When a 500 MB disk was the size of a washing machine and cost $50k. I sold a lot of DEC’s RA81 disks: 1.8 GB in a 42 inch high rack for ~$60k. They went like hotcakes.

Yet this points to a larger issue: power efficiency, as well as cost and speed, have enabled computing to become ever more woven into the fabric of our lives, culture and civilization.

At the time of the RA81, the 5MHz VAX 11-780 supermini was a 6 foot high behemoth in 3 19″ racks and required 220v power. The backplane’s bandwidth was less than USB 2 today. There is probably a microcontroller in a clock radio that is slower than that VAX today, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

So now Intel’s 70 watt NetBurst architecture chips are too hot and power-hugnry for today’s Internet Data Centers, so the new Core Duo chips start at less than 14W, meaning you can pack several where you had one CPU before. And what will those CPU do for storage? Several 15W drives? Not for long.

We’re on track to have a 1TB 2.5″ laptop drive in 2010. Seagate’s Savvio drive is a step in the right direction, but its greater power density means more cooling problem, not less. I don’t think people will be willing to pay that price for very long, so I hope they are working on a 5 watt Savvio.

And yes, I am an MBA-carrying capitalist. I want to see a very healthy and profitable storage industry. What bothers me is that I see an industry that is getting ready to drive off a cliff. Maybe that will be today’s post.

Robin

As the economic and social costs of energy become more expensive, storage vendors will respond. RoHS is one example where vendors stepped up and did the right thing albeit because they’d have lost business without adapting. Small form factor drives will one-day become as reliable and economical as they are energy efficient. Don’t doubt they’ll be found in enterprise storage as the market demands it.

Remember, the storage industry is always looking to be green (as in $$$) as well as environmentally friendly.

I enjoy your blog, thanks for the rant.

As for power-wastage: saw an interview in Computerworld with Ken Brill, founder of the Uptime Institute, where he states that in the data centers he’s seen, anywhere from 10-30% of the servers are “dead” - not running an application but still powered up. Problem: no one is responsible for identifying and turning off unused servers. Kind of like government programs.

Depending on the strength of the power issue, I think the turnover to 2.5″ drives could happen a lot faster than most of us are thinking. IMHO, disk performance is a steadily shrinking issue as enterprise data continues to cool, and while they are currently more costly per GB, the savings in power, cooling and floorspace would wipe out a lot of those differences. EMC will be the last vendor to make the change, so the question is: who will be the first? On past performance, I’d say HP, but maybe IBM or Sun is finally willing to show some leadership. Stay tuned.

Robin

Big-iron mechanical form-factors are not suitable for 2.5 inch disks. This will require / enable new designs and everything will shrink… and then it would be too small to sell … for so much.

Also… Datacenter designers should be worried about power wastage in 1U servers… with all of this unused ‘commodity’ motherboard infrastructure such as multiple PCI slots, boot disks, etc.

It seems that the latest wave of innovation is limited to packaging these power hungry, outdated ‘reference design’ motherboards into cargo containers and back-to-back rack mounted solutions.