Review: Dell EqualLogic SANs make the most of automated tiering

As IT contemplates the rapidly expanding universe of storage options, at least one detail has become clear: In the majority of infrastructures, most data just sits around, feeling lonely, while a small percentage is more or less constantly in use. Addressing this issue in an elegant and cost-saving way paves the road to lower capital expenditures for storage, as well as reduced power and cooling costs, with a side order of performance gains. What's not to love?

Several storage tiering solutions are available today, but they tend to be on the upper end of the market. For most solutions, you choose SAS disks, perhaps with an older SATA-based unit that's already in place; you might equip another array with solid-state disks for extra juice. Without any smarts to bind these together, you wind up with manual tiering: Old data sits on the SATA/SAS boxes, and the high-turnover data lives on the SSDs. It's a workable solution, but requires care and feeding to maintain proper residence for each type of data.

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