Solid-state disks (SSD) are probably some of the most talked-about new gadgets of late. They easily distinguish themselves from the mechanical hard drives of the Jurassic period because they have no moving parts. Like USB drives, they use nonvolatile flash memory to store data, but SSDs are wrapped in an enclosure the size of a 2.5-in. mechanical laptop drive and have a SATA interface for an easy connection to the internals of your portable.

Having no moving parts is, naturally, important. There’s no platter rotation or read/write head motion so SSDs — in theory — should use less power than equivalent mechanical hard drives. They should also (again, in theory) be faster than a mechanical hard drive at just about anything. Working off an electrical grid, there’s no time wasted positioning the read/write head and then waiting for it to settle down and start doing its thing. SSDs just do it. (That’s a bit of an oversimplification, but it’s fair.)

So have you ever wondered if it’s really worth it to plunk down the extra $1,300 for an SSD-equipped MacBook Air? Or have you been tempted to swap the current mechanical hard drive out of your portable and slide one of these high tech bad boys inside? I did.

Click here to read the rest of the story…

Microsoft is preparing to take its most ambitious step yet in transforming its personal computer business into one tied more closely to software running in remote data centers.

The software giant announced on Tuesday a data storage and Web software system, called Live Mesh, that is intended to blur the distinction between software running on the Windows operating system and an elaborate array of services that will be delivered to a growing collection of electronic gadgets.

Live Mesh is Microsoft’s late entry into a rapidly growing market described as cloud computing. The term refers to the movement of software applications and services from PCs to centralized data centers, where they are made available via the Internet. Companies like Amazon.com, Google, Salesforce and dozens of others are building computing centers that will effectively outsource data processing and make it a commodity that companies purchase as they would electricity.

The introduction of Live Mesh is a significant strategic shift for Microsoft, whose operating system helped popularize personal computers. Bill Gates, the company’s co-founder, chairman and chief architect, said in an interview on CNN a year ago, “We’re making the PC the place where it all comes together.”

Click here to read the rest of the story…

It’s the confluence of the two hip tech trends: “green” IT and cloud computing.

IBM on Wednesday detailed its iDataPlex servers aimed at Internet companies that need compute power on-demand but also want to keep a lid on electricity costs.

They pack more than double the number of servers in a typical rack while using 40 percent less electricity.

To keep power costs down, IBM uses liquid cooling, which will allow servers to run at room temperature without costly, and often inefficient, air conditioners.

The systems allow people to create a pool of computing resources, rather than have specific servers tied to applications–the typical way of configuring servers that keeps most server capacity unused.

Click here to read the rest of the story…

EMC Corp.’s first-quarter profit dipped 14 percent on acquisition-related charges, but the data storage vendor managed to post a double-digit revenue gain amid a slow U.S. economy, beating Wall Street expectations.

Its shares rose more than 2 percent on morning trading.

Hopkinton, Mass.-based EMC said Wednesday that net income fell to $268.8 million, or 13 cents per share in the three months ended March 31. That’s down from $312.6 million, or 15 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.

The latest quarter’s performance was hurt by a $79 million non-cash charge to write off research and development operations from recent acquisitions. Without that charge and other one-time items including employee stock options costs, EMC’s profit was $477.3 million, or 23 cents per share.

Revenue rose 17 percent to $3.47 billion, beating the $3.45 billion consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

Despite a lagging U.S. economy that threatens to slow technology spending, EMC posted 14 percent revenue growth in North America, which accounted for 57 percent of total company revenue. Overseas, where EMC has consistently posted stronger growth, the revenue gain was 21 percent.

Click here to read the rest of the story…

Q: My client has an rackmount cabinet on casters that rolls into a very tight space. We are looking for a good way to be able to pull it out when the need arises. What do you recommend?

Marcus Ingram
MI Technologies

A: There are a couple of different options available. The key factor is the weight of the cabinet. For light weight applications where all you are looking for is a convenient hand-hold, you could go to the hardware store and purchase some handles that would normally go on a kitchen cabinet or drawer. If you can find a couple with hole spacing that is close to that of the EIA spacing on the cabinet, you can screw the handles vertically to both rails. This will give you something to grab to pull the cabinet out.

Failing this, you could go with a rackmount solution. A lacer bar should work, or a blank panel could work. These options have their own limitations as the lacer bar can bend, and a flanged blank panel has flanges that might catch or cut your fingers. The lacer bar (or multiple bars) can provide an offset to allow you to hold it, and could be mounted right in front of other equipment. A blank panel would need its own space and should have clearance around it to allow you to grip it.

You might also try a sort of hybrid solution, which would entail mounting some handles onto a blank panel, and then rackmounting the panel.

Note: Please call to discuss your particular situation before embarking on any of these possible solutions.

Rackmount Ranger

India’s top software services companies are set to report modest rises in profits compared with the boom times of recent years as a sluggish US economy crimps outsourcing deals, and the sector’s growth is set to slow further.

Investors will focus on new orders, pricing and hiring plans as the export-driven industry battles a fall in profit growth on growing evidence of a recession in the United States. Helped by an army of English-speaking workers and cheaper wages, India’s estimated $64 billion software services sector has thrived by winning deals from overseas clients, with the US accounting for more than half of the sector’s revenue.

“US economic recession concerns are likely to lead to worsening business prospects for the Indian IT sector,” Harit Shah, analyst at Angel Broking, said in a report.

Click here to read the rest of the story…

Intel, the biggest semiconductor maker, reported solid global demand for its chips, soothing investor concerns that economic softness would rattle the technology industry.

The company reported that net income in the first quarter dropped 12 percent to $1.4 billion, or 25 cents a share, from the year-ago quarter. The company said revenue improved 9 percent to $9.7 billion. Operating income, before the costs of restructuring and asset impairment charges, was $2.1 billion or 23 percent above the same quarter last year.

The net income was in line with expectations of Wall Street analysts. They had expected 25 cents a share and revenue of $9.63 billion, according to a survey of analysts by Thomson Financial.

Paul Otellini, Intel’s chief executive, was upbeat about the company’s prospects and the economy. He said in a statement that the results showed “a solid global market environment,” adding that, “We remain optimistic about our growth opportunities.”

Shares of Intel rose about 1 percent to close at $20.91 in regular trading, before the report was issued. Stock rose sharply in after-hours trading, moving as high as $22.19.

Click here to read the rest of the story…

Q: We purchased in the past 4 of the ERK-3520 cabinets and we would now like to purchase 6 of the WRK-37-27 cabinet frames. We would like to know if there are any rear 10-32 Tapped Rackrails in order to support a sliding 1U server where the sliding rail needs to be bolted at the front and rear. (Not supported in the ERK-3520 version).

Richard Francoeur

A: The ERK cabinets come standard with one set of tapped and threaded rack rails. Additional sets of rails are available for purchase as optional equipment, so the ERKs can be equipped with multiple sets of rails as the client’s option. The WRK, in contrast, comes with two sets of tapped and threaded rack rails, standard. So with no modification, the WRK will support a 1U server that needs to be four-point mounted.

Rackmount Ranger

Rising energy costs and the need to consolidate IT infrastructure will force business managers to re-evaluate data retention policies and learn how much power every device in their data center consumes, said IT executives today on a panel at Computerworld’s Storage Networking World conference.

The executives said that while social responsibility and proposed regulatory pressures to build more environmentally friendly data centers are grabbing all the headlines, the real impetus to “go green” is a mandate by many organizations to trim present and future costs by understanding how data is used, stored and accessed within an IT environment.

Andrew Fanara, team leader for the Energy Star Product Specifications Development Group at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said green IT projects are becoming a risk management strategy around planning for the future prices, volatility and potential supply issues of energy.

Click here to read the rest of the story…