dedicated server companies e commerce web design company: <b>free webspace</b> review and suggestion<BR>

Understanding free webspace

Are We Running Out of Storage Space? IDC is Concerned, but Maxell Says Never Fear

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 14:15:00 -0500

I learned about the IDC storage paradox on Zoli Erdos' blog. Zoli mentions this Associated Press article, which cites IDC's estimate that "the world had 185 exabytes of storage available last year and will have 601 exabytes in 2010. But the amount of stuff generated is expected to jump from 161 exabytes last year to 988 exabytes in 2010".

Even more alarmingly, Dan Farber over at ZDNet reports that according to IBM, "the world's information base will be doubling in size every 11 hours" by 2010. Does this mean that on Jan 1, 2011, our 988 exabytes of data will double to 1,976 exabytes by 11am, and 3,952 exabytes by 10pm?

Fortunately, we don't need permanent storage for all the data we generate. For instance, spam accounted for just 8% of all emails in 2001 (said CNet); its volume rose to 36% by 2002 and 66% by 2004 (MSNBC), and is expected to exceed 90% by the end of this year (IT News). That's a huge amount of data that isn't being saved.

Still, Rich D'Ambrise from Maxell says he expects significant growth in data archiving requirements: in 2007, we will back up 75% more data than we did in 2006. But unlike IDC analyst John Gantz, he's not concerned that we'll run out of space. The storage industry is not standing still. Maxell, for instance, is beta testing 300 GB holographic disks that are no bigger than a DVD, but offer 63x more capacity. 800 GB second generation disks should be on the market by next year, and a 1.6 TB version is planned for 2010. And let's not forget stacked volumetric optical discs (SVOD); each 92-micrometer layer stores up to 9.4 GB. Available storage capacity will absolutely keep up with demand; no question about that!

The real issue is, will we store our zettabytes of data on- or offline? Rich is betting on removable media; he'd rather have mission critical data in his own possession than depend on any service provider. Zoli, on the other hand, says online is more efficient. By sharing/linking to files, we won't each need space for our own copies of the same content. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz says offline storage is greener ("when data's at rest, it consumes no electricity") - and easier to transport on a large scale. (As the New Yorker points out, if you made tiny chariots with DVD wheels and hitched them to snails, you'd get faster data transfer speeds than DSL.)

So, what's this got to do with web hosting? For one, you should probably monitor your oversold disk space closely. At the moment, I'm sure hardly any of GoDaddy's $7 hosting customers are using their entire 100 GB quota. But if you consider Rich's 75% growth projection, the number of customers that same 100 GB is allocated to may have to come down.

PS - Here's a GigaOM post on a 10 more fun storage facts.

By The Money

Shared hosting is around $10 a month while a dedicated server is at least $70. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to make this choice. If money is a factor go with shared hosting.

FlexiScale Suffers 18-Hour Outage

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 EST
October 31, 2008 -- ( <http://www.thewhir.com> WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Cloud storage provider FlexiScale, a unit of UK-based web hosting provider Xcalibre, has been hit with its second outage in two months, leaving some customers without access to their servers for more than 18 hours.

Error message is: Http/1.1 Service Unavailable. Major update? Technical difficulties? What’s the deal?

Data Centers All in the definition. Millions of SQ FT Available

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:36:00 -0500

If anyone is looking for a couple million square feet of new data center space, I’m your guy.

A couple of weeks back I wrote a Blog entitled Managed Hosting and Colocation in 2009 and Beyond. My basic thesis was based on these factors: (1)- There is a widening gap between required additional space today and the shortfall of new data space being built and (2) The real estate debacle will move a lot of banks (the ones that are left) to the sidelines as they cannot see the trees from the woods in order to fund your data center expansions.

As luck would have it, that blog got a fair amount of play in the national commercial real-estate community. As such RE professionals have come to my assistance with some, in what they consider, are excellent data centers. Just two examples:

Kansas – 135,000 sq ft – Excellent Parking – Cable TV and telephone service available. 100,000 sq ft of contiguous concrete floor with 30-foot ceilings, excellent for warehouse or data space. Building insulated. Immediately available.

Georgia – 60,000 sq. ft. – Can be divided into 10 strip mall units each with its own HAVC and electric meter.

This real estate trend also occurred about 8 years ago. All commercial property that could not be sold became data centers.

As there are a lot of properties available, the bright side is that certain ones may actually be candidates for an eventual data-center, at a good base price

More about Tom:

NCC - the Hosting Business Broker

E-Mail Tom Direct