Rising hardware costs have placed significant pressure on Everpure in the last six months, according to CEO Charlie Giancarlo – but the company is keen to “share the pain” and ride out the storm.

Speaking at the company’s annual Pure Accelerate conference in Las Vegas this week, Giancarlo hailed customer resilience in the wake of rising costs, noting the company is frightfully aware of the difficulties many have encountered.

“Thank you for sticking with us,” he told attendees. “I apologize for the industry as a whole. We’ll eventually get through this. Unfortunately, it’s probably going to take a little bit of time.”

Giancarlo noted that Everpure is working closely with customers, but also partners, on orders to alleviate strain and pain moving forward.

Rising hardware costs have rocked the global tech industry in recent months, with enterprises and consumers alike feeling the pinch. According to Giancarlo, NAND prices have risen between 600-800% since October last year.

Naturally, this has resulted in price increases for customers, with the cost to produce the company’s products surging around 300%. While price increases have impacted customers, Giancarlo noted that the company is still operating at the “low end of our gross margin” rate.

“The lowest end of our gross margin rate that we’ve ever operated,” Giancarlo emphasized. “We want to be able to share the pain with you.”

If Everpure is indeed operating at the lower end of gross margin rates, then the company’s recent earnings report highlights a booming period for the data storage and management firm.

Revenue topped $1.1 billion in the first quarter of its 2027 fiscal year - its first billion-dollar quarter and a “major milestone” Giancarlo noted during the opening keynote.

“We raised later”

Notably, Giancarlo told attendees that Everpure “raised later” with regard to price increases compared to competitors.

He later doubled down on the company’s stance in response to a question during a press Q&A session, noting that increases haven’t reflected the broader price surges.

“The price that we have to pay for semiconductors, which, as I said, has gone up somewhere in the six to eight range. It’s breath taking. Our prices have gone up by far less than that, and we’re operating at a lower gross margin.”

“We’ve been following competitors’ price raises,” Giancarlo added. “They’ve been sooner than ours, and they’ve been larger than ours.”

Competitors have indeed raised prices in response to the memory crisis. In February this year, Dell Technologies hiked prices and tightened discounts in response to the crisis, per reports from Seeking Alpha.

Speaking during a fourth-quarter earnings call at the time, Dell COO Jeff Clarke revealed the firm was “compressing discounting”.

HPE, meanwhile, also adopted an “agile pricing posture” in response to rising DRAM and NAND costs.

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The searing heat of the Nevada desert sun during Pure Accelerate 2023 came with a pinch of irony. It offered a fleeting glimpse into what it might be like being a storage drive in a data center rack unit; roasting hot and gasping for the cool embrace of a power-hungry air conditioning unit. 

Heat has long been an unavoidable reality in the data center. A myriad of spinning disks guzzle power and generate heat for every second they’re active – and they need to remain active. It’s the operator’s job to ensure the temperature is moderated efficiently to avoid dreaded failures. 

But “disks are done”, as Pure Storage CEO Charlie Giancarlo said, and the company predicts by 2028 no new hard disks will be sold, with enterprises shifting to more modern, efficient drives. 

This shift forms part of a natural evolution in the industry, attendees heard, with Giancarlo comparing it to the transition from vinyl records to CDs or VHS and DVDs to streaming services in the last two decades. 

“It only took five or six years for DVDs to completely take over the market from VHS,” he said. “And if we look at 2006, within five years, Netflix, which was sending out DVDs – versus Blockbuster that started out on VHS – completely changed in terms of share. Five years later in around 2011, Blockbuster went bankrupt.”

Making the case for sustainable data storage

The sustainability benefits of flash storage versus legacy disk-based storage make the format highly compelling. It was a recurring theme throughout Pure Accelerate 2023, with several sessions highlighting the growing need for the storage industry to adopt more environmentally-friendly practices. Globally, data centers account for between 1-2% of all global electricity consumption, exacting a significant hit on the environment and power grids.

Traditionally, a big reason for this has been the use of those pesky inefficient disk drives spinning endlessly. The heat generated by these drives demands intensive cooling, which in itself results in added costs and energy consumption. 

In fact, anywhere between 30 to 55% of data center energy usage is dedicated to powering cooling systems, research shows, equating to a significant chunk of overall power consumption. 

Pure is highly vocal on the fact that its own products can unlock up to an 80% reduction in power consumption. Flash drives also provide up to a ten-fold boost to power and space efficiency compared to disk drives. 

That’s not exclusive to Pure products, either. NetApp, a competitor in the space and another industry stakeholder bullish on the potential of flash, reports similar performance metrics.

With that in mind, it seems evident that flash should be the natural go-to for organizations conscious of their environmental impact. But if flash can deliver marked energy efficiency improvements, then why isn’t there widespread adoption as of yet?

IDC research shows more than 90% of exabytes in cloud data centers are still stored on HDDs, with the remaining 10% stored on SSDs or flash. 

Cost, Pure conceded, has been a traditional hurdle for organizations. As various speakers noted, however, enterprise data storage and hyperscaler data centers are also among the “last bastions'' of hard disk usage – and both segments account for a significant portion of global data storage. 

If that is the case, then it’s clear there is still a long way to go until flash storage adoption is ubiquitous and global businesses can begin mounting a serious offensive to reduce energy consumption. 

Data center e-waste is a growing concern

Components used to create the disk drives present at many sites also contribute to the seemingly endless amount of e-waste that scars the earth. 

Shawn Rosemarin, VP for customer engineering at Pure Storage, noted the e-waste aspect of current hard disk use in the data center industry should be a huge cause for concern.

Research from the Circular Drive Initiative (CDI) shows around 90% of hard disks are destroyed when they reach end-of-life, with the majority of drives having just a five-year lifespan. This endemic practice of destroying hard disks adds to the global stream of nearly 54 million tons of e-waste annually.

Flash, however, boasts greater longevity than hard disk and, from a mechanical standpoint, is a far more simplistic design than its predecessors. 

Rosemarin noted that flash storage produces 85% less e-waste compared to disk, which if taken at face value could represent a step change in tackling this global issue. But again, this is dependent on how rapidly adoption continues to grow. 

Data centers and energy crises

Flash storage doesn’t represent a total silver bullet for energy efficiency and carbon reduction for the data center industry, however.

Despite notable benefits highlighted at Pure Accelerate, it is clear that there are significant future challenges ahead - especially when one considers the current state of the global energy market. 

Research from the European Commission projects that data centers will account for 3.2% of all electricity by 2030, marking an increase on current levels and a significant surge since 2018. 

The power demands of data centers have reached such a point that, according to a report from the Financial Times last year, London housing developments were put on hold because there simply wasn’t enough electricity to meet commercial and residential demands. 

These straining demands placed on electricity grids were among one the key challenges Rosemarin highlighted at the conference - and it’s clear this is an issue he expects to continue. 

“We have for the first time in our existence an electricity crisis with no end in sight,” he said. “We’ve already got countries telling public cloud providers ‘we don’t want your tax dollars, we have no more electricity’.”

“And so if we’re only going to turn more GPUs and TPUs and CPUs on, where are we going to find the power to do this? 

IDC research also shows that data volumes are expected to continue growing over the next three years - to around 221ZB of data generated globally. 

With this in mind, it’s clear that flash storage adoption will require a serious acceleration in adoption rates to deliver the power-related benefits it’s being hailed for. 

The performance and capacity advantages are clear, but without widespread adoption, the environmental impact of data centers running largely on hard disks will remain a lingering problem.

An optimistic outlook for flash adoption

Despite obvious challenges, Pure Storage appeared highly confident flash represents “the future” of data storage. 

CMO Matt Burr described the days of hard disks as a “dark age” and believes the “future is flash”. It's a bold claim, but one supported by current statistics. 

Research shows the all-flash array market will grow at a CAGR of around 26.3% over the next five years, representing a serious shift toward broader adoption of flash storage. 

This mood of optimism was prevailing through Pure Accelerate 2023, but while the data storage industry may be leaving the "dark ages" and entering its enlightenment period, key hurdles still lie ahead. 

Flash storage technology has become a cornerstone of modern personal and enterprise computing, transforming how data is stored, accessed, and managed.

Since its inception, the evolution of NAND flash memory has redefined storage capabilities — moving from its initial role as a replacement for floppy disks and optical media to powering the solid-state drives (SSDs) in laptops, smartphones, and advanced storage systems in data centers. Today, flash storage is at the heart of high-performance computing, enabling faster data processing and enhanced reliability across a range of industries.

The rise of flash storage reflects a broader shift in how businesses and individuals approach data management. Organizations now operate within a multifaceted storage ecosystem that combines traditional on-premises hardware with expansive cloud solutions and hybrid environments. This dynamic landscape underscores the growing importance of flash storage as it continues to address the ever-increasing demand for speed, efficiency, and scalability while adapting to new challenges and use cases.

What is a flash drive?

A flash drive, often referred to as a USB stick or thumb drive, is a portable storage device that uses NAND flash memory to store data.

Unlike traditional hard drives or optical discs, flash drives contain no moving parts, making them highly durable and reliable. They connect to devices via USB ports, enabling users to quickly transfer files between computers, laptops, and other compatible devices.

Flash drives are compact, lightweight, and available in a range of storage capacities, from a few gigabytes to several terabytes, catering to both casual users and professionals with extensive data needs. Their portability and ease of use have made them indispensable for tasks such as file backups, document sharing, and even running portable applications or operating systems.

How does a flash drive work?

A flash drive operates by storing data on NAND flash memory chips, a type of non-volatile memory that retains information even when disconnected from a power source. When plugged into a USB port, the drive establishes a connection with the host device, allowing data to be read, written, or erased. This process is facilitated by a microcontroller embedded within the flash drive, which manages the flow of data between the memory chips and the connected device.

The NAND flash memory inside the drive consists of cells arranged in grids, with each cell capable of storing bits of information in the form of electrical charges. Advanced flash drives use multi-level cell (MLC) or triple-level cell (TLC) technology to increase storage density. Writing or erasing data involves manipulating the electrical charges within these cells through high-speed circuits, enabling rapid data transfer rates compared to older storage technologies.

Flash drives rely on the USB interface not only for connectivity but also for power, eliminating the need for an external power source. This plug-and-play functionality, combined with their durability and compact design, makes flash drives an efficient and versatile storage solution for a wide variety of applications.

Advantages of flash storage

Durability & reliability

Flash storage stands out from its predecessors, such as CDs and DVDs, with superior durability and reliability. Unlike optical media, flash devices are resistant to scratches and wear from physical handling, which often caused data loss in older technologies. They are also immune to damage from electromagnetic interference, an issue that can still impact certain legacy storage systems.

Another key advantage is the absence of moving parts, unlike traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), which are prone to mechanical failures over time. This solid-state design makes flash storage not only more robust but also quieter and more energy-efficient. Flash storage devices are compatible with a wide range of devices, including gaming consoles, desktops, laptops, and even smartphones, providing unmatched versatility.

Speed & efficiency

The speed of flash storage is a game-changer for both consumers and businesses. With advancements in NAND technology and high-speed interfaces like PCIe NVMe, flash storage delivers significantly lower latency and faster data transfer rates compared to HDDs. This makes it ideal for high-performance tasks such as video editing, gaming, and large-scale data processing in enterprise environments.

Flash storage is also inherently energy-efficient, consuming less power than spinning drives. This not only reduces heat generation but also extends the battery life of portable devices like laptops and tablets.

Flexibility & portability

Flash storage offers unmatched flexibility, especially in scenarios where reliable internet access is not guaranteed. Backing up critical data on a physical device ensures accessibility even during Wi-Fi outages or when cloud services become temporarily unavailable. For professionals on the go, portable flash drives or external SSDs provide a convenient and secure way to carry large files, whether it’s multimedia projects or business plans.

Unlike cloud storage, which can be vulnerable to unauthorized access or breaches, flash storage keeps data under the user’s direct control. This physical security adds an extra layer of protection against cyber threats, making it an appealing option for businesses handling sensitive information.

Disadvantages of flash storage

Cost over time

While flash storage offers significant performance gains, its cost remains a challenge, particularly for businesses operating on tight budgets. Flash drives and SSDs are considerably more expensive per gigabyte compared to traditional hard disk drives (HDDs). Although prices have fallen over the years, the affordability gap between the two technologies persists, making HDDs a preferred option for those prioritizing capacity over speed.

Another limitation of flash storage is its finite lifespan. NAND flash memory can only endure a limited number of write and erase cycles before its performance begins to degrade. For environments with heavy write loads — such as databases or virtual machines — this wear and tear can shorten the device's lifespan, potentially leading to higher replacement costs over time.

Limited sharing compared to the cloud

The widespread adoption of cloud solutions, accelerated by the shift to hybrid and remote work, has highlighted the limitations of flash storage in collaborative environments. Cloud platforms excel in facilitating seamless file sharing across continents and enabling simultaneous access to data for multiple users. In contrast, flash storage is constrained to physical transfers, which makes it less practical for long-distance collaboration or large-scale data sharing.

However, for local transfers, flash storage offers a speed advantage, allowing users to move large files quickly without relying on an internet connection. This makes it a viable choice for small teams or individual projects that don’t require remote access.

Risk of malware

Although flash storage provides a level of security by keeping data offline, it is not immune to cyber security threats.

Malware can be introduced to a flash drive when it is connected to an infected machine, and if not detected, this malware can spread to other devices. For businesses, this risk is particularly concerning in environments where flash drives are used frequently for data exchange. Regular scanning and robust endpoint security measures are essential to mitigate this vulnerability.

Risk of loss or theft

The portability of flash storage, while a significant advantage, also presents a security risk. It’s easy to misplace a small flash drive, and instances of lost or stolen drives containing sensitive information are well-documented. Whether it’s a misplaced USB stick or an unencrypted external SSD falling into the wrong hands, the potential for data breaches can be a major concern.

The new IBM FlashSystem 5000 solutions help you meet the challenges of rapid data growth while staying within limited IT budgets. They allow you to quickly consolidate, simplify, and optimise your IT infrastructure with efficient, high performance, flexible, easy-to-use storage systems that include powerful virtualisation features.

The new IBM FlashSystem 5000 family delivers advanced capabilities:

• Built-in IBM Spectrum® Virtualize to consolidate workloads into a single system for ease of management
• Performance, functionality, cost-efficiency and added enterprise features, such as data reduction, high availability configurations, and data-at-rest encryption
• End-to-end NVMe-accelerated performance with IBM FlashSystem 5200
• Concurrent migration from existing storage, with FlashSystem 5200 supporting virtualisation for over 500 different storage systems

Provided by

Pure NVMe all-flash arrays (AFAs) are the only way to go for the best storage performance but most blue-chip solutions come with very high price tags. As it moves further into enterprise territory, Qnap aims to rock the boat with an NVMe SSD appliance that delivers a mighty hardware package at a very tempting price.

Stepping up as Qnap’s flagship enterprise-class AFA, the provocatively named TS-h2490FU not only supports up to 24 hot-plug U.2 NVMe SSDs but has AMD EPYC Gen2 power at its heart. On review, we have the high-end TS-h2490FU-7302P-128G which sports a 16-core 3.0GHz EPYC 7302P CPU teamed up with 128GB of DDR4 memory.

The TS-h2490FU is yet another addition to Qnap’s burgeoning QuTS hero stable and runs its new 128-bit ZFS-based OS. Data integrity is a key focus, and the OS supports near unlimited NAS and IP SAN snapshots, data deduplication, compression, fast replication to remote appliances and transparent self-healing of data corruption using end-to-end checksums.

This is impressive stuff for an NVMe AFA with a starting price that’s a shade over eight grand, but Qnap also throws in a couple of its dual-port SmartNIC 25GbE PCI-E adapters for good measure. Based on Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx controllers, these 25/10GbE PCI-E Gen 3 cards have dual SFP28 connectors and support DAC (direct attach cable) or fibre connections and 10GbE SFP+ transceivers.

Qnap TS-h2490FU QuTS hero edition review: Hardware features

This 2U appliance is of sturdy construction and along with a steel rack chassis, uses solid metal drive carriers. For testing, we installed 24 Western Digital UltraStar DC SN640 U.2 NVMe SSDs – a good choice for the TS-h2490FU as these mixed use SSDs are designed for demanding workloads and offered in a range of capacities to suit different budgets.

The AMD EPYC 7302P CPU is designed for 1P platforms and brings a lot of features into play that you won’t find in many competing AFAs. The motherboard has sixteen standard DIMM slots and the base 128GB of memory can be upgraded to a massive 4TB using 256GB modules.

Memory speed is 3,200MHz and with 128 PCI-E lanes up for grabs, the EPYC CPU can dish out a dedicated 32Gbits/sec channel to each SSD. And, of course, the appliance’s five PCI-E slots are the faster Gen 4.0 variety.

Upgrades won’t take long as the motherboard and its cooling fan array are mounted on a single tray which is removed from the rear by releasing two thumbscrews and pulling its locking lever down. Power is handled by dual 1,100W hot-plug PSUs which are also easily accessed at the rear.

Qnap TS-h2490FU QuTS hero edition review: NAS and IP SAN services

During installation, the quick start wizard offers you the option of installing Qnap’s QTS or QuTS hero and for this review we’ll focus on the latter. Its web interface is virtually identical to QTS so is just as easy to navigate.

From the Storage & Snapshots app, we created a single RAID50 array using all 24 NVMe SSDs but QuTS hero also offers a couple of extra RAID options you won’t find in QTS. Triple mirroring allows you to have identical copies on three drives while RAID-TP (triple parity) expands on RAID6 and protects against three drive failures.

There are plenty of options to choose from during NAS share creation: you can enable thick or thin provisioning, encryption, compression, deduplication and WORM (write one read many). For WORM, you set a retention period in days, months or years and the Enterprise policy allows a protected folder to be deleted but stops anything in it from being individually modified or removed. The Compliance policy is tougher, as the only way to delete the folder is to remove the parent storage pool.

IP SANs are configured from the separate iSCSI & Fibre Channel app and when creating a LUN, you can apply thick or thin provisioning, deduplication and compression. For testing, we created thick-provisioned LUNs with compression enabled and left their synchronous I/O settings on default.

App availability for QuTS hero is extensive so you’ll find all of Qnap’s backup apps ready and waiting. These include HBS 3, Qsync Central and HybridMount plus Hyper Data Protector (HDP) which brings data protection to VMware and Hyper-V virtualized environments.

Qnap TS-h2490FU QuTS hero edition review: IP SAN performance

To test IP SAN performance over 25GbE, we used a Broadberry Data Systems CyberServe AM2-B8252 rack server. This Tyan-based server was equipped with dual 32-core 2.4GHz AMD EPYC 7532 CPUs plus 1TB of DDR4 and running Windows Server 2019 to which we fitted two dual-port Qnap QXG-25G2SF-CX4 cards and connected them to the appliance using SFP28 DACs.

Performance for a single 25GbE connection is very impressive with Iometer reporting sequential read and write speeds for 512KB block sizes of 23.1Gbits/sec and 22Gbits/sec. I/O throughput is nothing to sniff at either with Iometer 4KB blocks returning random read and write rates of 157,100 IOPS and 130,100 IOPS.

Stepping up to a quad 25GbE MPIO connection to the iSCSI target saw Iometer sequential read and write speeds ramp up to 77Gbits/sec and 74.9Gbits/sec. I/O throughput for random read and write operations also increased nicely to 334,352 IOPS and 189,900 IOPS.

Businesses that plan on using the appliance’s NAS services won’t be disappointed either. With a share mapped to our test server over a single 25GbE connection, Iometer returned fast sequential read and write speeds for 512KB block sizes of 23.1Gbits/sec and 15.2Gbits/sec.

Qnap TS-h2490FU QuTS hero edition review: Verdict

Businesses that thought they couldn’t afford NVMe all-Flash storage arrays can think again as the TS-h2490FU delivers a powerful solution at a remarkably low price that even includes quad 25GbE ports. The AMD EPYC Gen 2 CPU and heap of DDR4 memory deliver great IP SAN performance while Qnap’s QuTS hero OS presents an impressive range of NAS and IP SAN storage services including enterprise-class data protection features.

Qnap TS-h2490FU specifications

If you’re searching for the right data-storage method for your company, you’re probably overwhelmed by the number of hybrid flash and all-flash storage options out there.

So how can you figure out which solution gives you a strong competitive advantage and offers the best fit for your company’s requirements?

This guide lays out key information and answers common questions about flash storage, so you can make the best possible decision for your business.

Fill out the form below to access the free resource.

SMBs that have taken a fancy to Synology’s speedy FlashStation FS6400 storage array but flinch at its near ten-grand price tag will find the FS3400 a more appealing alternative. Coming in at a shade over £5K, the FS3400 offers the same 24 SFF drive bays, supports SAS3 plus SATA SFF storage devices and offers an equally good expansion potential.

Whereas the FS6400 sports a tasty pair of 2.1GHz Intel Xeon Scalable Silver 4110 CPUs, the FS3400 is endowed with a far more modest eight-core 2.1GHz D-1541 Xeon CPU. On the plus side, memory is server-grade DDR4 ECC and the FS3400 comes with 16GB which can be upgraded to a very usable 128GB.

The FS3400 offers more choice than its big brother in the network department; along with dual embedded 10GBase-T ports, it also offers quad Gigabit. A big disappointment is that although the FS3400 replaces the FS2017 which was launched early in 2017, it has exactly the same hardware.

The FS6400 is a hugely significant hardware upgrade over the FS3017 but the only difference between the FS2017 and FS3400 is the name label on the front panel. The FS3400 claims a 50% performance boost for random write operations but clearly, this can only be down to improvements to the DSM software and Synology’s use of the latest high-performance SATA SSDs for its tests.

Synology FlashStation FS3400 review: DSM 6.2

Deployment is pleasantly speedy. Synology’s discovery web portal found the appliance on the lab network and downloaded the latest DSM 6.2 software with minimal fuss. Unfortunately, the FS3400 inherits the same noisy cooling system as its predecessor – even with the fans on their lowest speed, we measured noise levels of 62dB from one metre in front.

A storage feature that makes Synology stand out is its proprietary RAID F1 array which is designed to reduce the impact of SSD wear and thus the potential for simultaneous failures. DSM nominates one SSD in the array to receive more parity bits than the rest so it wears out quicker and can be replaced when it reaches the end of its life before triggering multiple drive failures.

Synology has been working on a RAID F2 version which delivers dual SSD resiliency but after two years, this has still yet to materialize - and there’s no indication it’ll make an appearance in DSM 7.0.

If you’re planning on using the FS3400 as a backup vault, you’ll find DSM offers a veritable feast of data protection features. Make sure you choose BTRFS when creating volumes, as this enables NAS and IP SAN snapshots which can be run on demand and scheduled for as often as every five minutes.

Snapshots can be replicated to remote Synology appliances and to local volumes as well, allowing you to hold extra on-site copies for quick restores. Recovery options are excellent as we could restore or clone a share or LUN from the selected snapshot and use the File Station app to browse share snapshots and select individual files and folders.

Synology FlashStation FS3400 review: ABB and virtualization

Another compelling argument for data backup duties is DSM’s slick Active Backup for Business (ABB) app. At no extra cost, this provides full backup, restore and disaster recovery services for Windows servers and workstations plus VMware vCentre and ESXi hypervisors with this latest version adding timely support for Hyper-V hosts.

All managed from one console, ABB is easy to use and just requires agents loaded on your Windows systems where it provides backup scheduling as well as file, folder and bare-metal system restore facilities. It offers agentless application-consistent backups of VMware virtual machines (VMs) and can protect Hyper-V VMs created on hosts running Windows Server 2016 upwards.

Synology’s Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) app allows the FS3400 to host VMs running just about any OS you choose. The app is simple to use and we created a Windows Server 2019 VM on our SSD array, installed it from an ISO file and had it ready for action in 10 minutes.

The VMM dashboard provides quick access to VMs and its vSwitch service can isolate them on selected network ports. Protection plans backup selected VMs using snapshots and they can be cloned and migrated to other Synology appliances running the VMM app, but this will require an optional VMM Pro license.

Synology FlashStation FS3400 review: 10GbE performance

With four enterprise-class 1.92GB Micron 5200 Max SATA SSDs configured in a RAID F1 array, we recorded good overall performance over 10GbE. A NAS share mapped to a Dell T640 Xeon Scalable tower server running Windows Server 2019 returned sequential read and write speeds of 9.2Gbits/sec and 8.5Gbits/sec.

I/O throughout was also good. Iometer set to 4KB transfer requests reported sequential read and write rates of 106,000 IOPS and 85,000 IOPS. For random operations, we saw read and write rates of 105,500 IOPS and 69,000 IOPS.

IP SAN 10GbE performance was equally impressive, with a 500GB target returning sequential read and write speeds of 9.2Gbits/sec and 8.7Gbits/sec. Random read and write I/O throughput was measured at 109,000 IOPS and 65,000 IOPS.

We ramped up the pressure by creating a dual 10GbE MPIO link to the test iSCSI target and saw sequential read and write speeds increase nicely to 18.1Gbits/sec and 15.8Gbits/sec. Random throughput was also impressive, with Iometer reporting read and write rates of 190,400 IOPS and 95,500 IOPS.

Synology FlashStation FS3400 review: Verdict

Synology has been a bit cheeky with the FS3400 as apart from its new model name, it’s identical to the two-year-old FS2017. Clearly, there’s absolutely nothing here to tempt existing FS2017 owners to upgrade - but the FS3400 will tick a lot of boxes with SMBs looking for an affordable all-Flash appliance with a good turn of speed, plus great data protection and virtualization features.

Synology FlashStation FS3400 review specifications

Pure Storage has taken aim at the secondary storage market with the launch of the industry's first all-flash appliance designed for Tier 2 storage.

Announced at the company's annual conference in Austin Texas, the new FlashArray//C is an addition to the FlashArray portfolio, which is intended to complement the flagship FlashArray//X by making flash storage affordable for less-critical secondary storage duties.

Over the past several years, many companies have started using flash-based appliances for their mission-critical data centre storage, due to the higher reliability, lower latency and faster transfer speeds flash offers over spinning-platter hard drives.

HDD-based appliances, however, have an advantage over flash rivals in that they're generally much cheaper on a cost-per-GB basis. As such, flash has been the province of only the most critical of workloads, while drive-based appliances have been used to store large volumes of data that don't need to be accessed as frequently.

With the new FlashArray//C, Pure hopes to shift that balance by offering a drastically reduced cost-per-GB than traditional flash appliances. The key to this is the use of quad-layer cell (QLC) NAND technology, which is much denser than the triple-layer cell technology used by most NAND chips. This allows each chip to store higher volumes of data, meaning fewer individual chips are needed to achieve a given capacity.

While the new FlashArray//C promises a substantial advantage over HDD appliances for Tier 2 workloads, there are still a number of factors that make it unsuitable for the kind of Tier 1 applications targeted by the FlashArray//X.

One key factor is that of longevity. Indeed, Pure Storage's vice president of strategy Matt Kixmoeller pointed out that QLC is dramatically lower than TLC in terms of the wear levels and endurance, so the high I/O levels of Tier 1 applications would wear it out much faster than Pure's existing FlashArray products.

"We optimised FlashArray//C very differently. We didn't just take QLC and shove it in the array, we rewrote all the flash management algorithms. At the highest level, the biggest difference is we've optimised for longevity, and the trade-off there is performance," he said.

"So if you look at a flashArray//X, we're now down in the hundred-microsecond range. FlashArray//C is two to four milliseconds. And so we're a lot less aggressive about writing it into the flash, we keep it in cache longer, we wait for overrides - we do more work to write into the flash very gently and take care of wear management much more aggressively. And that's why these are fundamentally different products."

The new FlashArray//C is available in three models: the C60-366, a 3U unit with a 1.3PB effective capacity and a 366TB raw capacity, the 6U C60-878 with a 3.2PB effective capacity and an 878TB raw capacity and the top-end 9U model with a maximum effective capacity of up to 5.2PB and a maximum 1.39PB raw capacity.

Customers can also take advantage of Pure's 'Evergreen' support subscription to ensure maximum reliability, as well as the company's suite of data management tools, including the Purity operating system, Pure1 cloud management software and built-in snapshot, migration and replication tools. The company is recommending the new array for tasks such as Oracle, VMware or Microsoft SQL Server instances, as well as disaster recovery, archiving and test/dev applications.

"What QLC actually delivers is a price point that means you are ultimately totally disrupting what others would frame as Tier 2, which means that at that price point, disk actually becomes null and void," James Petter, Pure's vice president of international (every territory outside North America) told IT Pro.

"So what are the objections we get? 'Oh, flash, it's too expensive' - well, it solves that one. Then, density; 'oh, it's not that dense', but QLC is naturally dense, therefore you can remove a whole heap of racks and your TCO will therefore be better. So that argument is then solved as well. I think we're going to see a whole new market opportunity open to us that we haven't had before. That will allow us to have far broader, deep conversations with customers and partners that will allow them to make more money and more margin."

Alongside the new FlashArray//C, the company has also launched a new range of DirectMemory modules powered by Intel Optane DC storage class memory. These modules plug directly into Pure's FlashArray//X70 and X90 models to boost performance and reduce latency for applications like databases and other Tier 1 tasks, with no additional configuration required.

The company is claiming substantial performance benefits from this technology; according to analysis based on telemetry gathered by its Pure1 Meta management tool, the majority (80%) of customers can reduce their latency by at least one fifth, while 40% could see a massive reduction of between 30 and 50%.

One use-case it highlighted was SAP HANA performance; a FlashArray//X with DirectMemory Cache offered 90% of the performance of an in-memory HANA instance at a 65% lower overall cost.

Both the FlashArray//C and the DirectMemory Cache are available to purchase as of today. Pure Storage was unable to provide any guidance on pricing, citing the fact that every deployment is customised based on the client's requirements and that all sales go through Pure's channel partners. However, a Pure representative assured that the new FlashArray//C would be "cheaper than a FlashArray//X".

The company's FlashBlade product has also been upgraded, with capacity doubling to 120 blades and 20PB of single name-space, with this offering in directed availability as of today.

The news wasn't all hardware-focused, however; the company announced that its CloudSnap for Azure snapshot replication service and its Cloud Block Store for AWS management software have both now gone into general availability after being announced last year.

Data centres that want an all-Flash array that has it all will find InforTrend's EonStor GSa 2024 family is offering a very tempting proposition. They certainly look very capable, offering unified NAS, FC SAN and IP SAN services, high availability and support for a range of cloud storage providers.

In this exclusive review, we look at the EonStor GSa 2024RC which sports 24 SFF hot-swap drive bays and comes with dual active/active controllers. Each is powered by a dual-core Intel Pentium D-1500 CPU partnered by 8GB of DDR4 cache, which can be boosted to 64GB with the RC model on review, including the super capacitor and Flash backup modules.

Data port choices are abundant as each controller includes four embedded Gigabit ports which can be used to present NAS or IP SAN storage. They also have two module bays supporting 2- or 4-port host boards and InforTend offers 1GbE, 10GbE RJ-45 or SFP+, 25GbE SFP28, 40GbE QSFP, 8/16Gb/sec FC, 10GbE FCoE, 56GbE InfiniBand and SAS3.

Expansion potential is enormous; the array supports up to 12 JB 300 expansion shelves for a maximum of 744 drives. You can use each controller's embedded SAS3 port to go up to 384 drives but to max out at 744, you'll need to add optional dual-port SAS3 modules in the second expansion bay.

Infortrend EonStor GSa 2024RC: Deployment

The price we've shown for the review system includes a full house of Toshiba's latest 960GB PM5-R SAS3 read-intensive enterprise SSDs for a total raw capacity of 23TB. Also included are 4-port 16Gb/sec FC expansion modules for each controller.

For management, you can use the array's embedded EonOne web console or the free Central EonOne app which manages multiple appliances from one interface. Our system came preconfigured with two 12-drive RAID5 storage pools but you can run a setup wizard from the console.

A standout feature of pools is ALUA (asymmetric logical unit access) support for file and block-level volumes or symmetric access for block-level volumes. Selected prior to volume creation, this allows you to have either active/standby or active/active links across both controllers - a feature we've not seen on any competing storage product.

Volume creation is simple and for NAS file-level access, they can be designated as WORM (write once read many). You set a retention period in years and select either the Compliance mode where no files can be deleted during this period or the Enterprise mode, where only system administrators can delete files.

File shares are created within NAS volumes, where you enable selected protocols, apply quotas and extend access security to local or LDAP/AD authenticated users. The controllers' Gigabit data ports can be designated for block-level IP SAN or file-level NAS access - but don't change this during busy periods as it requires a controller reboot.

Infortrend EonStor GSa 2024RC: FC performance

For FC performance testing, we used four Windows Server 2016 hosts equipped with dual-port QLogic QLE2672 16Gb/sec FC adapters. On the array, we created four dedicated volumes and found host mapping to be quick, as they were discovered as soon as they were cabled to the controllers.

To get a baseline, we ran Iometer on one server with a 32Gb/sec MPIO FC connection and saw 24.6Gbits/sec and 24.5Gbits/sec for sequential read and write rates and 24.6Gbits/sec and 23Gbits/sec for random operations. Changing to small 4KB blocks returned 212,000 and 122,000 IOPS for sequential reads and writes dropping to 208,500 and 66,500 IOPS for random operations.

With all four servers running Iometer, we recorded a cumulative 97Gbits/sec and 62.3Gbits/sec for sequential reads and writes with random operations dropping these to 96.3Gbits/sec and 31.2Gbits/sec. Overall throughput is mighty as we saw a cumulative 734,000 and 342,500 IOPS for sequential reads and writes while swapping to random operations saw these settle at 698,500 and 97,000 IOPS.

During our random read and write tests, we noticed the EonStor web console showing both controller CPUs topping out at 100% utilisation. Nevertheless, they look up to the job as our measured random read rate is so close to InforTrend's quoted figure as makes no difference.

Infortrend EonStor GSa 2024RC: Snapshots

The price includes a standard volume snapshot license which supports 64 per volume and 128 per system which can be increased to 256 and 4,096 respectively. These can be run on-demand or scheduled to occur as often as every 10 minutes, while data recovery is achieved by rolling the snapshot back or mounting it as a new volume.

Volumes can be mirrored on the same appliance where the standard license allows 4 replications per volume and 16 per system. Remote replication is also available and supports block level replication and file level Rsync operations.

Cloud features are extensive: the optional EonCloud Gateway allows providers to be used for syncing, snapshot backup, caching or tiering. Support includes Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, OpenStack Swift and Alibaba Cloud with the latter recently opening two new data centres in London.

Basic one-way and bi-directional folder syncing can be run from the standard SyncCloud app which supports the same four providers as the EonCloud Gateway. There are plenty of other on-board apps including ones for local anti-virus scanning, LDAP, proxy, Syslog and VPN servers plus a separate File Explorer app.

Infortrend EonStor GSa 2024RC: Verdict

InforTrend sets the standard for unified storage as there's little the EonStor GSa 2024RC doesn't look capable of. If you want an affordable all-Flash array with triple-play storage services, a high performance, end-to-end redundancy and plenty of data protection features, then look no further.

Verdict

The feature-rich EonStor GSa 2024RC offers an impressive range of storage services and teams them up with great all-Flash performance, a huge expansion potential and a wealth of data port options

Chassis: 2U rack

Storage: 24 x SAS3 SFF hot-swap drive bays

Drives included: 24 x 960GB Toshiba PM5-R SAS3 SSDs

Power: 2 x 460W hot-plug 80+ Bronze PSUs with cooling fans

Dual controllers each with the following:

CPU: Dual-core Intel Pentium D-1500

Memory: 8GB DDR4 cache (max 64GB) with capacitor/Flash memory

Array support: RAID 0, 1 (0+1), 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60

Host interfaces: 4 x 1GbE (NAS/iSCSI),

Network: 1GbE management port

Expansion: 1 x SAS3 port, 2 x expansion board slots

Port modules included: 4-port 16Gb/sec FC board

Management: Web browser, Central EonOne

The FlashStation FS3017 signalled Synology's intentions on the all-flash storage market earlier this year and its new FS2017 aims to make the technology even more appealing to SMBs. This 2U rack appliance offers the same 24 SFF bays as its bigger brother but its more modest hardware specification has allowed Synology to slash costs.

Whereas the FS3017 costs a shade under ten grand, prices for a diskless FS2017 start at around 5,000. The performance will be lower as the FS2017 is powered by a single 8-core 2.1GHz D-1541 Xeon CPU the FS3017 is endowed with dual 2.4GHz E5-2620 v3 Xeons.

Memory is the DDR4 ECC RDIMM variety and the FS2017 starts with 16GB which can be upgraded to 128GB. It's actually better endowed in the network department as it offers the same dual embedded 10GBase-T ports as the FS3017 but augments them with a quartet of Gigabit.

We tested using low-cost Kingston SATA SSDs and kept an eye on their health from the Storage Manager app

Quality, design and noise

The low 45W TDP of the D-1541 Xeon reduces power consumption allowing Synology to fit smaller 500W dual redundant PSUs. Physically, there are few other differences as the sturdy chassis uses the same removable panel in the lid with four hot-plug cooling fans lurking underneath.

Noise levels make the FS2017 best suited to a dedicated room as even on the DSM quiet' fan mode, the SPLnFFT iOS app on our iPad recorded 60dB from one metre in front of the appliance. If you add a network card, this mode is disabled and on the next cool' setting, noise levels went up to 66dB. Select the full-speed' mode at your peril as this generated a ridiculously high 77dB.

Dual Synology SAS12G PCI-Express cards service all front hot-swap bays allowing the FS2017 to support low-cost SATA and high-performance SAS3 SSDs. There's one spare expansion slot and the FS2017 is certified for industry-standard 10GbE, 25GbE and even 40GbE network adapters.

The appliance is expansion-ready as up to two 12-bay RX1217sas or 24-bay RX2417sas disk shelves can be connected to the external port on the first SAS card (the second card's port is labelled for maintenance use only). It's also cheaper to expand this appliance as the FS3017 requires an optional FXC17 SAS3 card which costs around 700.

The appliance has three fan modes but they're all too noisy for deployment in an office

Good 10GbE performer

With eight Kingston DC400 480GB SATA SSDs configured in a Synology RAID F1 array, we recorded good overall performance. A NAS share mapped to a Lenovo x3550 M5 Windows server over 10GbE returned fast sequential read and write speeds of 9.2Gbps and 8Gbps.

I/O throughout was also good as Iometer set to 4KB transfer requests reported sequential read and write rates of 98,500 IOPS and 78,000 IOPS. For random operations, we saw read rates remain the same while writes dropped to 60,000 IOPS.

IP SAN 10GbE performance was respectable with a 500GB target returning sequential read and write speeds of 9.1Gbps and 7.9Gbps. Random read and write I/O throughput settled at 84,000 IOPS and 56,800 IOPS.

Synology's claimed 90,000 IOPS for iSCSI random writes is quite achievable. With Iometer running on two servers each with a dedicated iSCSI target, we recorded a cumulative throughout of 89,800 IOPS

We also tested general SQL database performance with Iometer configured for 256 outstanding I/Os, a 16KB block size, 66% read, 34% write and a 100% random distribution. After leaving the test to settle, the FS2017 returned an impressive 50,000 IOPS although average latency was down at 20.5ms.

We set the appliance's notification system to alert us when volume space was getting low

DSM features

Synology's DSM 6.1 software offers a superb range of storage features. Its new RAID F1 option is designed to offset SSD wear across the array by nominating one drive to receive more parity bits that the rest.

Support for BTRFS volumes brings NAS share and iSCSI LUN snapshots into play. Managed by the slick Snapshot Replication app, we created snapshots on demand and scheduled them at regular intervals as often as every five minutes.

Recovering lost data is a cinch as the app allowed us to choose a snapshot, clone it or copy it in place. We could also browse share snapshot contents and either copy a selected file to a new location or use the File Station app to email it to another user.

The FS2017 isn't designed to be a general-purpose backup repository which is better handled by products such as Synology high-capacity RS18017xs+ which we reviewed in our sister title, PC Pro. However, if you want to get your data secured off-site, DSM's Hyper Backup app provides facilities for remote, Rysnc and cloud backups.

During testing, we used the DSM Resource Monitor to keep an eye on appliance utilisation

Conclusion

The FS2017 is well-built and comes with dual redundant PSUs although the noisy cooling system relegates it to a sound-proofed cabinet or dedicated server room. Even so, it's a versatile storage solution as it supports both SATA and SAS3 SSDs while Synology's DSM software delivers an impressive range of features

The lower hardware spec does have an impact on performance as it is noticeably slower than the FS3017 but we found the FS2017 does deliver on Synology's speed claims. Furthermore, with the price of a diskless model starting at around 5,000, the FS2017 is a better option than the FS3017 for SMBs that want an affordable all-flash storage solution.

Verdict

The FS2017 delivers on Synology’s performance promises and the low price will appeal to budget-conscious SMBs looking for a versatile and affordable all-flash storage array

Chassis: 2U rack

CPU: 2.1GHz D-1541 Xeon

Memory: 16GB DDR4 ECC RDIMM (max 128GB)

Storage: 24 x SAS3/SATA III hot-swap drive bays

Controller: 2 x Synology SAS12G PCI-Express cards

Array support: RAID0, 1, 10, 5, 6, hot-spare, JBOD, F1

Network: 4 x Gigabit, 2 x 10GBase-T

Other ports: 2 x USB 3

Expansion: External SAS3 port; 1 x PCI-e 3 slot

Power: 2 x 500W hot-plug PSUs

Management: Web browser

Warranty: 5-year limited

High performing all-flash storage has traditionally been beyond the budgets of SMEs but Fujitsu's Storage Eternus AF250 aims to put it firmly within their grasp. Along with 24 SFF drive bays, this 2U appliance sports dual controllers running in active/active mode for fully transparent failover and supports up to eight 16Gbps FC or 10GbE IP SAN data ports.

The AF250 brings even more to the table as inline deduplication and compression are included and can be set on a per-volume basis. Data protection features include support for up to 4,096 snapshots plus optional tools for volume mirroring, cloning plus remote replication and the price we've shown activates them all.

The appliance's local web interface provides an overview of storage and pool usage

Swift installation

The appliance's web interface provides a quick start wizard on first contact. This helped us configure details such as a hostname, a new administrator password, SNMP community names and license registration.

We were supplied with five 960GB Toshiba MLC SSDs and our first task was to create RAID Groups (RGs) which define a collection of drives, an array type, a total capacity and the primary controller. We opted for a high-performance RAID10 array using four SSDs but RGs also support standard striped, mirrored, RAID5 and 6 arrays.

Thinly provisioned volumes (TPVs) require a dedicated storage pool and as volume space gets used, the appliance dynamically assigns new blocks to it from the pool. These are also required for deduplication and compression as only volumes created from a thinly provisioned pool can have these enabled.

Access controls are good as affinity groups link hosts, LUNs and data ports together

Manual labours

Configuration gets more complicated from here on and this isn't helped by Fujitsu's confusing documentation. The appliance's web console manual, for example, is over 1,100 pages and looks like it was written by a committee.

After creating volumes, we set up groups for our hosts, LUNs and data ports. Multiple volumes can be assigned to LUN groups where they each get their own LUN number and hosts must be connected and discovered before they can be added to groups.

We tested using a Windows server host equipped with a 16Gbps Emulex FC card which was discovered without any problems. Once we had created all our host, port and LUN groups, we used Fujitsu's affinity groups to link them together allowing us to enforce strict access controls.

The SF Express web console is designed to manage multiple Eternus arrays

Good FC Performance

For performance testing, we mapped a volume to a Lenovo System x3550 M5 Windows server with dual E5-2650 v4 Xeons and 128GB of DDR4 memory. With Iometer configured for 256KB transfer requests, we saw top raw sequential read and write rates for a 16Gbps FC connection of 12.3Gbits/sec and 11.3Gbits/sec.

Random reads delivered the same 12.3Gbits/sec throughput while random writes improved to 12.3Gbits/sec. I/O performance is also good as with Iometer set to 4KB transfer requests, we saw 171,800 and 85,000 IOPS for sequential reads and writes.

Swapping over to random operations saw a drop in throughput for reads and writes to 152,000 and 72,000 IOPS. Response times were impressively low as our IOPS tests with 50 outstanding I/Os returned latencies of between 0.9ms and 1.5ms.

Data protection features are extensive and include volume snapshots and clones

SF Express and the rest

Fujitsu's SF Express software provides a central web console for managing multiple arrays and all snapshot, cloning and backup features. It accesses the appliance over SNMP and requires a special user created on the appliance with the Software' role assigned.

The price includes the SF Storage Cruiser upgrade which, along with enhanced performance monitoring and reporting, enables data tiering and automated QoS. Note the latter two work together and only support FTVs (flexible tier volumes). Fujitsu's thinking here is businesses can enable QoS on a single flash tier for high-performance apps while TPVs with deduplication are employed where storage savings are important.

Data protection features are excellent with the AdvancedCopy services managing all volume snapshot, cloning and copy operations. All jobs start by creating a copy pair and then choosing the operation to be performed.

OPC (one point copy) creates a one-off clone of a source volume to a local destination volume while QuickOPC clones a volume and then updates it incrementally. EC (equivalent copy) mirrors one volume to another on the same array in real-time while the REC (remote EC) performs this to a remote array for disaster recovery.

SnapOPC+ (one point copy plus) uses dedicated SDVs (snap data volumes) to take copy-on-write snapshots of selected source volumes and are ideal as temporary staging areas for offloading backups. You can also create an SDV pool so if any SDV runs out of space it can grab some from here until you increase the SDV's size.

Inline data deduplication is included and our tests saw a near 4:1 reduction ratio

Conclusion

We've had all-flash arrays in the lab that are easier to deploy than the Eternus AF250 and we recommend taking up Fujitsu's offer of installation and training services. That said, none of them can beat it for data protection features as Fujitsu's snapshot, cloning and replication tools are extensive.

All-flash performance is very good and the starting price of under 10K for our system is also comparatively good value. Along with the dual controller hardware, it includes licenses for the SF Express software, the Cruiser upgrade plus local and remote replication.

Verdict

Fujitsu’s Eternus AF250 all-flash array is great value, delivers good FC performance and its all-inclusive data protection software won’t be beaten for features

Chassis: 2U rack

Storage: 24 SFF hot-swap drive bays

Power: 2 x 805W hot-plug PSUs/fans

Dual hot-plug SAS3 controllers each with the following:

CPU: 2GHz 6-core Xeon

Memory: 16GB DDR3 cache (max 32GB)

Array support: RAID0, 1, 10, 5, 6, 50, global/dedicated hot-spare

Data ports: 16Gbps FC or 10GbE iSCSI (max 8)

Expansion: External SAS3 port (future support)

Management: Web browser

Software: Fujitsu SF Express, Cruiser Standard/QoS, AdvancedCopy Manager Local/Remote

Microsoft has released a critical update to Adobe Flash Player, which could allow hackers to use it to perform remote code execution processes if left unpatched.

"This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player when installed on all supported editions of Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows Server 2016," the advisory said.

Microsoft added that the update should be installed immediately, but will require a restart to action it.

The update was supposed to be rolled out in last Tuesday's Patch Tuesday security update, but that was delayed due to a "last minute issue." The updates scheduled for release will now be rolled out in the March 14th update instead.

However, this part of the update has appeared much sooner, presumably because it could cause big issues if left unpatched.

The other major update due to be released last week was a zero-day flaw in the SMB file sharing protocol, but the company has, as yet, failed to fix that yet and it's unlikely we'll see a fix until 14 March.

Microsoft issued another security update to the Adobe Flash player last year, which fixed a vulnerability designated 'CVE-2016-7855', which, like this vulnerability, could give hackers access to machines running Windows 7 onwards.

"Adobe is aware of a report that an exploit exists in the wild, and is being used in limited, targeted attacks against users running Windows versions 7, 8.1 and 10," said Adobe in a blog post at the time.

Google is to ban the use of Flash in ads it carries from this June.

The search engine giant said in the blog post that display ads on its network will be 100 per cent HTML5 from 30 June this year.

It said that over the last few years, "we've rolled out tools to encourage advertisers to use HTML5, so you can reach the widest possible audience across screens".

"To enhance the browsing experience for more people on more devices, the Google Display Network and DoubleClick Digital Marketing are now going 100 per cent HTML5," the firm said in a statement.

It said that from 30 June this year, display ads built in Flash can no longer be uploaded into AdWords and DoubleClick Digital Marketing. From 2 January 2017, display ads in the Flash format can no longer run on the Google Display Network or through DoubleClick.

It urged advertisers to update display ads to HTML5 before these dates. But Google did say that video ads using Flash will still continue to work and be served.

Last year, Google took the step of automatically converting Flash ads to HTML5 when displayed on mobile devices that did not support the technology.

The banning of Flash in Google's ad network is the latest in a line of setbacks for the deeply insecure technology. Last December, Adobe took the step of renaming its Flash Professional product Adobe Animate CC in a bid to distance the software from its Flash origins.

Firefox made the move to block Adobe Flash Player automatically in its browser following the discovery of various cybersecurity issues inherent in the software. Since January last year, YouTube has made HTML5 the default way to play videos on its website rather than use Flash.

Violin Memory has recruited Tintri’s EMEA channel manager Sally Reade to direct its channel sales in the region.

The appointment comes as the storage vendor claims to be poised to expand its penetration of the $15bn global market for all-flash storage.

Reade has also had stints at Veeam, EMC and was one of the earliest employees of VMware in EMEA.

“With market-leading technology, an incredibly impressive customer list and a strong leadership team, Violin Memory is ideally placed to capture a significant share of the all-flash memory market,” says Reade. “As a 100 percent channel-only company in EMEA, our partners will be instrumental to our success. I am looking forward to working in close partnership with them to help unlock the potential of the all-flash market.”

Violin also this week unveiled its updated partner tool suite, which now includes sales enablement tools for quoting, sizing, calculating ROI, calculating de-dupe ratios, and for SQL server analysis.

Says Jeff Nollette, worldwide VP, channel sales at Violin Memory: “Sally brings a wealth of channel knowledge and industry experience to ensure our EMEA partners are fully supported to exploit the $15bn global opportunity in the all-flash enterprise datacentre.”

Violin now claims all five of the top software companies, six of the top ten telcos, four of the top ten banks and nine of the top 15 IT companies as customers.

Adverts may be served to Google Chrome users visiting YouTube whether or not they use AdBlock Plus, the extension that stops ads popping up while browsing the web.

Google appears to have circumvented AdBlock on its Chrome browser when visiting YouTube, accidentally or otherwise, meaning users must sit through long advert video clips they cannot skip before their video begins to play.

Twitter users have voiced their anger about the latest move and some tweeted screenshots of long YouTube ad trailers.

AdBlock and AdBlock Plus have angered website owners, who claim to have lost out on revenues because people do not see their adverts and so do not click on them.

However, the software has hundreds of thousands of users who do not want to be bombarded with adverts when they use the internet.

It may not be an official change in policy by Google, but in fact the result of a recent Google Chrome security update, which can be worked around by uninstalling the YouTube app from Chrome (head to chrome://apps to try this).

IT Pro has approached Google for comment, but had received no reply at the time of publication.

AdBlock said it is happening to other advert blocking software too, adding: "This is happening only in Chrome. AdBlock in Firefox and Safari continue to block ads in YouTube videos just fine. Until there's a consistently successful solution, you may want to switch to one of those browsers to watch videos ad-free."

It comes a week after Google rolled out its AdWords Flash-based ads update, meaning any adverts running the active code that are not eligible for auto HTML5 conversion will not display properly.

The tech giant announced the change in June, saying it wanted to speed up content loads on its browser and offer a better experience for its customers.

If you're concerned about the content of your ads, you can log in to your AdWords account and easily identify those that aren't eligible for auto conversion. You can them manually convert them to HTML5 using Google's step-by-step guide.

The company strongly recommends you convert ads you created yourself to image-based adverts instead if possible, otherwise you're encouraged to create new HTML5-based ads using Google's DoubleClick Studio, Google Web Designer or create a Lightbox ad from an existing HTML5 template.

Although Google has left it up to users whether to decide to allow Flash-based ads to display or not, within settings in Chrome, it will now be switched on as default, just like many of the features designed to improve customer experience and boost page load speeds.

"Eligible Flash campaigns, both existing and new, are now automatically converted to HTML5 when uploaded through AdWords, AdWords Editor, and many 3rd party tools. This is one of several tools we've rolled out in the past few months," the company wrote in the launch blog.

"Whichever tool you choose, we recommend you take advantage of our best practices for building compelling display ads so you can reach prospective customers across all the browsers and devices they use.

This story was originally published on 01/09/15, but has since been updated (most recently on 07/09/2015) to reflect the latest developments

EMC has doubled the density of its XtremeIO-based X-Brick all-flash storage arrays as well as increasing the number of arrays the software supports.

Its new 40TB X-Brick flash storage systems are double that of the previous generation, while the update to XtremeIO 4.0 increases the cluster node limit from six to eight.

This means that raw maximum capacity of an XtremIO cluster node increases to 320TB.

At a keynote at EMC World in Las Vegas, Guy Churchward, president of EMC Core Technologies, said that with a six-to-one data reduction ratio, the capacity of full cluster increases to 1.9PB.

Churchward said that the update to XtremIO meant that it has transformed not only the speed at which applications run but also the entire way in which they are deployed.

"Customers gain agility, simplicity and capabilities that help them make developers more productive, get applications deployed faster, and deliver higher quality," he said.

The system is also capable of two million IOPS and a latency of less than 1ms.

The XtremeIO software also gains native replication due to a boost in speed in the firm's RecoverPoint software to help it keep pace with the all-flash platform. Xtreme 4.0 can create a replica every 60 seconds, according to EMC.

Unlike the previous version, XtremIO 3.0, the latest version can be upgraded without disruption with automatic rebalancing and no application downtime, according to the firm.

The latest version of XtremIO is being released as a free update to 3.0 customers.

Multiple clusters can be managed from one XtremeIO Management Server system.

There is also copy data management now available for VMware, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange.

The interface has had an update and now includes extended historical reporting, maintaining two years of operating history, as well as sophisticated tagging and search functionality for handling large numbers of provisioned volumes, hosts and snapshots. It also boasts improved built-in reporting capabilities.

Churchward added in the keynote that the product has grown faster than expected and was approaching $1 billion in revenues 18 months after release.

"XtremeIO has been a rocket ship success for us," he added, with the company claiming that more than 1,400 customers, including 40 per cent of Fortune 100 companies were now using the systems within their organisations.

Adobe has released its third Flash unscheduled security update this year, after video sharing site Dailymotion found an advert that redirected to an attacker-controlled page that could be used to take control of a user's system.

Adobe said in its alert: "A critical vulnerability (CVE-2015-0313) exists in Adobe Flash Player 16.0.0.296 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh. Successful exploitation could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. We are aware of reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild via drive-by-download attacks against systems running Internet Explorer and Firefox on Windows 8.1 and below."

Paul Ducklin wrote on the Sophos blog: "This script tries to guess which vulnerabilities are most likely to work on your computer, based on browser version, available plugins, and other settings, and then lets rip one-by-one with specific exploits," until nothing happens, the browser crashes or one of the exploits succeeds and your computer has been taken over.

The zero-day exploit has been patched, but Adobe doesn't anticipate completely fixing the vulnerability until later this week.

Peter Pi, threat analyst at Trend Micro, said: "We've seen around 3,294 hits related to the exploit and, with an attack already seen in the wild, it's likely there are other attacks leveraging this zero-day, posing a great risk of compromise to unprotected systems."

Meanwhile, Adobe commented in a statement: "We are aware of reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild via drive-by-download attacks against systems running Internet Explorer and Firefox on Windows 8.1 and below."

Last week, YouTube announced it has started to implement HTML5 by default in browsers to play videos rather than Flash because it said Flash couldn't support Adaptive Bitrate (ABR), which cuts down on buffering without compromising video quality.

More than 100 eBay listings have been identified as malicious by the online auction site, leading customers to reveal their personal details including payment information.

A number of customers contacted the BBC to tell them they had tried to warn eBay about the issues reported last week, but eBay had not addressed them as quickly as they should have.

The listings in questions appeared normal, but custom Javascript and Flash content contained in them allowed hackers to redirect users to a fake website that looked legitimate but actually allowed them to siphon off user details including credit card details.

The listings were posted by many innocent eBay users whose accounts had been hijacked by the hackers and forwarded the bidders to a page that said eBay was trying to update the innocent user's details, asking for payment information including card details and in some cases, account numbers and sort codes.

Those whose accounts were being used to perform the attacks were receiving emails congratulating them on the sale of their items, which they had not even put up for sale in the first place.

eBay said: "Account takeovers generally occur as a result of a user disclosing their IDs or password. Unfortunately, it is a common practice of criminals to exploit well-known, trusted brand names like eBay to attract consumers and then lure them to a fake website or into other fraudulent situations."

The company continued: "Many of our sellers use active content like Javascript and Flash to make their eBay listings perform better.

"We have no current plans to remove active content from eBay. However, we will continue to review all site features and content in the context of the benefit they bring our customers as well as overall site security."

Storage vendor Tegile Systems has announced that Bill Cordero has joined its ranks as vice president of worldwide channels.

The Newark, California-based company says Cordero will be responsible for expanding the global presence of the company’s hybrid and all-flash storage systems beyond their penetration throughout the US and Europe.

Cordero joins Tegile from StorSimple where he served as VP of worldwide channel and strategic sales. He has also held executive sales and channel management positions at Storwize, Data Domain, McDATA, VA Linux Systems and NetScreen Technologies.

“Bill has demonstrated his ability to successfully create and manage the expansion of channel programmes for several leading storage companies, and we look to leverage that expertise to further the global market penetration of our flash-driven enterprise storage arrays,” comments Rohit Kshetrapal, CEO of Tegile, who says that the vendor is dedicated to its “reseller-centric sales approach.”

He adds: “We recognise that the growth of our partner ecosystem is the best and only way to expand the reach of our products to customers worldwide. Bill will be an instrumental part of ensuring we meet that goal.”

Tegile offers a flash driven enterprise storage arrays that it claims is significantly faster than all hard disk-based arrays and significantly less expensive than all solid-state disk-based arrays. The platform features both NAS and SAN connectivity, complete with built-in auto-snapshot, auto-replication, near-instant recovery, onsite or offsite failover, and virtualisation management features.

Founded in 2009, Tegile arrays are sold exclusively through the channel. It launched an EMEA channel programme last October, and is currently distributed by Big Technology (part of Exclusive Networks) in the UK.

“The combination of a compelling portfolio of hybrid and all-flash arrays, combined with a leadership team that understands the importance of helping customers overcome their data management challenges, makes Tegile a place that I’m eager to be a part of,” says Cordero.

“Tegile’s recently announced enterprise-class arrays perfectly balance performance, capacity and reliability at an affordable price point, making them an attractive option for organisations of any size, across many industries. I look forward to ensuring that these arrays are readily accessible to companies that are looking to leverage these attributes throughout the world.”

The vendor appears to have Dell Compellent in its sights, announcing it is seeing “a large number of companies making the switch” in the US.

Rob Commins, VP Marketing of Tegile Systems says this is “for any number of reasons – whether it is performance, lack of functionality, price or maintenance concerns. In all of these cases, we have been able to provide significant savings from a storage utilisation, performance to dollar ration and maintenance perspective.”

The firm says customers have the option to purchase units outright, lease them or go with a capacity-utilisation model through Tegile’s Agility Pricing Programme.

Violin Memory claims its latest piece of software will make it easier for enterprises to build all-flash datacentres that run their business critical apps.

Runs on its Concerto 7000 All-Flash Array, the vendor is rolling out its refreshed enterprise data services software across the globe, today.

The software allows users to take advantage of thin provisioning, asynchronous and synchronous replication, and to generate storage snapshots.

It is claimed the product delivers a lower cost-per-transaction for demanding workloads, resulting in faster application response times, and takes up less floor space than competing arrays.

The 280TB array is designed for use with tier 1 and tier 2 business applications, and according to the company's chief marketing officer Eric Herzog paves the way for enterprises to switch to all-flash storage-based datacentres.

The benefits of doing so, he told IT Pro, include lower power and cooling costs, as well as greater floor space because all-flash arrays can provide a higher performance in a smaller amount of space.

However, despite the relatively higher cost of flash storage, compared to tape or disk, the technology's ability to let users get important work done faster and, therefore more cheaply, is at the heart of the all-flash datacentre's appeal.

"Tape is still the cheapest media, but if you look at it from the holistic perspective of a CIO or IT director, you're not just looking at the cost per gigabyte [anymore], you've got to look at all the costs associated with running a datacentre," he said.

"[When it comes down to the cost of storage] itself, it has traditionally been over-provisioned because you can't get the performance without doing that. Flash takes that need and cost away."

The array is available across the globe from today, and the company has also brought out an upgrade kit so that users of its older 6000 family of all-flash arrays can benefit from the functionality of the enterprise data services software.

NetApp has shared its technology roadmap and revealed plans to steal ahead of its competitors in the burgeoning flash market.

Speaking at NetApp's three-day Insight EMEA conference in Dublin this week, director of technology and strategy, Matt Watts, reflected on how best to handle operations that have now become "low value, commodity IT".

Touching on the storage vendor's focus on flash and cloud as well as the increasing role of IT as a "services broker", Watts highlighted how far the role of storage has come from its humble beginnings within the IT hierarchy.

"If you look at our portfolio and the impact of flash, the storage guy is more significant than ever before," said Watts during a press preview of his keynote speech.

"We are in the same business as utility companies, really. We take data which has no value on its own and we store and deliver it to the end point where the ones and zeros become useful. We have more tools, technologies and capabilities than before, we have the ability to truly make a difference to the business. In the future, I'm going to say it loud and proud: I am the storage guy'!"

Underlining NetApp's focus on flash-accelerated and cloud-integrated storage systems, the vendor announced two new storage platforms at the event, including an all-flash array and an updated platform.

All-flash

The vendor's EF550 all-flash array, succeeding the EF540, targets the traditional big-money, big-footprint tier-1 storage environment traditionally inhabited by the likes of EMC and IBM.

Though flash is considered expensive on a capacity-basis, the company is banking its cheaper cost on a per IOPS basis to provide an attractive alternative to the traditional spinning disk storage needs of systems like databases and CRM tools.

"I believe all-flash can be used in a number of different, disruptive ways," said Watts. "The biggest disruption will be caused to the traditional large frame-type storage array, where customers are buying large amounts of capacity but not using it because they are using a smaller amount of lots of disk' to get I/O.

"Our system, delivering over 450,000 IOPs and under 1 millisecond latency, costs typically less than 10 per cent of the cost of the 7-figure large frame storage array from a typical vendor. With a 2 RU form factor, it can outperform a system that consumes two whole racks and often lies under-used."

The company sees this product as an opportunity to break into the higher sphere storage world and to take on companies like EMC and IBM, whose bread and butter is tier 1 storage. It is relying on its strong foothold in the flash market where it has had a presence dating back to 2008 to beat the numerous start-ups and the big vendors that are emerging on the scene.

The new E-Series arrays include the E2700 SAN array, aimed at the remote office or smaller scale environment and offering a performance boost on its predecessor. "It's very high density," explained Watts. "It has the most dense storage shelf of any technology today." The updated E5500 SAN array also steps up the performance on its predecessor, as a dedicated on-premise main storage environment with basic data management capabilities.

Cloud

NetApp is addressing cloud integration by expanding the scope of the ONTAP platform. Users can now run ONTAP as a virtual storage appliance within VMware environments and on a wider array of hardware than before.

"People want to deploy it into a cloud provider, where you don't necessarily know what the underlying hardware is. We are expanding the scope of what ONTAP can run on significantly so people can deploy it into some of the larger service providers we work with," commented Watts.

A mention was also made of the company's Project Shift, now in beta, which aims to allow platform and hypervisor independence across service providers. Overall, NetApp sees hybrid cloud as being the model of the future, using Data ONTAP as a universal data platform to provide cloud management across various mixes of private and public cloud.

Last week, the company posted results for its second fiscal 2014 quarter which ended on October 25 that were lower than what analysts expected but still showed an increase of one per cent on last year.

EMC has accused several ex-employees of taking confidential company information with them when they defected to rival firm Pure Storage.

The storage giant has embarked on legal action against a number of former employees, who it claims have "wrongfully taken confidential and competitively sensitive" information about EMC's operations when they have gone to work for the competitor.

US-based Pure Storage specialises in the manufacture of all-Flash storage arrays, and has been steadily establishing a presence in the UK since the start of the year.

The most recent lawsuit was filed on Monday at the US District Court in Boston, and involves former EMC partner sales manager, Chadwick Johnson, who worked at the firm from February 2006 to September 2013.

He is accused of using his last 48 hours as an EMC employee to "surreptitiously" access several company files on his laptop from two external storage devices that were not returned to the company at the time of his departure.

These files included a report containing the names, purchase histories and deal values of thousands of EMC customers, and a competitive selling guide that details how employees should go about pitting the vendor's Flash storage products against Pure Storage's competing offerings.

Several other documents, including one containing details of EMC's customer, partner and employee relationships and another showing the types of storage products EMC users bought, were also allegedly accessed by Johnson during his final two days at the firm.

"Jonson was entrusted with competitively sensitive, confidential business information developed and used by EMC...that would be valuable to an EMC competitor, such as Pure Storage," the suit states.

It then goes on to claim Johnson's actions are part of a larger campaign, involving "numerous" former EMC staff members, waged by Pure Storage to give it an "unfair" competitive edge over its rival.

"[The former staff have been] misappropriating EMC's Confidential Information and Property, unlawfully soliciting EMC's customers and raiding EMC of its valuable employees, all in an effort to increase Pure Storage's presence in the marketplace at the expense of EMC," the document continues.

"Since last year, no fewer than 30 high-performing employees have departed EMC under suspicious circumstances to join Pure Storage," it added.

As such, it seems the case against Johnson is just the tip of the iceberg, as the document confirms his one of a number of suits the firm is pursuing against former employees that have defected to Pure Storage.

"EMC has been forced to initiate litigation seeking declaratory relief and preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to enjoin its former employees from continuing to process EMC property, from using or disseminating EMC property, and from unlawfully soliciting EMC employees and customers," it states.

Fusion-io is cementing its move downstream with the release of an SME-focused hybrid storage product that combines Flash technology with high capacity disk drives.

The firm's Fusion ioControl product is based on the technology the firm gained through its acquisition of hybrid storage appliance maker NexGen storage in April 2013.

Prior to the acquisition, NexGen already used the Flash-based storage vendor's ioMemory technology to create SME-focused hybrid storage appliances containing standard disk drives.

This, the company claimed, allowed NexGen to transform x86 server platforms into systems that boast the same kind of performance as an all-flash storage array.

At the time, the vendor also said the acquisition would help it make further inroads into the SMB market, despite Flash technology traditionally being viewed as the preserve of the enterprise because of its high cost.

Speaking to IT Pro, Chris McCall, vice president of the ioControl product line, said this is an issue the company has been able to side step because of the hybrid nature of the appliance.

Starting prices for the appliances begin at $55,000 for the 16TB, $88,000 for the 32TB and $108,000 for the 48TB arrays. "These are all starting prices, and users can scale from there," said McCall said.

He was also keen to stress the product is aimed at SMEs with at least 100 employees that already have some form of datacentre capacity they rely on to carry out "heavy duty IT", rather than one man bands.

Even so, the company has had to adapt the products to make them as easy as possible for SMEs to use, McCall explained.

"This market has very different characteristics and needs than the big scale-out server deployments in enterprise database acceleration [where Fusion-io's products are typically used]," McCall said.

"SMEs tend to think more around simple management, because there are only a few IT guys that have to manage the technology for everybody. They can't just focus on one app, which presents a number of management challenges."

Rather than use a Flash-based array to speed up the running of a particular application, iOControl is aimed at SMEs that might want to run large chunks of their infrastructure on the technology.

Particularly companies that need to ramp up the performance of their server or desktop virtualisation deployments.

The product is being released in UK and Europe this week through the firm's tranche of channel partners.

EMC has expanded its VNX mid-range family of unified storage arrays to include Flash-optimised systems based on Intel's multi-core Sandy Bridge technology.

The company claims the new systems can be used to deploy six times the number of virtual machines compared to the previous generation of VNX arrays, making it more cost effective for end users to take advantage of virtualisation.

The systems also offer four times the performance of the other members of the VNX family, EMC added, at a third of the price of the previous generation.

This is made possible, in part, by the inclusion of EMC's Multi-Core Optimisation software (MCx), which can be used to speed up virtualised applications.

Speaking at the storage firm's Speed2Lead launch event in Milan, Italy, Rich Napolitano, president of the unified storage division at EMC, confirmed the new additions to the VNX range are shipping now.

"This new platform really is revolutionary...It's [a] unified [storage system], so it's block and file. It's tuned to take advantage of Flash and [delivers] a huge number of IOPs per second at extremely low latency," he said.

Further to this, the company also took the wraps off an all-Flash version of the VNX to support users that require consistently fast performing storage, before confirming the VNX will soon form part of its VSPEX reference architecture product.

The latter was announced by the company in 2012, and traditionally consists of EMC storage and backup, as well as virtualisation, server and networking technology from the likes of Brocade, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, VMware and Citrix.

The inclusion of VNX will allow the system to support 1,000 virtual machines, EMC claims, which twice the number of workloads it could handle before.

David Goulden, president and chief operating officer of EMC, said multi-core technology, Flash and virtualisation will all play an important role in helping enterprises cope with the demands imposed on them by big data.

"The question should be [in the big data era] how are datacentres going to handle this massive growth in information, because it's not slowing down. The answer to this question is you have to leverage...multi-core technology," he told delegates.

Also, with the price of Flash storage falling all the time, it's becoming even easier for enterprises to adopt it, Goulden added.

"Flash storage is disruptive, it's still much more expensive, but it offers exceptional technology," he said.

"The price difference is coming down, so there are many more use cases where you can justify Flash technology."

Startup memory vendor Crossbar has unveiled a type of Resistive RAM (RRAM) that can store up to one terabyte of data on a chip the size of a postage stamp, while reportedly offering twenty times the performance of existing flash memory.

Crossbar's RRAM can store 250 HD movies on a chip measuring 200 square millimetres. The firm also said it has developed the chip into a working memory array at a commercial fabrication plant, meaning commercial storage products based on the technology are ready for manufacture.

The memory sports a three-layer structure, meaning it can be stacked in three dimensions, allowing multiple terabytes of storage to fit on a single chip.

George Minassian, Crossbar's CEO, said "non-volatile memory is ubiquitous today, as the storage technology at the heart of the over a trillion dollar electronics market from tablets and USB sticks to enterprise storage systems.

"Today's non-volatile memory technologies are running out of steam, hitting significant barriers as they scale to smaller manufacturing processes. With our working Crossbar array, we have achieved all the major technical milestones that prove our RRAM technology is easy to manufacture and ready for commercialisation. It's a watershed moment for the non-volatile memory industry," he said.

Minassian said that such memory chips would deliver 20x faster write performance, 20x lower power consumption, and 10x the endurance at half the die size, compared to today's best-in-class NAND Flash memory.

The firm has not revealed when the first RRAM devices are set to ship, but said it was keen to get the technology into consumer devices as well as enterprise storage, cloud computing, wearable technology and SSDs.

Storage vendor NetApp has embarked on a company realignment programme that will result in 900 of the firm's staff losing their jobs.

The company confirmed the move during a conference call to discuss its fourth quarter financial results, which saw it post a profit of $174 million on the back of sales totalling $1.72billion.

This was slightly down on last year when the firm reported a $181 million profit on sales of $1.7 billion during Q4.

During the call, transcribed here by Seeking Alpha, Tom Georgens, chief executive of NetApp, said the company had performed well during Q4, with strong demand for its products across all regions.

"[We saw] an increase in the number of deals over $1 million and a record number of deals over $5 million," he said.

"We are seeing rapid uptake of clustered ONTAP as well as our new platforms. We recently announced a family of all-flash arrays...we also saw a record quarter for branded E-Series products and expansion of our Flexpod solution set."

Despite this, he said the company has started to undergo a restructure, which will result in the "elimination" of just over 900 jobs or seven per cent of its global workforce.

"We took this action to better align our resources and investments to our most strategic initiatives," he continued.

"While difficult, we believe these decisions position us well for the future, enabling us to achieve our business objectives, profitability and profit growth expectations."

The vendor also announced plans to give its stock repurchase programme a $1.6 billion boost over the next three years, which would increase its overall value to $3 billion.

This is part of a wider plan by NetApp to increase the value it returns to shareholders.

US-vendor Pure Storage has marked its launch in EMEA by pouring scorn on EMC's flash storage plans, while ruling itself out of becoming the flash market's next takeover target.

The company specialises in the manufacture of all-flash storage arrays, and claims it can offer the technology at a price comparable to what end users spend on mechanical disk-based storage.

Up to now, the firm has focused on building out its presence in the US, but recently opened an HQ over here and has set its sights on winning over UK enterprise customers.

Speaking to IT Pro, Scott Dietzen, CEO of Pure Storage, set out the firm's UK growth ambitions.

"Usually companies in this space are benchmarked [for growth] against NetApp and Data Domain, as each of them grew by an order of 40 per cent sequentially [from launch]," he claimed.

"We're out of the gate faster and growing faster than they did...and that's our expectation for every market that we enter."

The Flash market is an area that storage veteran EMC has made an effort to move into of late, through its acquisition of Xtrem-io last year and the subsequent release of its new Flash storage line.

However, Dietzen claims EMC is playing catch up with the rest of the flash storage market, and estimates his firm has an 18-month technology lead on its rival.

"EMC bought the start-up competitor closest to Pure in terms of architecture [Xtrem-io], but we believe we have an 18-month technology lead [on the]. They have a good team, though, so obviously the race is on," he said.

"We don't see anyone else in the market that's nearly as close to having the full recipe that we've launched with."

But that's not to say the company is resting on its laurels, he added, as there is still the possibility that another new entrant could emerge that leaves both firms for dust.

"It's entirely possible, but the hurdles to get into the market are on a par with the ones [vendors must overcome] to take on VMware, who've had a very nice run. Right now, though, we're starting to see other offerings that are [getting closer to VMware] technically," he said.

To mark Pure Storage's launch in EMEA, the company has taken the wraps off its "Love Your Storage" money-back guarantee programme, which will see the firm reimburse customers who expressed disappointment in the performance and reliability of its all-flash arrays, for example.

"We believe we have the best technology in the space and we will give you your money back if we don't exceed all of your expectations in that regard," Dietzen added.

He was also keen to stress the firm has no plans to follow Xtrem-io's lead and get itself acquired, claiming the company's growth to date means it should have no problem maintaining its status as an independent storage vendor.

"We've had numerous requests for M&A conversations. There was a bidding war for Xtrem-IO and all of the bidders talked to us before and after to express their interest, but we want to build an independent storage company," he explained.

"The rationale behind that is because we think we can do a better job serving customers as an independent than by joining a bigger company...who may put a block on us approaching customers where they have [long-standing] disk contracts."

Fusion-io has unveiled a flash-based product that it hopes will replace traditional solid state disk (SSD) and mechanical hard drives in the affections of datacentre owners.

The vendor claims its new flash memory, PCIe-based Fusion ioScale range will lower the cost of building all-flash datacentres. It is being targeted at enterprise firms operating in the hyperscale, cloud and high performance computing markets.

Pricing for the product starts at $3.89 per GB and customers must purchase a minimum of 100 units.

The benefits of flash against mechanical hard drives are so dramatic, there really is no competition.

Prior to release, the technology was trialled by social networking giant Facebook, who the company hailed as a keen adopter of flash technology.

Speaking to IT Pro, David Flynn, CEO of Fusion-io, said few firms in the hyperscale market have adopted flash to the same degree as Facebook.

"We have done a lot of business with those guys...[which has allowed us to] perfect the product for that marketplace," he said.

"But, we want more customers to have access [to this type of technology] and this is why there is just a minimum order quantity of 100," Flynn added.

For companies like Facebook, the product offers them a host of operational benefits, said Flynn, especially ones that use it to replace SSD and HDDs in their datacentres.

"The benefits of flash against mechanical [hard drives] are so dramatic, there really is no competition," said Flynn.

"It takes about eight SSDs to match the capacity of an ioScale. When you add in a RAID controller [to aggregate the SSDs] on top, you have nine failure points."

As a result, the company claims ioScale is more reliable, less costly, offers better performance and takes up less space in a datacentre than SSD and mechanical disk drives.

Gary Orenstein, senior vice president of products at Fusion-io, explained to IT Pro: "From a datacentre perspective, [one of the main benefits] is the dramatic savings that start with moving to a more reliable server that requires less power, cooling and allows you to build a smaller datacentre."

Adobe has confirmed it will not release a Flash plug-in for Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

On the Adobe Blog, the firm noted that the current version of Flash may work on Jelly Bean, but does not recommend using it.

"The Flash Player browser plug-in integrates tightly with a device's browser and multimedia subsystems (in ways that typical apps do not), and this necessitates integration by our device ecosystem partners," it noted.

"If a device is upgraded from Android 4.0 to Android 4.1, the current version of Flash Player may exhibit unpredictable behaviour, as it is not certified for use with Android 4.1. Future updates to Flash Player will not work."

We recommend uninstalling Flash Player on devices which have been upgraded to Android 4.1.

Adobe has also confirmed it will limit the ability of users to download Flash from the Google Play Store. From 15 August, only devices which already have the Flash Player installed will be able to access updates.

It remains to be seen what impact the lack of Flash will have for the Google Nexus 7 tablet, a device which will ship with Jelly Bean. Android device have traditionally been able to access more video content from the internet than iOS devices such as the iPad, but this may not longer be the case as both will rely on HTML5 to showcase multimedia content.

University College London researchers have detailed what it claims to be the world's first silicon oxide-based resistive RAM (ReRAM) that can run at room temperature.

ReRAM is one of the technologies researchers are developing that could replace traditional NAND flash for non-volatile storage systems, offering speeds far closer to that of volatile dynamic RAM (DRAM) modules.

Previous ReRAM prototypes, including a headline-grabbing example from 2008 which was based on titanium dioxide and Eplida's recently-announced module which is due for mass production in 2013, have required esoteric operating environments - including vacuums and extreme temperatures - and complex production processes which have precluded them from commercialisation.

According to the team's work, published in the Journal of Applied Physics, the solution may have been found with the first ReRAM module to be produced from common silicon oxide and to operate at ambient temperatures - heralding a potential revolution in high-speed storage systems.

"Our ReRAM memory chips need just a thousandth of the energy and are around a hundred times faster than standard flash memory chips," boasted Tony Kenyon of his team's findings. "The fact that the device can operate in ambient conditions and has a continuously variable resistance opens up a huge range of potential applications."

The prototype system is capable of switching resistance significantly more efficiently than any other ReRAM prototype around, thanks to a novel silicon oxide structure whereby the arrangement of silicon atoms changes to form filaments of silicon within the solid silicon oxide. These filaments are significantly less resistive than the filament-free silicon oxide, providing the one to their absence's zero required for digital storage.

The ReRAM prototype could also be used to produce memristor hardware which mimics the neurons in the brain, thanks to its ability to record a continuously variable resistance based on the last voltage that was applied.

Amusingly, the material was discovered by accident. During work on producing silicon-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs), researchers noted that the prototype devices appeared unstable. Adnan Mehonic, a PhD student, was asked to investigate - and found that, far from being unstable, the material the team had created flipped between conductive and non-conductive states extremely predictably.

"My work revealed that a material we had been looking at for some time could in fact be made into a memristor," Mehonic explained at the material's unveiling. "The potential for this material is huge. During proof of concept development we have shown we can program the chips using the cycle between two or more states of conductivity. We're very excited that our devices may be an important step towards new silicon memory chips."

The team is keen to point out the material's potential for high-speed non-volatile memory systems, memristor applications and even for use as a central processor - but, as is often the case with academia, is somewhat silent on a potential release date for a commercialised version of the technology.

EMC has snapped up flash storage specialist XtremIO for $430m (266m), nearly a month after rumours linking the two firms first surfaced.

EMC appears to have been courting the flash-based storage vendor for a while, after its senior executives were reported to have visited XtremIO's offices in Israel last month to discuss a takeover.

XtremIO is the sixth vendor EMC has acquired in Israel, which is also home to one of its research and development centres.

In a statement, the storage giant said XtremIO's technology would fit in well with its existing range of Flash-based arrays, which are featured in its VMAX, VNX and Isilon ranges.

XtremIO was set up in 2009 and, according to a post on its website, was due to start shipping its first products to customers later this year.

In a statement, Pat Gelsinger, president and chief operating officer at EMC, said: "XtremIO brings an amazing technology with a fantastic team that's captured praise from early-view customers and the [IT] industry.

"We fully expect XtremIO technology, once introduced to market, to have a tremendous impact on our customer's ability to [make use of] the unique advantages of all-Flash storage across many of their most demanding applications."

EMC's hold on the storage market has led to a "bottleneck" in the industry many companies are finding it hard to break out of.

This was the belief of David Flynn, chief executive of Fusion IO, who met with IT Pro today to vent his frustrations.

He claimed NAND flash was a key component of storage, but the way EMC was trying to use it was too expensive and didn't offer enough performance.

"EMC are still so focused on their storage boxes," he said. "Yes, they can [upgrade them with flash] and offer you twice the performance, but they will charge four times as much."

By putting SSDs into the storage boxes EMC are trying to push an elephant through a straw.

There is no question in the storage industry that NAND Flash is the future for high performance, but the debate of where the technology should sit within the system rages between the two firms.

EMC has attempted to move it to the storage array, putting SSDs into its portfolio to speed up the read/write process. However, Fusion IO, has invented a new way of plugging flash straight into the memory.

By putting one of its ioDrives straight into the server, it removes barriers between the processor and traditional storage arrays, meaning the server can act as primary storage and access applications even faster.

"By putting SSDs into the storage boxes EMC are trying to push an elephant through a straw," said Flynn. "We are right next to the processor and don't rely on networking or [other hardware] performance."

He claimed the openness of the Fusion IO technology and its compatibility with other vendors meant end users only had to buy the one component, rather than hefty hardware in the back-end, which EMC is known for.

"For every $10 EMC costs, we can give you 1,000 times faster performance and cost just $1," added Flynn.

"EMC cannot afford to do it [Fusion IO's] way because they would lose thousands of dollars."

EMC do offer a caching technology for servers called VFCache, allowing a cached version of data to be stored before heading to the storage. However, the CEO said it didn't compete with the number of terabytes its own Fusion IO directCache could offer.

EMC still holds the number one spot in market share when it comes to storage. However, Fusion IO has the likes of Apple and Facebook on its customer lists, both of which is worked together with to get the product just right for their internal systems, and has Steve "Woz" Wozniak backing the firm as its chief scientist.

Flynn revealed there would be more products and market opportunities from his company next month just before EMC has its own annual conference but his company "didn't need to sell boxes" to give great storage capabilities.

"It is not about the hardware in the big boxes anymore," he concluded. "It's about elements of hardware working together with software to give the end user the best performance, as well as the best price."

The cost of SSDs is set to come down, making a once pricey technology much more accessible, a report has claimed.

Solid State Drives (SSDs) have long been recognised by the storage industry as much better performers than Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), but have also been viewed as too expensive for wider adoption.

Although the price has been dropping, industry experts have always been looking for units to fall below $1 per GB and an analyst firm has claimed 2012 could be the year this happens.

$1 per GB, something the analysts claimed to be "the pricing sweet spot the market has been anticipating"

A report released today by DRAMeXchange, a subsidiary of larger analyst firm TrendForce, claimed mass production of SSDs using processes on 19nm and 20nm technologies was set to start in the second half of this year.

These new techniques will bring the manufacturing costs down to $1 per GB, something the analysts claimed to be "the pricing sweet spot the market has been anticipating."

This drop in price will appeal to computer firms and, coupled with DRAMeXchange's predictions of a surge in ultrabook popularity in 2012, adoption will ramp up across the industry.

"When [the new processes] occur, DRAMeXchange expects ultrabook makers will transition from adopting hybrid HDD solutions to pure SSD solutions, and mainstream capacity will increase to 128GB," read the analyst report.

"Ultrabook market share is expected to rise rapidly beginning in the third quarter of 2012. SSD NAND Flash consumption volume is expected to increase from 5.1 per cenr in 2011 to 15 per cent in 2012."

The report concluded that SSD "will become the NAND Flash application product with the most explosive growth momentum."

The industry itself seems to agree the price drop is coming, but it may be some time until the enterprise can take advantage.

Chris James, EMEA marketing director at Virtual Instruments, told IT Pro: "SSDs will fall below the $1 per GB price at some point soon. SSDs are faster than conventional disk, uses less power to drive and needs less cooling so from an environmental view (by that I mean money saving not polar bear' saving) it is a good thing."

But it is size that counts when it comes to SSDs.

"The issue we have with it is that the capacities are still small so if you have, say, 12 Petabytes of data you can only use SSD for tactical installations - it hasn't scaled to enterprise capacity yet," added James.

"Organisations with smaller capacity will benefit and enterprise components that don't need to store big data amounts will get faster and cheaper to run. It's an evolution rather than revolution thing."

SMART Global Holdings today announced the formation of a new independent company, built to focus on flash and solid state disks (SSDs) for enterprises.

SMART Storage Systems plans on taking advantage of the growth in the SSD market as more companies begin to move from traditional hard drives to the speedier storage technology.

2012 is the year of SSD it is finally becoming a proven platform for high-speed transactional storage.

As a standalone organisation, it will have its own executive team separate from its parent company, as well as independent engineers, sales and marketing employees, and a dedicated manufacturing plant in Malaysia.

"Organisations in nearly every market sector are finding that the need to access and process information is outpacing the performance capabilities in traditional hard-drive based server environments," said John Scaramuzzo, president of SMART Storage.

"SMART Storage is not only focused on overcoming these bottlenecks by bringing high-performance SSDs to market, but also on solving the inherent endurance issues of flash."

The year of SSD' has been touted for sometime now, and is a belief held by SMART Storage and SMART Global Holdings. Now, it seems, industry analysts are on-board as well.

"Yes, 2012 is the year of SSD it is finally becoming a proven platform for high-speed transactional storage, and is now available as a tier 0 option in the vast majority of new storage systems," Clive Longbottom, founder and senior analyst at Quocirca, told IT Pro.

"As a tier -1 solution, companies such as TI and Fusion io are also pushing the envelope with their PCI-X SSD systems that push performance even further."

However, he did question the idea of having a purely SSD focused company for the storage firm, as although pure SSD offerings will be useful for OEMs and for certain applications, most customers will be looking at a hybrid approach.

"The long term successful storage vendors from any area will be those who can figure out how to build in such intelligence as close to the storage components as possible and those who have a balanced portfolio will be better positioned for this than any company attempting to specialise in just one type of storage," concluded Longbottom.

SMART Storage has been created from the funding acquired by the parent company in August last year from Silver Lake Partners and Silver Lake Sumeru.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) has claimed to achieve an industry first this week with the launch of its Ultrastar SSD range.

The company said it was the first time single-level cell NAND flash based on 25nm technology had been made commercially available, bringing speedier throughput and better performance to enterprise storage arrays.

That Hitachi is now stating a five year life with considerable i/o hammering is good news

The Ultrastar SSD400S.B range comes in three capacities - 100GB, 200GB and 400GB - and uses 2.5 inch 6Gbps Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interfaces to allow for fail-over to a second port.

Another added in resilience comes from Intel. The company worked closely on the SSDs with Hitachi to bring in what it called "endurance firmware" and power management features, enabling the SSDs to last much longer.

Hitachi claimed a 400GB SSD could handle up to 35PB of random writes during its lifetime, the equivalent of writing 19.2TB to the drive every day for five years.

Clive Longbottom, founder and principle analyst at Quocirca, said this element was much more important than being the first in the industry to use 25nm SLC NAND flash.

"Vendors have kept pretty quiet about how SSD technology has a limited life each memory bubble can only be written to for a reasonably limited number of times before it just gives in, and historically, this has been less than three years' use," he said.

"There are a lot of enterprises out there having gone for SSD who will find their tier zero storage systems falling off the edge of a cliff in the next year or so. That Hitachi is now stating a five year life with considerable i/o hammering is good news."

Security is also a headline feature of the Ultrastar portfolio, with the option to buy self-encrypting drives. An encryption key is built into the drive and can only be accessed by the customer.

If the key is deleted, all of the data becomes unreadable. Hitachi claimed these features enabled better performance by moving encryption away from the processor.

"Security is a growing concern among enterprise customers, especially those in financial services, e-commerce and online transaction processing," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing at Hitachi.

"With our new 25nm SLC SSDs, our enterprise customers now have the highest level of data protection in an SSD without compromising system performance, reliability and endurance."

Hitachi again claimed to beat its rivals with throughput speeds. The Ultrastar drives offer up to 536MBps read throughput and 502MBps write throughput, as well as up to 57,500 read and 25,500 sustained write IOPS. This, the firm claims, is 100 times faster than traditional hard drives.

The SSDs also offer low power consumption and, with less SSDs needed to achieve better performance than HDDs, Hitachi claimed the cost of IOPS per watt was also significantly reduced.

The Ultrastar SSD400S.B range has begun to ship already and Hitachi is in the process of working out OEM partnerships.

EMC today launched VFCache, a flash caching module for servers announced last year under the Project Lightning moniker.

It marks another foray away from the storage array for EMC as it looks to bring its flash expertise to the server space.

Testing showed a three times throughput improvement and a 60 per cent dip in latency, the storage giant claimed.

If that means bringing storage to the compute makes sense, that's what we'll do. And that's kind of what we're doing with VFCache.

"This is a product that extends EMC's FAST technology into the server. It is a combination of hardware and software, the hardware being a PCIe card, which is a very exciting technology because if really changes the performance landscape it's even faster than flash inside a storage array," Barry Ader, EMC's senior director of storage product marketing, told IT Pro.

"We marry the hardware with some software intelligence that sits inside of the server, the operating environment, to determine exactly what data is hot and make sure we keep the hottest data in the server, closer to the application, closer to the CPU complex."

Data held in the cache is still pushed out to the storage array for added security, Ader said.

"This is a very nice complement to the VMAX and VMX storage devices," he added.

"VFCache will work with a variety of servers that are out there. We've qualified this with IBM, Dell, HP and our Cisco UCS partners. We have qualified VFCache with the majority of server vendors that are out there."

VFCache will either be sold to IT departments directly via EMC to line up with the vendor's storage products, or through channel partners, including server and storage companies.

The main competition for EMC in this area will be Fusion-io, which has been pushing out PCIe cards to the industry a few years ago.

"The difference here is that they [Fusion-io] went after the early adopters," Ader asaid. "They sold these cards as DAS [direct-attached storage] cards rather than cache devices. So that caused a lot of problems for their customers.

"Really mainstream customers weren't able to leverage this it didn't solve their scalability, shareability protection problems."

VFCache will also be getting deduplication technology added to it in the coming months.

Thunder coming

EMC also revealed plans for an entirely separate appliance, which will essentially do the same job as VFCache but considerably quicker.

"It's for those high-end use cases. A good example might be a high-end trading application... it might not be for the mainstream."

The first Thunder devices will be trialled with early adopters in the second quarter. Wider adoption will be opened up later in the year

EMC in server space?

Ader would not be drawn into saying whether this foray into the server space would mark EMC's eventual move into actually manufacturing servers.

"As our customers are looking for different ways to manage their information, of course EMC is going to look at these different ways that we can leverage technology like flash disrupting types of enabling technology.

"There are ways for EMC to enhance value to customers by not just going into the server space. That's not the intention. The intention here is, there are different ways to create value. In some cases that might mean bringing storage to the server.

"If that means bringing storage to the compute makes sense, that's what we'll do. And that's kind of what we're doing with VFCache."

Companies such as Cisco and HP are trying to pack more into servers, whether with networking or storage capabilities.

Dell, meanwhile, recently broke off its storage relationship with EMC, hinting it would be dallying in smarter servers with potentially greater storage integration.

Adobe today announced a preview release of its Flash alternative Edge, an HTML5 design and animation tool.

Flash has been seen by some as a dying piece of software, in particular by Apple, which prevented the tool from working on iOS devices.

Adobe has chosen to release the HTML5 tool on the Labs website earlier than normal for a development cycle as it wants as much user feedback as possible.

Edge will work with browsers in iOS devices, as well as with other modern browsers.

"Over the last year Adobe has delivered on several significant HTML5 milestones including contributions to jQuery, submitting code to WebKit, and enhanced HTML5 output in Creative Suite 5.5," said Paul Gubbay, vice president of design and web engineering at Adobe.

"Now, with Adobe Edge, we're taking our HTML5 tooling to a whole new level and look forward to getting some really useful feedback from the community over the next few months, as we refine the product."

Farhan Mirza, principal at consulting firm AT Kearney, said Edge would be important for Adobe to keep it "in the new world."

"Although Edge has been under public review for almost a year, the launch of v1.0 has come a bit earlier than expected. Which is good because developers need certainty on the products and tools they will invest in and use," Mirza added.

"Edge is an authoring tool that creates a Flash like environment for animation - something that developers will recognise and adapt to quite easily. And which plays to Adobe's strengths from its Illustrator and Photoshop products."

IBM has unveiled a breakthrough memory technology which it claims betters the performance of Flash by a factor of 100.

Phase Change Memory (PCM) is not only faster than Flash but it's more reliable too, Big Blue has claimed, adding it won't lose data due in the event of a power outage.

Another appealing advantage, according to IBM, is the fact PCM enables computers and servers to boot instantaneously as well as improving performance.

The technology is capable of enduring at least 10 million write cycles - a huge leap from current enterprise level Flash at 30,000 cycles.

"As organisations and consumers increasingly embrace cloud computing models and services, whereby most of the data is stored and processed in the cloud, ever more powerful and efficient, yet affordable storage technologies are needed," said Dr. Haris Pozidis, manager of IBM Research's Memory and Probe Technologies arm.

"By demonstrating a multi-bit phase-change memory technology which achieves for the first time reliability levels akin to those required for enterprise applications, we made a big step towards enabling practical memory devices based on multi-bit PCM."

The new technology could be seen primarily as a boon for enterprise-level and high-performance data storage at a time when some industry commentators have expressed concern that current storage technology and infrastructure was nearing a plateau in terms of advancement.

"With a combination of speed, endurance, non-volatility and density, PCM can enable a paradigm shift for enterprise IT and storage systems within the next five years," IBM added.

Adobe has updated its developer toolset to include support for iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry PlayBook app creation.

The release brings Flash Builder and the open source Flex platform up to version 4.5 and builds on the Android support unveiled last year.

Under the banner of "More power. More Devices. Less Code," Adobe is hoping to attract developers to the software with the promise of being able to develop and publish seamlessly for the web, desktop and across mobile platforms from one set of tools and code without having to completely re-write applications.

"Today we're happy to announce updates to Flash Builder and the Flex framework that now offer support for iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry PlayBook," the companysaid on its Flash Platform blog.

"As a result, developers can quickly build and distribute apps through the Android Market, BlackBerry App World and Apple App Store using one tool chain, programming language and code base."

Adobe is also keen to promote feedback, encouraging developers to use the Flash Builder 4.5 widget to upload videos of current projects using the software.

"As always, we'd love to see and hear what you're creating with our technology whether it's mobile, web or desktop apps," it added.

The updated Flash Builder software is available to developers as part of the Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium and Master Collection, but both Flash Builder and Flex also come as stand-alone packages and Flex's open source nature means you can have it for free.

The war of words between Adobe and Apple over Flash use on iPhone and iPad devices appears to have come to a close.

Adobe chief executive (CEO) Shantanu Narayen told delegates at the All Things Digital conference the feud was no longer an issue as people could get Flash content to work on Apple devices if they wished anyway.

Apple still prevents Flash content to run within browsers on its mobile devices, but there is a workaround to make Flash content work on the likes of the iPhone.

Applications can be built using Flash but then converted into an iOS app using an Adobe software tool.

Narayen said the argument was not over technology, but was about Apple's willingness to control its platform.

"It's become fairly clear to a lot of people that it isn't about the technology, it's about a business model issue and it's about control of a platform," Narayen said.

"It's the control of applications and the App Store."

He praised Apple for its iOS platform, saying Steve Jobs and Co had done a "wonderful job" of creating a leading operating system.

"We will work around any arbitrary obstacles that are imposed in our way," Narayen added.

The Apple and Adobe spat rumbled on through last year, developing into an openness issue with strong words on both sides.

There will be 130 million mobile devices that will have Flash by the end of the year, Narayen said.

As for HTML5, he told the conference Adobe was actively supporting the development of the standard.

"To get the aesthetics and the design that people want in these applications, Adobe will contribute our typographic expertise and our design aesthetics," Narayen added.

He confirmed Adobe would create tools to help people use HTML5, even though it will be a competitor to Flash.

Our own investigation found playing Flash video on an iOS device could shorten battery life.

Adobe has taken top spot in a new league table highlighting PC vulnerabilities.

The report, released by Kaspersky Labs, revealed the top 10 PC security risk programs, with Adobe Acrobat coming in first place.

However, the situation gets worse for Adobe, which also has programs ranked in 2nd, 3rd, 9th and 10th place on the same list.

A specific vulnerability within Adobe Acrobat Reader was reportedly found in around 40 per cent of surveyed computers a security flaw which Kaspersky Labs ranked as "extremely critical." The report claimed the hole allowed hackers to gain access to a PC via local user privileges, where they could then release malignant code.

Adobe Reader comes up a second time in the report in 10th place with "multiple vulnerabilities" this time with only an eight per cent occurrence rate but still achieving a "highly critical" score.

Adobe Flash Player does little better, occupying both second and third positions in the chart - also reported as having multiple vulnerabilities. Flash appears to have similar problems to Acrobat but with the additional issues of "exposure of sensitive information" and a "bypass" of security systems.

Adobe Shockwave also makes an appearance in 9th place, with a "highly critical" rating.

It's not just Adobe receiving this embarrassing exposure though, as the report is damning for some of the biggest names in technology.

Microsoft Office OneNote comes in at number eight on the list, following WinAmp in 7th place. Meanwhile, Apple's Quicktime has multiple vulnerabilities in 6th place and Sun's Java sits in both 4th and 5th position.

The report said in 2010 the majority of programs on the list were Microsoft, while this year only one such program is present.

Kaspersky labs said in the report: "All of the vulnerabilities that appeared in the top 10 enable cyber criminals to take control of computers at the system level, which makes the other benefits seem relatively insignificant."

The Apple iPad 2 is not only the successor to last year's original iPad, it's also one of the most eagerly anticipated tablet computers of this year. Although the iPad 2 isn't radically different from its predecessor, the differences are still enough to make it one of the most desirable tablets we've seen yet.

Powering Ahead

The iPad 2 is noticeably thinner than the original iPad - as our photos show it's even thinner than the iPhone 4 by a hair but it's still comfortable to hold and is evenly weighted so it doesn't feel top-heavy. The WiFi-only version weighs just 601g compared to the 680g WiFi-only original model. This doesn't sound like much but it makes an already lightweight tablet even easier to carry around.

It's still not suited for one-handed use over extended periods though, especially when compared to the smaller Samsung Galaxy Tab which weighs just 384g. We suspect it'd be tricky to reduce the weight or the thickness of future iPads further without abandoning the sturdy, exceptionally rigid aluminium construction or the whopping 6930 mAh battery.

Battery life was incredibly impressive. When playing H.264 videos with all wireless connections disabled and the screen set to 50% brightness it lasted a staggering 17 hours and five minutes a truly remarkable score. This means that in more realistic usage, it's less likely that it will run out of power when you need it most. This incredibly long battery life is longer than any rival tablet, netbook or ultra-portable laptop we've seen so far. When playing Flash video using the third-party VLC app, the battery lasted just 13 hours still lengthy but not quite as impressive. This is in line with our previous tests which show that playing Flash video can dramatically shorten battery life on iOS devices .

Bright and Shiny

Contrary to pre-release rumours speculating otherwise, the iPad 2 retains the 1,024x768 pixel resolution of the original. It's not as high as the 1,280x800 or 1,366x768 resolution of other, as yet unreleased tablets, but we found that the squarer 4:3 aspect ratio makes the iPad 2's screen better suited for reading than a 16:9 or 16:10 widescreen 10in tablet display since we didn't have to constantly refocus our eyes or adjust the angle of the iPad as we read down a page from top to bottom. The 4:3 aspect ratio does increase the size of the black bars in widescreen videos though.

The screen itself looks great. It's very bright, even when reduced to 50% brightness to conserve battery power. Viewing angles are very wide so colleagues don't have to strain their necks when you're demonstrating something on screen. The glass front is quite reflective and picks up fingerprints easily, but it's easy enough to simply wipe them away.

Smile for the cameras

Like the iPhone 4 and the current fourth-generation iPod Touch, the iPad 2 has two cameras, one rear facing and the other forward facing, which can be used for video conferencing using the included FaceTime app. The app can place video calls to Macs, iPhones and iPods also running FaceTime as long as all are connected to the internet via WiFi. We suspect other video conferencing apps will appear shortly supporting the iPad 2's cameras.

This is a shame since the iPad can be used to edit video using the optional 3 iMovie app available from the App Store. Choosing which of your stored video clips to use is easy - simply skim your finger over the clip to quickly preview its content, then tap the clip to bring up a pair of selection handles which allow you to choose which bits of the clip you want. A 'Use' icon appears simply tap it and the clip appears on your editing timeline. Transitions are automatically added between clips as you add them, you can record voiceovers, add titles, background music and photos.

Your choice of title and transition styles are limited to whichever theme you choose for your editing project though. There are also limited audio editing controls you can mute a clip's soundtrack, but can't accomplish more complex tasks such as adjusting the amount of ducking or the fading in and out at the beginning and end of each clip.

It's support for importing clips from more capable cameras is very restricted though, immediately limiting its usefulness as a substitute for editing video on a laptop. We had no trouble using the optional USB adapter to import footage from an iPhone 4 and a Flip Mino HD, which both record to H.264 at a similar resolution to the iPad's cameras, but iMovie wouldn't recognise footage shot on a Fujifilm Finepix S200EXR stills camera which records in M-JPEG files with an AVI wrapper. Sadly, you can't exchange projects between the iPad and Mac versions of iMovie either.

Sophisticated apps like iMovie are possible thanks to the new dual-core 1GHz A5 processor. Paired with 512MB of RAM, twice the amount of the previous iPad, it makes everything from web page rendering to opening apps feel snappier. We suspect more and more apps will take advantage of the A5 processor, but we also expect the majority of apps to remain backwards-compatible with the original iPad, just as many iPhone apps still work on older models.

For day-to-day work, the iPad 2 is usable, although you'll have to get used to some foibles which remain unchanged from the first model. It is possible to type moderately long documents on the touchscreen keyboard, but even after practice and growing to trust the spelling autocorrection, it's still a task best done using an external Bluetooth keyboard or on a laptop. Plus, constantly looking down at the surface you're typing on is literally a pain in the neck.

Typing is made easier by Apple's optional Smart Cover which attaches to the left hand side of the iPad magnetically. It not only acts as a screen cover, but can fold back into a toblerone-shaped stand propping up the iPad for easier typing or for use as a stand for watching video. The magnetic attachments also allow the iPad to be automatically locked and unlocked whenever the cover is closed and opened respectively. Thankfully, this doesn't bypass any passcode/password lock. The Smart Cover is so useful we'd almost consider it an essential purchase for would-be iPad 2 owners, although there will no doubt be countless third-party imitations and alternatives.

Apple has also decided not to make the file system in iOS user accessible. Although this prevents people from misplacing their files, it also makes it tricky to get files onto an iPad in the first place. Files sent as email attachments can be passed on from the Mail app to other apps for further use, or files can be transferred laboriously over USB using iTunes. A more elegant alternative would be to use online storage services such as DropBox or cloud applications such as Google Docs. Printing is currently limited to a handful of HP ePrint models as we discovered when we investigated cloud printing services.

Exchange support does mean the iPad 2 can be remotely locked and wiped in the event that it's lost or stolen. This would wipe the entire iPad though, which may or may not be desirable if your company allows employees to use their own Exchange-connected iPads for work purposes. Alternative remote lock and wipe services are available, including Apple's own free Find My iPhone app which also works with the iPad 2.

Giving presentations is now a lot easier thanks to new the HDMI adapter, sold separately, which allows the entirety of iPad's screen, from apps to the home screen, to be mirrored onto a HD TV or projector. The adapter also you to charge your iPad 2 even as you give your presentation.

Making a secure VPN connection shouldn't a problem as iOS 4.3 supports the L2TP, PPTP, and Cisco IPSec VPN protocols out of the box. There's also a huge array of apps available from database apps to office suites, alternative Exchange clients and remote desktop apps. Apple's own iPhone Configuration Utility also supports the iPad 2, allowing IT departments to deploy multiple iPads with the same settings, application restrictions and provisioning certificates for enabling in-house non-App Store distributed apps. More sophisticated management and deployment utilities from third parties are also available.

Homing In

GPS isn't included in the WiFi-only iPad 2 since the Assisted GPS that Apple favours requires a cellular connection to speed up the initial geolocation hence the reason why GPS is currently limited to the 3G iPad 2. However, if you use the portable hotspot feature on the iPhone 4 to share its 3G connection with a WiFi-only iPad 2 model, the iPhone's GPS data is also shared with the Google Maps app. Unfortunately, we didn't have access to an Android 2.2 smartphone enabled with a portable hotspot to see if other smartphones could be used with this workaround.

The 16GB WiFi-only model we reviewed costs just 399 which is a surprise as it's slightly cheaper than the 429 launch price of the equivalent first-generation model. This also makes it cheaper than any other comparable quality tablet launched so far and is remarkably good value.

However the iPad 2 faces imminent competition from the first Android 3.0 tablet, the Motorola Xoom. It will have Flash support, higher resolution cameras and a higher resolution screen. It will also have 32GB of storage, but it will be over 100g heavier and the battery will have less than half the stated capacity of the iPad 2's. PCWorld will be selling the WiFi-only version for 499 around the start of April, but the equivalent 32GB WiFi iPad 2 is 20 cheaper.

So what's our verdict?

Verdict

Despite some operating system niggles, the otherwise slick iOS combined with elegantly designed hardware leads to some real, tangible benefits for the end user - such as excellent battery life. All this makes the iPad 2 the standard by which all other tablets will be judged. If you've already deployed the original iPad there's not enough in the new model, with the possible exception of the dual core processor, to make it worth upgrading. Although it's currently the best tablet you can get, if you're deploying tablets for the first time and can wait, it'll be worth seeing how well it compares against the numerous upcoming competing tablets from rival manufacturers.

Connectivity: N/A Display: 1,024 x 768 pixels, 9.7in OS: iOS 4.3 Camera: 0.7 megapixels rear-facing, 0.3 megapixels forward-facing GPS: N/A Processor: 1GHz Apple A5 RAM: 512MB Bluetooth: v2.1 + EDR Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n Storage: 16GB internal Ports: Apple Dock Connector (USB camera adapter sold separately) Slots: None – Apple Dock Connector SD card adapter sold separately Dimensions: 186 x 9 x 9.5 mm (WxDxH) Weight: 601g Battery: Lithium Polymer 6930 mAh

One of the most bitter and unresolved disputes in the technology industry is the war of words between Apple and Adobe over the issue of Flash Player and the iPhone. Most online videos are encoded in Flash, but the iPhone (and other iOS devices such as the iPad and iPod Touch) don't support it. Why not?

In an open letter back in April 2010, Apple chief executive (CEO) Steve Jobs listed several reasons why Apple has declined to include a version of Flash Player on the iPhone. One of them was the claim that Flash videos drain a smartphone's battery more quickly than videos in Apple's favoured H.264 format.

In response, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen called Jobs' list of technical issues a 'smokescreen'. He specifically stated that Jobs' concerns about Flash's effect on battery life 'patently false'.

Since Flash Player isn't publicly available for the iPhone (if it exists at all), it's difficult to tell who's right. Nonetheless, we decided to undertake our own series of tests to find out what effect playing Flash video has on the battery life of an iOS device and our results will surprise you.

What's At Stake

The spat between Apple and Adobe could have big implications for the tech industry.

Apple's favouring of H.264 over Flash has helped increase the popularity of H.264. For example, YouTube has converted its entire library to H.264 for playback on iOS devices. If Apple's claims about Flash's effect on battery life are true, then Flash's popularity could decline as smartphones and other similar mobile devices, such as tablets, become more popular.

In a wider context, if Apple is right, then Flash, one of Adobe's primary products is severely unsuited, for a growing, and potentially huge number of mobile computing devices. The company could therefore lose out financially unless it embraces Flash alternatives.

If Adobe is right, then Apple's policy of strictly controlling its products is seriously flawed by denying its iOS customers use of a popular technology that is available on rival Android devices.

We used a one-year old third-generation iPod Touch running iOS 4.2.1, the latest version at the time of writing, in our tests. Since Flash Player isn't available on iOS, we used the open-source VLC app instead which can play Flash videos (unfortunately VLC is no longer available for iOS due to a separate legal dispute). Although it is currently possible to play Flash videos on jailbroken iOS devices using a port of Flash Player, we decided against this route given the very experimental nature of the port.

We created two video files of the same movie, one using the H.264 codec in a .m4v container and the other using the Sorenson Spark codec, one of the most popular codecs used in online Flash videos before the rise of H.264, in a .flv container. We used the open-source video encoder FFmpeg to create both files and tried to keep the encoding settings as consistent as possible between them both. Since the VLC app doesn't support playlists and can't loop the same file repeatedly, we had to 'cut and paste' multiple copies of the film together into one long file using a video editor.

To measure the battery life of the iPod Touch while it was playing the videos, we charged it fully, set a moderate volume level and set the screen to 50% brightness. We used a 3.5mm audio splitter cable to plug the earphones into one jack and connect the other to a laptop's line input. We used Total Recorder to record the iPod's output. After the battery is exhausted, the recorded sound file shows how long it lasted.

We performed this test three times on the iPod Touch we played the Flash video using VLC, the H.264 video using VLC and the H.264 video again using Apple's standard Videos playback app.

For comparison, we also tested an Android 2.2 device the Android version of Flash Player only works on Android 2.2 or later. Unfortunately, the only Android 2.2 device we could get a hold of was the Samsung Galaxy Tab, a 7in tablet device not directly comparable to the 3.5in iPod Touch.

Nonetheless, we tested the Tab twice once with the H.264 video and again with the Flash video - to see how those times compare to each other. With the Adobe Flash Player plugin for Android installed, the included video playback app was capable of playing the Flash file as well as the H.264 file so no separate app was used.

On both the iPod Touch and the Galaxy Tab, we disabled all the wireless radios. Although this doesn't really reflect real-world usage, since we were testing the specific effect of video playback on battery life, we tried to exclude as many extraneous factors as possible.

iPod TouchFLV VLC4h44mH264 VLC4h32mH264 APPLE6h07m

Galaxy TabFLV6h30mH2646h58m

What the Results Mean

The results of our battery life tests took us by surprise, so much so that we reran them just to be sure. The iPod Touch actually had slightly longer battery life when playing Flash videos using VLC, than it did when playing H.264 using the same app.

However, when playing the H.264 video using Apple's Videos app, the battery lasted considerably longer than the VLC app playing either H.264 or Flash. Either Apple's in-house app developers are very good (or have access to some trick or a private API for prolonging battery life) or Applidium, the developers of the VLC app, still have a lot of work to do.

Samsung claims a seven hour battery life for the Galaxy Tab when playing video and our tests results largely validated this claim. The battery lasted just under seven hours when playing our H.264 video, but half an hour less when playing the Flash video. However, this half hour difference is far smaller than the one hour and 15 minute difference on the iPod Touch between the VLC Flash times and the H264 native Videos app times.

Conclusions

The results of our tests with both an iOS and an Android device broadly support Apple's assertion that a mobile device's battery can be depleted more quickly when it's playing Flash video instead of H.264 video. However, the results of our tests also show that this difference doesn't have have to be a huge one.

Even so, we remain doubtful that Apple will now cast aside its objections to Flash and work with Adobe to bring it to iOS. Besides battery life, one of Jobs' other concerns about Flash in his open letter was performance and we also discovered that having Flash Player installed on the Galaxy Tab could severely impair the responsiveness of its touch interface.

Despite all of this, we doubt our tests will remain the final word on the issue of Flash and mobile battery life. Adobe states that the upcoming Flash Player 10.2 for desktop operating systems will have greatly improved hardware acceleration for shifting the burden of video playback from the processor to the graphics card which, on a mobile device, could improve battery life. It'll be interesting to see if the next generation of Flash-capable mobile devices, such as the RIM Playbook or the Motorola Xoom, will come with a version of Flash Player 10.2.

Solid state disks (SSDs) have one crucial advantage over traditional hard disks. Since they don't have any moving parts, they're considerably less prone to damage. This has led to SSDs being fitted in laptops, usually high-end models given their high cost. Nonetheless, their ruggedness, as well as their slenderness, makes them attractive for use in external storage too.

The Iomega SSD Flash is not only one of the first external SSDs we've seen, it's also the first we've seen to come equipped with a USB3 port. In our tests with portable hard disks, we've found that the USB3 models can be four times as fast as their USB2 counterparts, so we were eager to test the file transfer speeds of Iomega's SSD Flash.

Unfortunately, we found the SSD Flash's speed results to be inconsistent. When connected to a PC with a built-in USB3 port, large files were written at 62.8MB/s and read at 154MB/s. Small files were written at 31MB/s and read at 44.8MB/s. Although these speeds are faster than any USB2 hard disk, they're generally much slower than the best USB3 hard disks and SSDs connected internally using the SATA interface which can easily exceed 100MB/s in all our tests.

To find out why Iomega's SSD Flash wasn't as fast as we expected, we cracked it open. Inside we found a 1.8in Micron RealSSD C300. This SSD has a SATA3 connection attached to a PLX OXU3101 SATA3-to-USB3 adapter board, the first of its kind. After consulting with our colleagues at our sister site Bit-Tech, we suspect the performance bottleneck lies in this board, since the C300 should easily be capable of faster file transfer speeds. Unfortunately we were unable to confirm this by directly connecting the C300 to our test PC's motherboard since the C300 has a proprietary SATA power connector which we've never seen before.

Despite its disappointing performance, the SSD Flash is still faster than any USB2 hard disk. Unfortunately we still can't recommend it. At a cost of 2.44 per gigabyte, the 64GB SSD Flash is not only expensive, its capacity is also too small to be useful as a backup disk for most servers and client computers.

It might be useful for backing up SSD-equipped laptops and the boot disks of some servers, but most of these won't have built-in USB3 and upgrading them won't always be possible. Plus, when connected over USB2, the SSD Flash was no faster than a USB2 hard disk in our tests so it's of little appeal even for this task.

The SSD Flash isn't completely without merit. We were quite taken by the sturdy, classy-looking black metal enclosure. It's small and light enough to easily fit in a shirt pocket too. The three year warranty is quite lengthy.

Verdict

The Iomega SSD Flash 64GB is slim and attractive, thanks to its black brushed metal enclosure. Unfortunately its performance is far slower than what we'd expect from both a USB3-equipped storage device and from a SSD. If you must have a USB3-equipped SSD and can live without the warranty, you're better off buying a USB3 enclosure and a SSD separately and fitting them yourself, but we'd still wait until SSD prices are a little more sensible.

Product type: external solid state disk

Capacity: 64GB

Formatted capacity: 58.9GB

Price per gigabyte: £2.44

Interface: USB 3.0

Controller: Marvell

Part code: 35141

BENCHMARKS

Large files write 62.8 MB/S

Large files read 154 MB/s

Small files write 31 MB/s

Small files read 44.8 MB/s

Both Microsoft and Adobe have kept tight-lipped about any possible merger between the two software giants.

The rumour mill went into overdrive after a report from the New York Times suggested Microsoft chief executive (CEO) Steve Ballmer and his Adobe counterpart Shantanu Narayen held a secret meeting.

During the talks, Ballmer and Narayen were believed to have discussed taking on Apple, in particular in the smartphone market.

One option vocalised was a possible Microsoft acquisition of Adobe, it was reported.

"Adobe and Microsoft share millions of customers around the world and the CEOs of the two companies do meet from time to time," a statement from Adobe read.

"However, we do not publicly comment on the timing or topics of their private meetings."

At the time of publication Microsoft had not responded to a request for any information on a possible Adobe acquisition.

Ballmer is currently on a European tour and he has already given a lecture in London to extol the virtues of cloud computing.

He also reportedly kept tight-lipped over any merger or plans to take on Apple as part of an initiative with Adobe.

Earlier this year a feud between Adobe and Apple broke out after the latter effectively banned Flash from its products.

The squabbling appeared to have come to an end when Steve Jobs' company took down the barriers preventing Flash from running on devices such as the iPhone.

Microsoft, of course, competes with Apple in various markets, from operating systems to mobile technologies.

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Richard Edwards, Ovum principal analyst, said a merger between Microsoft and Adobe would be driven by the need to make a splash in the mobile sector.

"The mobile apps business is now the place to be for software development companies, and Microsoft and Adobe have yet to make any real or significant impact in this market," Edwards said.

"If the two companies were to merge then it would have to be the mobile apps market driving the deal, as this is where both companies need to score big time."

An acquisition would strengthen Microsoft's standing in the "prosumer" market and enterprises would benefit if Adobe LiveCycle - the company's back-end business integration platform - was fully integrated with Microsoft SharePoint, he added.

The price of NAND memory is expected to almost halve to a dollar (0.65) a gigabyte in the new year, according to research firm iSuppli.

Flash memory currently costs around $1.80 (1.16) per gigabyte and, if the prediction holds out, it will

mean two-year low for NAND chips. About a year ago the price was over the $2 mark.

In 2008, the low price for memory gave rise to a rumour that solid-state drives (SSDs) would soon be competitive with hard disk drives (HDDs). Michael Yang, a senior analyst at iSuppli, said that he does not believe that the drop in price will rekindle this rumour.

"Traditional HDDs gained a lot of additional ground during the past few years in terms of rising capacity and falling prices," he said. "In fact, HDDs have gained so much ground that SSDs now are in danger of never regaining their competitive footing."

He thinks that triple level cell (TLC) flash chips would have to drop to 40 cents per gigabyte by 2012 to stand any chance of competing. At that price a packaged 100Gbyte SSD would cost around $50 (32).

Higher demand is usually followed by shortage of supply in the memory market. Yang is confident this will not be the case and he said that supply is sufficiently ahead of demand.

The recent announcement from Intel and Micron Technology of a higher density NAND chip could hold the key to a further drop in the price. The smaller form factor would also make it easier to increase the capacity of fixed-format SD memory cards.

Parents in the US are accusing software company Clearspring Technologies of effectively spying on their children, through an online advertising tool.

Clearspring makes widgets that deliver targeted advertising to a number of popular websites used by children, including Disney, Facebook and MTV.

However, in a case that could have wide-ranging consequences for the entire web advertising industry, the lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California alleges that the service's use of Flash cookies to track users' web browsing habits contravenes privacy laws.

According to the class action suit, the Clearspring widget does not restrict its tracking of users' internet use to the sites that host the service, but monitors their browsing activity whenever they are online in "a pattern of covert online surveillance".

The plaintiffs argue that this violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Californian Computer Crime law and the Californian Invasion of Privacy Act.

"The sensitive information may include such things as users' video-viewing choices and personal characteristics such as gender, age, race, number of children, education level, geographic location, and household income," the complaint reads.

The suit also details how the Clearspring tracking technology is deliberately designed to resist being removed from users' systems, with the widget manipulating the Flash player to restore the tracking cookie even when users try to clear their browser cookies.

The plaintiffs quote a UC Berkeley report released earlier this month entitled [ital]Flash Cookies and Privacy[/ital], which describes the practice of reviving unwanted cookies through Flash: "we found that top 100 websites are using Flash cookies to 'respawn,' or recreate deleted HTTP cookies. This means that

privacy-sensitive consumers who 'toss' their HTTP cookies to prevent tracking or remain anonymous are still being uniquely identified online by advertising companies," the report claims.

Also included is a statement from Adobe, which owns Flash, condemning the practice unless there is explicit user knowledge and express consent.

The suit alleges that the sites using the Clearspring widget make no mention of this practice, or indeed of their association with Clearspring at all. Several, including Walt Disney, Warner Brothers Records and Demand Media, are named as defendants in the suit.

Clearspring is also charged with trespass and unjust enrichment, and on top of damages the plaintiffs are requesting an injunction ordering the company to delete all confidential data and in future provide all consumers with the option to decline participation in any web activity monitoring.

Last month a similar lawsuit was filed against Quantcast, a Clearspring rival offering a similar service, as well as several of its clients including ABC and NBC.

The Mozilla Foundation has released Firefox 3.6.4, a security and stability update that adds crash protection to the browser.

The new feature isolates third-party plug-ins when they crash or freeze, allowing the browser itself to continue running unaffected. Refreshing the page will see Firefox attempt to restart the plug-in.

According to Mozilla, third-party plug-ins are responsible for an estimated one in three Firefox crashes.

However not all plug-ins are covered by the latest update. Only Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime and Microsoft Silverlight. It's not clear whether support for further plug-ins will be added in the future.

"Mozilla recognises that third-party plugins provide important functionality in many of today's websites," the company said, announcing the update. "At the same time, plug-ins can lead to problems for users as they browse.

"With the ability to automatically alert users when they have out-of-date plug-ins, and now crash protection, Firefox 3.6.4 allows users to experience all the content they love without any of the hassles."

Firefox users will no doubt welcome the new-found stability, but they have had to wait for it. The feature has been present in Google's Chrome browser since it launched back in 2008, and more recently has appeared in Safari 5 too.

Aside from crash protection, Firefox 3.6.4 is the typical mix of patches and fixes to address various performance and stability issues. A total of ten vulnerabilities are addressed in seven updates, four of them critical.

For now the update and its crash protection feature is only available in Windows and Linux variants, with Mac OS X having to wait until Firefox 4 arrives later this year.

The Firefox 3.6.4 update can be downloaded directly from Mozilla, or through the Check for Updates feature in the browser itself.

Adobe has released Flash Player 10.1 the first version of the media player to provide full support for Flash content on smartphones.

After fighting a months-long flame war over the lack of Flash support on Apple devices, Adobe can now finally change the story to focus on devices that can run Flash content. Or at least, it will just as soon as mobile platform providers and handset makers meet the new player's system requirements.

Android users will probably get there first, just as soon as Google rolls out Android 2.2 - also known as Froyo. Alternatively, a Beta 3 version is available now from the Android Market for those not willing to wait.

Adobe has released code to allow future devices on the BlackBerry, webOS, Symbian, Meego, Linux Mobile and Windows Phone 7 platforms to feature full Flash support, while efforts are being made to bring the player to Samsung's Wave operating system too. Apple owners, of course, won't be seeing it at all.

According to Adobe, Flash Player 10.1 is specifically optimised for mobile devices, supporting new input options such as multitouch input and adding accelerometer support to allow switching between landscape and portrait modes.

Adobe has also introduced power-saving features such as the Smart Rendering system, which only renders content visible on screen to help extend battery life, while media playback can now be paused to allow switching to other applications.