Storage Networks

Rating:
Summary: Storage Networks?
Review: After reading over a hundred pages I'm still waiting to learn about SANs. While I enjoy the review on hard disk drives & Ethernet, that's not why I bought the book.

But maybe I'm impatient? There's still 200+ pages left!

Rating:
Summary: Unique and valuable resource
Review: This is a well written book on designing and building high performance storage networks. It makes effective use of illustrations to illustrate tricky concepts like RAID striping, SCSI protocols, and the black magic of fiber-optic cables. What worked for me was that this book doesn't pander. It doesn't give a step-by-step walkthrough with screenshots. It gives you an overall view of the field and enough knowledge of terms and concepts so that you can understand vendors offerings yourself and make informed choices.

I highly recommend this book to IT professionals looking to design and build high performance storage solutions.

Rating:
Summary: Good broad coverage of the field
Review: Worden gives us an excellent explanation of the many facets of a storage network. My sense of this book is that it is well suited for a new system administrator, or one who has had only a few years experience. The book also has merit for a manager of IT staff, who may not necessarily hail from a technical background. Or for a computer user thinking of setting up or extending her personal network.

Why do I say this? Because Worden's level of technical detail is well written enough to convey the concepts easily to the reader. For example, when he explains the different RAID levels. The figures for each RAID level are simple and well drawn. In 10 years of encountering RAID documentation, often written by vendors of such equipment, I haven't come across a visual and written explanation as clearly given as here.

The deepest level of detail is when he talks about SCSI. If you don't need this resolution of detail, you can easily bypass it.

The chapter on vendor offerings is, by its very nature, ephemeral. By 2006, it will be outmoded. But the other chapters will still be germane.

One minor correction. Moore's Law is named after Gordon Moore, not George Moore.