Storage Bricks Have Arrived
Jim Gray · File and Storage Technologies · 2002
As predicted, disks have become supercomputers. They attach via IPv6, they have operating systems, and they talk Internet protocols. And at last they have killed off my nemesis: magnetic tape. We've arrived in storage paradise. The next evolutionary steps are easy to predict: they are going to climb the slippery slope from block servers to application servers. Along the way we will need to reinvent media management (RAID, backup/restore, self-monitoring file and database servers), and we will have to invent Web services. It's going to be fun.