Software Storage and the “Hardware Apocalypse”

A very important lesson the year 2020 left us is that we need to be able to adapt. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the entire world to shut down, everyone had to start doing things differently: work from home, study from home, entertainment at home, and many other things that were changing the world and the way we were used to living in it. Maybe not all things were new to everyone, but we all had to adapt to the challenges as we faced staying at home all the time.

Chips Demand Increased

The shutdown caused by the pandemic yielded a demand increase in different types of electronic devices. This was mainly due to the fact that people were not used to and were not prepared to do everything at home.

The rise in demand for electronics, expectedly, increased the demand for computer chips, and this is where things got interesting. The increase in demand during the pandemic just worsened the supply and demand imbalance of chips to the point where Samsung reported that “there is a serious imbalance in supply and demand of chips.”

Chip Shortage

With the current high demand for chips, there is also a chip shortage, which means that different components and devices are also experiencing production delays. Some components were reported to have up to 52-week lead times.

Chip shortages greatly impact companies and individuals who use a storage solution that requires very specific hardware because they can’t use what is available in the market. Not being able to use what is available in the market could mean a halt in production.

To be fair though, a software storage solution shouldn’t rely solely on specific hardware. Storage solutions should be more flexible and able to adapt to what it’s available.

Why would you trust your projects and data to a storage solution that requires you to buy very expensive and specific hardware? What would happen if you are in production, need more performance or capacity, or both, but you can’t get it because you need to buy some hardware that might take a year to be delivered?

Since the pandemic caused issues in the supply chain, you might find yourself facing several other issues. Thus, being forced to use specific hardware for your storage solution can result in significant problems. This is one of the reasons why real software storage proves to be a better alternative.

Software Storage Agnostic to Hardware

A real software storage solution, such as Quobyte, offers you the flexibility to use existing hardware so that you can take advantage of the resources available to you.

Quobyte is a distributed file system that allows you to combine and aggregate the performance and capacity of your resources. That means that you don’t have to buy the latest or most expensive hardware; because let’s be honest, you should be able to choose what best fits your needs.

Hardware availability is not always guaranteed, and we can clearly see that with the ongoing chip shortage. Therefore, it is very important for a storage solution not to depend so much on a small set of hardware or appliances. With Quobyte, you can use flash or HDD, or both; the decision is yours.

Additionally, you also have the ability to add hardware to your cluster any time you want. Quobyte offers you the ability to seamlessly integrate hardware to your cluster whenever it is available. If you set up your cluster, and later on you realize you need more capacity or performance, you can just add your preferred hardware or the hardware available to you.

The same applies if your hardware malfunctions; you can replace it anytime without any problem. This is possible because Quobyte supports heterogeneous clusters, and hardware addition and removal is 100% non-disruptive.

Quobyte also offers you the option to use cloud deployment in case you no longer want an on-prem deployment or no longer trust the only hardware available to you. Or better yet, you can choose a hybrid deployment. You have full control of what you want to use because Quobyte gives you the freedom to deploy anywhere you’d like.

Why Limit Yourself?

With the technology available today, you should not have to be creating new devices for a storage solution. You can aggregate the performance and capacity of small and cheap components and achieve the same results as new and expensive hardware. So, your storage solution should work with whatever you have or what is available to you.

If you still prefer an on-prem deployment over the cloud, Quobyte doesn’t limit your options when choosing your hardware; that way, you don’t have to worry even during a chip shortage. If you would like to learn more about Quobyte, make sure to contact us or you can get started downloading our free edition.

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Originally posted on Quobyte’s blog on November 29, 2021.