50Micron.com

One of the things that happens when you run a storage/technology blog, is that you will regularly get emails from PR firms with press-releases hoping that you’ll write a post touting their product or at least link back to their site to improve their ratings in the serach engines.

My problem is, that while I’m an avid storage/technology blogger, I have an science/engineering background.  What this translates to is this.

If you haven’t seen it happen, it’s a hypothesis.  If you haven’t put the functionality to the test, don’t assume it’s real.  And if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

My wife, having spent many years in marketing, was quick to explain to me how marketing really works.  “Play up the good, discount the bad, and forget the mention the fatal flaws.”

So when a new storage hot-shot approached me to write an article about their new hardware, and gave me the specs as they saw them, i refused, flat out.

If you tell me your product does 100,000+ IOPS that’s fine.  I’ve not seen it so I have only your numbers to go on, and for all I know your numbers were invented over Bacardi’s at the local pub.  Send me a demo and I’ll be happy to try it out and report the numbers.  Just beware it better do what you say it’s going to because I will report the real numbers, good or bad.

I have a few years in R&D under my belt, I know how testing is done.  I also know how any test can and usually is skewed to show off the strengths of a product.

When I worked for another non-emc storage vendor and had to tell them that their new array wasn’t capable of pushing more than 13MB/sec, they asked me not to put that particular fact in my report.  When I refused, i was suddenly “laid off.”  (of course a short time later the rest of the company was, so that may not have been quite the cause/effect I like to intimate.)

That’s marketing…sadly it’s not science.  And the one truth is marketing people have difficulty tolerating engineering people.

I’m surpised my wife puts up with me actually.

A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history – with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.