Computer Storage and Batteries in the 21st Century

Computer storage is a key weapon in the arsenal of Cloud service providers. It's the difference between a mediocre service and a great one. Batteries play a similar strategic role in electric cars. A bulky, old-style battery consigns an electric car to trailing the pack. Comparing these two domains can help us understand both of them.

Batteries

I hope most people know that cars have batteries like this one:

Batteries are an essential but minor part of normal gasoline-powered cars. But in hybrids and all-electric cars, their characteristics determine the overall success of the car.

When you drive an all-electric car, you can experience the importance of the battery.

• How fast does the car accelerate? In part, this depends on how fast the electricity flows from the battery.
• How long can you drive it? In part, the more charge the battery holds, the longer you can drive. You can also drive farther if you can use all the electricity in the battery.
• How long do you have to wait to drive again while re-charging?
• How many years will the battery last? How often do you need to service it?
• The weight and size of the battery are also key factors. Everything else being equal, a battery that weighs twice as much will make acceleration and drive time worse, and a battery that takes twice as much space will similarly degrade operation.
• Finally, cost. Let's not forget about how much you have to pay.

When you walk into a dealership and ask about electric cars, you may think purchase cost is the main thing that matters. But as you get educated, you learn about these other factors that are just as important.

Boston Power Batteries

Oak invests in the maker of the best battery for electric cars, Boston Power. Boston Power didn't invent the underlying chemistry being exploited, Lithium Ion. But they have scores of patents for making the underlying chemistry safe at car-sized applications, dense, light, and fast and effective at taking and giving electricity.

Each one of these factors is important. You can experience them personally in a car. The safety issue isn't a minor factor, since lithium ion batteries, when not built with Boston Power safety technology, can catch fire and explode; there have been massive recalls as a result of this. Here's an illustration:

 

If a little notebook computer battery can do that, imagine what could happen with a car-sized battery!

The key thing is that Boston Power's batteries are best-in-class at all the things that matter: energy density, long life, fast charge, safety and environment.

Computer Storage

I hope most people know that computers have storage like this one:

Storage is an essential part of computers. But just as things change when batteries power whole cars, what is the best storage changes when computing moves into the Cloud.

It's not as easy to personally experience the impact of storage as it is to experience the impact of a battery while test-driving an all-electric car. But the change in scale is every bit as dramatic. While your department's computers might fit in a closet or small room, Cloud data centers go on for acre after acre.

It doesn't make much difference if your department's system takes one rack or two -- but if a given storage system requires two acres to do its job when a Cloud-sensitive one can be better while taking just one acre, that makes a big difference.

When you operate on a Cloud scale, factors that don't matter much at a smaller scale become hugely important. The important factors are remarkably similar to those of a battery:

• How quickly can you store and retrieve data? If it's too slow, you'll have to buy more to get the speed you need.
• Can you fill it completely with data and still have it perform?
  
• How many years can you use it? How often is service required, and how costly is the service?
• Size and power consumption are key factors. Space and power may not seem like large factors, but on a per-acre scale, they are huge.
  

When you first learn about storage, the only question you ask is how much it costs to buy a given amount. As you get educated, you find these other factors are just as important.

X-IO Storage

Oak invests in the maker of the best storage for large-scale data centers, X-IO Storage. Just as Boston Power didn't invent the chemistry, X-IO doesn't make the basic storage devices. Just as Boston Power has made the chemistry practical for car-scale application, X-IO has scores of patents for making large numbers of storage devices (spinning disks and SSD's) safe and practical for acre-scale applications: dense, low-power, long-lived, low-maintenance, fast and effective at taking and giving data.

For example, most storage systems treat their disks as throw-away items: devices that often fail and must be replaced frequently. Typical rates are amazingly high, resulting in substantial labor, replacement and error costs. The Google video below illustrates the consequences of this well; start at 2:42.

 

The Managed Reliability aspect of the X-IO technology reduces storage device failure rates by over 100 times. This is such a huge advance that disks can be sealed in their enclosures, which leads to other benefits.

The key thing is that X-IO storage devices are best-in-class at all the things that matter in storage: storage density, long life, reliably high performance, low power and environment.

Conclusion

Whether it's batteries that make electric cars practical or storage that makes acre-scale data centers affordable, Oak invests in companies that develop fundamental, industry-changing technologies over many years, and sees those companies through to success.