In the last couple of years, all the major storage vendors have introduced some version of automatic storage tiering into their storage arrays. Everyone talks about the benefits of using flash SSD with automatic storage tiering, as it boosts performance and reduces total cost of ownership (TCO). Before examining the pros and cons of automatic storage tiering, let’s examine the different ways memory-based cache and flash SSD are being used by storage vendors to accelerate storage arrays’ performance. Read the rest of this entry »