As storage intelligence moves into the network and commodity Serial ATA technology becomes available, a new storage architecture has emerged that can be used to satisfy up to 70 percent of data center storage needs. This architecture overcomes the shortcomings of Fibre Channel modular and standalone ATA storage, to provide a low-cost, enterprise-class alternative for primary storage needs ?C particularly second-tier business-critical storage. While monolithic Fibre Channel storage will likely remain the primary storage approach for top-tier mission-critical data – data that requires high transaction processing performance such as databases and applications – Serial ATA will emerge as the primary storage for second-tier data like email, reference data, collaborative applications and user files.
