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Chris Mellor

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Chris Mellor covers storage and allied technology areas for The Register. After experience working for DEC, Unisys and SCO, he became an IT journalist writing for a variety of print publications. He edited the UK's first storage print magazine and then moved into the online world writing for IDG's Techworld, then started up the Blocks & Files blog, which was bought by El Reg.

He has written many sportscar buying guides, a few mountaineering guides and drives a car that's faster than he is.

Object Storage: A solution in search of a problem?

Blocks and Files This industry deserves an OSCAR

Generally, it seems to me that object storage is suffering from a failure to launch despite more than a dozen suppliers pushing it. Many of these same vendors seem to have their heads in the sand with regard to their place in the marketplace - they seem to ignore the fact that end-user buyers are confused about what object- …

30 Apr 08:28

Rise Of The Machines: What will become of box-watchers, delivery drivers?

Blocks and Files Recession + mechanisation = Neo tech Luddites

In the world of storage tech, progress is a holy grail, never questioned, never doubted. Anything that adds data access capacity, data access speed and data access security is a good thing. Who can doubt it? The world has a seemingly insatiable appetite for storing and accessing data and as we feed the ravening beast, so our …

12 Mar 07:03

Dell's having a fiddle with Violin Memory - but will it flash the cash?

Blocks and Files It makes sense to El Reg's storage desk

Last week was all about the flash - with Plextor, Violin Memory, EMC, Samsung and Seagate all involved in the action. But what do you think about Dell making its dalliance with Violin Memory into something a little more permanent? Cello Bow Let's construct a staircase and see where it takes us. Step 1: In November 2012, Dell' …

11 Mar 14:04

Penguins, only YOU can turn desktop disk IO into legacy tech

Blocks and Files In-memory desktop computing could be a win for some sharp-eyed Linux firm

With the advent of flash-based storage memory, the prospect of banishing disk IO waits forever from transaction-based or other IO-bound server applications is close to becoming a reality. But what about desktops? We have a pretty weak example with Apple's MacBook Air ultrathin laptops, but these are underpowered little lovelies …

06 Mar 14:33

So everyone's piling into PCIe flash: Here's a who's who guide

Blocks and Files Big names wave their cache cards like a banker at a cocktail bar

The PCIe flash card suppliers are heading towards a battle royale: there's too many of them for a commoditising hardware business. There are at least 15 suppliers of PCIe flash cards, gear that tightly couples a wad of non-volatile NAND storage to a computer's backbone: EMC, Fusion-io, IBM-TMS, Intel, LSI, Micron, OCZ, OWC, …

06 Mar 09:03

Flash-card shuffler SanDisk might shimmy up the storage stack

Blocks and Files Own-brand flash array could be on the cards

Tech news blog Silicon Valley Confidential has reported on rumours that SanDisk, the maker of flash camera cards, Lightning brand PCIe flash cards and SSDs, is moving up the stack. Let's step back for a moment and see if this adds up: We'll start with SanDisk partnering Toshiba in a flash foundry business Step 1 was in May …

05 Mar 14:39

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