Ethernet Hard Drive

An Ethernet Hard Drive is a hard disk with its own IP address. These are stand-alone HDD/ SSD disks for storing objects, which is why IEEE refers to this technology as Object Disk. Each disk is connected directly to the Ethernet and applications can access objects directly. Thus, the disks are no longer connected to the storage server via a SCSI interface, and the data is no longer accessed via FTP protocol.

Conceptually, Ethernet hard disks can be used in enterprises and replace classic storage servers. Corresponding hard disk arrays can consist of hundreds or thousands of individually addressable hard disks or solid-state drives.

The IEEE 802.3cb working group is developing 2.5 Gbit/s and 5 Gbit/s Ethernet interfaces for the object disks so that they can be deployed cost-effectively in data centers. Ethernet hard drives can be scaled across storage platforms to meet storage capacity and speed needs. This allows storage applications to be individually assigned to a specific hard disk. In terms of storage capacity, hard disk arrays can include storage capacities ranging from several hundred terabytes to petabytes.

During storage, large objects can be distributed across multiple hard disks to increase retrieval speed. In addition, data is encrypted using the TLS protocol. The operating systems provide access to the data and the programming interfaces work with the well-known programming languages such as C++C++and Java.

The advantage of Ethernet Hard Drives is the high flexibility with the quick adaptation to changing storage requirements. Furthermore, there are cost advantages such as the reduction of operating costs, maintenance costs and energy costs.