IBM wants to know: Who needs a hard drive when you've got network storage?
The company announced this week a new storage technology, called iBoot, that lets PCs and servers use computer networking to designate remote disk drives as their primary repository for data, instead of relying on internal hard drives.
Aside from allowing access to greater storage capacity, IBM researchers say using centralized storage instead of internal drives can help companies cut PC maintenance costs, saving on procedures like software upgrades for PCs. And, they say, iBoot could eventually boost server performance by letting manufacturers build thinner, diskless servers that can be stacked more closely together in a rack. iBoot also lets companies remotely boot PCs, without making changes to Windows or Linux software.
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