Have Title, Will Blog

3:50 PM -- Storage execs have answered the siren song of the blogosphere.

Wait a sec -- a blog about blogs? Yeah, I know. How meta can you get?

Actually, this is a trend I welcome. It gives customers a bit more insight into the culture of their existing or prospective vendors. It's also a chance to step outside the turgidity of press releases, annual reports, and other "official" communication that's typically stripped of its life and personality by a team of overpaid vetters in the legal department.

Take the blog of Hu Yoshida at Hitachi Data Systems, for example. Is there anything about storage this guy doesn't know? You've probably heard him at tradeshows and conferences with his cool, expert delivery -- his blog offers more of the same and then some. Confused about virtualization? Check him out. His HDS colleague Claus Mikkelsen has a little lighter touch and roves more broadly, but they're both decent reads.

Network Appliance founder Dave Hitz splits the difference between those two poles. He's a lot more marketing-oriented than some of his counterparts. But I enjoy his column most when the subject isn't NetApp -- like when he addresses what constitutes a "disruptive" technology, his take on the hottest buzzwords, or gentle sparring with a colleague or reader.Adaptec's gotten into the act as well with its Storage Advisors column, which is part blog, part FAQ. With Joe Disher, Larry Lamers, Steve Rogers, and Tom Treadway alternating responses, it's the storage blogosphere's equivalent of the 4X100 relay. They offer up good background and informational content... but did we really need pointers on how to pronounce "InfiniBand"?

In a similar vein, Infoblox offers up a trio of bloggers, none of which are particularly storage minded, but which tackle issues like security and domain name servers that might interest data center professionals.

Whose storage blog do you read regularly? What's not worth the pixels it's printed on? Send your thoughts here and we'll reprint the best answers.

Terry Sweeney, Editor in Chief, Byte and Switch

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