The brief report doesn’t provide specifics on Apple’s mega-storage intentions, unfortunately, so that’s all we know. In case you’re wondering, 12 petabytes equals 12,288 terabytes, or 12,582,912 gigabytes. Yep, that’s a lot of disk space.
Scale-out storage is an increasingly popular data-management technology that replaces large, pricey servers with relatively inexpensive storage nodes.
The Apple-Isilon rumor fuses nicely with recently reports of Apple’s video-streaming ambitions. Cupertino is reportedly developing a “Smart TV prototype” that could combine video programming, gaming, video chat, and smartphone/tablet-style apps in a living room entertainment system or HDTV, according to several analysts.
Apple currently is a minor player in the video-streaming market. A recent study by market research firm The NPD Group showed that Netflix’s share of streamed or downloaded digital movies was a whopping 61 percent in January and February 2011. Comcast was second place with just 8 percent. Apple, with a measly 4 percent, was tied for third with DirecTV and Time Warner.
Could the 12 petabytes of scale-out storage be part of Apple’s plan to build a subscription-based, video-streaming service good enough to take on Netflix?
Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter (@jbertolucci ) or at jbertolucci.blogspot.com .