“A telescope will magnify a star a thousand times, but a good press agent can do even better.” Fred Allen

Often we find articles in the trade press that seem to be simple rewrites of the press releases that are put out by the PR flunkies. It is not only Oprah that does not feel a need to check the validity of facts . “You are gullible. So am I. We believe that when something is written down and presented as truth, it is actually true. This is the contract between a writer and reader. It is based on trust.”

The articles I have read about NetApp doubling their Performance numbers with every release of hardware are extremely hard to prove, but they are published repeatedly by the trade press, as noted by Toigo. If this misrepresentation of the facts was the only time it happened it would be understandable , but it is a pattern. I guess what Fred Allen said is still true today.

Today’s word of advice goes back to Ronald Reagan “Trust but Verify”, when it comes to Storage Vendor performance statistics, and test before your purchase.