Coming of Age for Solid
State Disks
Although manufacturers in the industrial controls
market, like
Square
D and AB were using
rewritable user removable non volatile solid state storage as early as the
1970s, it wasn't till much later that the
solid state
disk market evolved into a form which we would recognise today. For most
of its early life, this technology remained an open secret - mainly used in
embedded systems in military applications, or in high performance computer
research labs.
There were many false starts with Non Volatile
semiconductor technologies which didn't survive.
In the late 1970s -
silicon nitride EAROMs (electrically alterable ROMs) were marketed by a
company called General Instruments. Unfortunately after about 3 years - it
became clear that the extrapolated data life of 10 years wouldn't be achieved in
practise. As a result this product was dropped by users and didn't survive in
the market.
1976 -
Dataram sold an SSD
called BULK CORE which attached to minicomputers from
Modular Computer Systems and
emulated hard disks made by DEC and Data General. Each chassis held
8x 256k x 18
RAM modules and had a capacity of 2 megabytes.
... ...32 years later:- (in
October 2008)
Dataram re-entered the SSD market with its
acquisition of
Cenatek.
In
1978 - a gigabyte of RAM SSD would have cost $1 million.
Texas Memory Systems
introduced a 16 kilobyte RAM-based solid state disk system designed to
accelerate field seismic data acquisition for oil companies.
1980
- Dataram marketed
an updated version of their
BULK CORE SSD
for use with
DEC PDP-11 and
Data General minis.
In the early 1980s - Intel's 1M bit bubble memory created
a lot excitement as a new non volatile solid state memory technology. Intel
shipped design kits and boards to developers using this technology - which was
positioned as a solid state floppy disk. But it failed to be scalable or cost
effective. Intel spun off the magnetic division in 1987 to
Memtech (who later made
flash SSDs) but bubble memory dropped into oblivion.
1985 -
Adtron founded.
1985
-
Curtis introduced the
ROMDISK, the first SSD for the original
IBM PC.
In
1987
EMC
introduced SSD storage for the mini-computer market, which was the
hottest part of the server market at that time. EMC's SSDs were 20x faster
than the then available hard disks. But market forces and losses led to EMC
exiting the "memory enhancement" business soon after.
... ...21 years later:- EMC
re-entered
the SSD market in January 2008 - with arrays populated by
flash SSDs from
STEC. This time the
market was hungry for this type of solution.
1988 -
SanDisk founded.
In
1990 -
NEC marketed 5.25"
SCSI SSDs using internal battery backed
RAM.
In 1991
Digital
Equipment Corp marketed the
EZ5x
family of Solid State Disk accelerators. However,
SPARC servers from Sun
already ran 2 to 3 times faster than DEC's servers at about half the price of
DEC's
Vax
servers (without needing SSDs). SSDs did not save DEC's server business.
Faster processors might have done. DEC's gamble on denser ECL chip technology
- with its
Trilogy
venture - was an expensive failure.
In 1993 -
Solid Data Systems was
founded.
In 1994 -
StorageTek
documents
mention a RAM SSD product called Arctic Fox which had been developed by a
company called Amperif Corp,
acquired
in 1993.
In 1995 - our
SPARC Directory listed 2
SSD products aimed at the Sun server market.
- T8000 - was an 80MB, 10MBps SSD on a single slot
SBus card,
made by Colorado based CERAM. Units in multiple slots could be chained to appear
as a single SSD upto 960M. Performance was 2,000 IOPs.
- SAM-2000 was a rackmount SSD upto 8GB, with 500MBps internal bandwidth-
made by Texas Memory
Systems. The transfer rate through the SBus adapter was 22MBps. Other bus
interfaces included VMEbus
and
HIPPI.
In
1996 - ATTO
Technology maketed the
SiliconDisk
II. It was a 5.25" form factor SCSI-3 interface RAM SSD with 64MB
to 1.6GB capacity. Throughput was 80MB/s, and performance was 22,000 IOPS.
In
1997 - a
white paper by Peripheral Concepts listed the main SSD vendors as:-
Quantum,
Imperial Technology,
SEEK Systems, and
Solid Data Systems.
In
1998 - STORAGEsearch.com published an
online directory of solid state
disk vendors - in which Megabyte
was shown chipping away at a rock - which remains the current site metaphor
used for general SSDs.
In 1999 -
BiTMICRO launched an
18GB 3.5"
flash SSD.
In
November 1999 - the number of market active
SSD manufacturers listed on
STORAGEsearch.com had reached 11.
In
January 2000 - after 8 years featuring editorial about SSDs in our
various publications,
Curtis became our first
SSD advertiser.
In June 2001 -
Adtron shipped the
world's highest capacity 3.5"
flash SSD. The
S35PC had 14 gigabytes capacity and cost $42,000.
In Q1 2001 -
SSDs were the 18th most popular subject with our readers.
In October
2001 - the number of market active
SSD manufacturers listed on
STORAGEsearch.com had reached 21.
2002 - terabyte SSDs become commercially available
In
Q1 2002 - SSDs were 4th most popular subject with our readers.
In
November 2002 -
Bill
Gates, talking about Tablet PC's said:- "There are also a lot of
peripherals that need to improve here. ...Eventually even the so-called solid
state disks will come along and not only will we have the mechanical disks going
down to 1.8 inch but some kind of solid state disk in the next three to four
years will be part of different Tablet PCs."
In Q4 2002 -
we ran our first ad for a NAS SSD. It was the
NAS-168F from
IEI.
In
Q1 2003 - SSDs were 2nd most popular subject with our readers..
In
February 2003
- Competitors Texas
Memory Systems and Imperial
Technology announced the world's first terabyte class SSD systems.
The
Tera-RamSan, from
TMS, provided 2 million IOPS, a 1024 gigabyte capacity, and 128 2-Gbit Fibre
Channel links. It required 2 racks and 5000 watts.
The MegaRam-10000, from Imperial, cost $2 million for a 1TB
subsystem with 48 fibre channel ports.
In
Q2 2003 - SSDs were #1 most popular subject with our readers.. That's
why we researched and compiled the first
Solid
State Disks Buyers Guide in July 2003 which collected together in one
convenient document pricing information from across the whole SSD industry.
It covered the range of budgets from under $50 up to $2 million and everything
in between.
StorageSearch.com researches what SSD buyers want
In September
2004 - BiTMICRO
announced it was developing iSCSI
SSDs. But due to the hyped iSCSI market in 2004 being 10x smaller than
analyst predictions - this product was quietly shelved.
In Q3 2004
- a solid state disk manufacturer,
Texas Memory Systems,
became the #1 company profile viewed by our readers (out of more than 1,000
storage company profiles in September 2004). We also disclosed that the
Solid state disks directory
(still at #1) got 42% more pageviews than the year ago period.
In
October 2004 - STORAGEsearch opened the
SSD Survey a 3 month
major market research study to learn more about SSD buyer preferences,
applications and attitudes. Results from the survey were published in articles
in 2005 and detailed findings helped SSD vendors understand the needs of
buyers better, and helped them develop marketing plans which worked around the
prevailing disinhibitors to product take-up and leverage the enablers cited by
buyers in the survey.
Also in October 2004 -
BiTMICRO Networks
shipped the world's first Ultra320 SCSI flash solid state disk.
In
November 2004 - STORAGEsearch published the 2nd annual
Solid
State Disks Buyers Guide. This listed every type of SSD available in the
market by interface type and form factor. It also included a summary of major
developments in the SSD market in the preceding year.
In December
2004 - It was revealed that Solid State Disks were the Product Category of
the Year 2004 on STORAGEsearch.com based on reader pageviews. The Solid State
Disk page was the #1 category (out of more than 70 vertical storage subjects)
viewed by readers for 44 of the first 50 weeks in 2004. In previous years - the
product category of the year in 2002 and 2003 (2 years running) was SATA. Three
of the world's
fastest
growing storage companies in 2004:- (M-Systems, SimpleTech and Texas Memory
Systems) were solid state disks manufacturers.
2005 - Samsung declares SSDs a strategic market
In January 2005 - STORAGEsearch disclosed results of the
SSD Survey to
strategic oem customers. The results included buyer preferences for form factor
and interface, budgetary data and factors which would make it easier for SSD
vendors to do more business in future. Selected extracts from the survey results
also appeared in articles and editorial.
In March 2005 -
SiliconSystems
announced that Bell
Microproducts would distribute its SSD products in North America. This would
greatly simplify the access to this technology for thousands of systems
integrators and oems.
In March 2005 - 5 out of the top 10
company profiles viewed by STORAGEsearch.com readers in March were SSD Makers
(out of more than 1,000 storage company profiles). Site readership grew 6%
compared to the year ago period and pageviews grew by 25%.
In April 2005 -
Texas Memory Systems
offered the world's first performance related guarantees for SSD products. That
they would outperform any competing storage system, or meet the customer's
agreed application speedup expectation - or the customer would get their monry
back. This approach was founded on market research data from
STORAGEsearch.com's Q405 SSD User Survey - which said that users would be more
likely to try SSD systems if vendors offered such guarantees.
Also in
April 2005 -
Solid Access
Technologies made the first SSD with a
Serial Attached SCSI
interface.
In May 2005 -
Samsung Electronics
announced it was entering the SSD market with 1.8" and 2.5" drives.
This is the first time in this phase of the SSD market's development that a
multibillion dollar company (Samsung's 2004 revenue was $55.2 billion ) has
entered the market.
Also in May 2005 - this was the first time
that the term "solid state disk" generated enough volume to show up on
the top referring searches to this site.
In
June 2005 -
M-Systems announced
availability of the industry's highest capacity 2.5" SATA SSD with 128
gigabytes of storage. SATA had been identified in STORAGEsearch.com's Q404
market research survey as the #1 most popular interface for future applications.
But at this stage in the market's development (Q205) only 10% of SSD vendors
(3) actually offered products with this interface.
In July
2005 - Texas Memory
Systems launched the industry's first SSDs with a 4Gb/s Fibre Channel
interface. The 3U rackmount system offered upto 128-gigabytes capacity and
500,000 random I/Os per second performance.
In August 2005 -
SimpleTech acquired
Memtech. The
acquisition of one SSD company by another has (so far) been a rare occurrence
but could become more common in future.
In September 2005 -
SimpleTech launched the
world's first dual interface SSD. At launch time the Zeus Dual Interface SSD,
with both a USB and
SATA interface,
offered capacities up to 192GB in a 3.5-inch form factor, and sustained
read/write rates of 60 MBytes per second.
In November 2005 -
STORAGEsearch published a new updated market penetration model for the SSD
market called -
Why are Most
Analysts Wrong About Solid State Disks?
Also in November 2005
- Texas Memory Systems
demonstrated the first solid
state disk with a native
InfiniBand interface
at the Supercomputing conference.
2006 - SSD awareness flares into notebook user market
In January 2006 -
NextCom became
the first notebook maker to qualify flash SSDs* for use in Windows XP, Linux and
Solaris notebooks.
In March 2006 -
Samsung Electronics
started shipping 1.8" 32GB flash SSD drives. Quoting projections from
Web-Feet Research,
Samsung said it expected that the SSD market would double to $1.3 billion in
2007 and reach $4.5 billion by 2010.
Also in March 2006 - the
number of market active SSD
manufacturers listed on STORAGEsearch.com
had reached 36.
In
April 2006 -
Solid Access
Technologies became the first SSD manufacturer to display end user pricing
online for the full range of its SSD products. Previously the volatile nature
of memory pricing and fear of price led competition had meant that most
SSD oems declined to publish any pricing data. The SSD pricing exclusion zone
included their own websites, press releases related to product launches, and
even our own SSD
Buyers Guide.
In May 2006 -
Samsung launched the
world's first high volume Windows XP notebook using SSDs.
In June
2006 - SiliconSystems
launched its SiliconDrive Secure family which included the widest range of
available storage
security features in a solid state disk.
In July 2006 -
market research
company In-Stat
predicted that 50% of mobile computers would use SSDs (instead of
hard disks) by 2013.
Also
in July 2006 - Xiotech
announced support for solid
state disks as accelerators in its Magnitude 3D 3000 virtual storage systems
- making it the first Fibre
channel SAN switch maker to support SSD technology.
In
August 2006 - the number of market active
SSD manufacturers listed on
STORAGEsearch.com had reached 41.
DV Nation became the
first US reseller to market SSDs online aimed at consumers and SMBs.
In
September 2006 - Samsung
Electronics announced first working prototypes of PRAM -
Phase-change Random Access Memory. This is a new non-volatile
RAM technology. Samsung
said PRAM is expected to replace high density NOR
flash within the next
decade
Also in September 2006 - the growth of market interest
in SSDs was revealed by STORAGEsearch.com's
web statistics. Pageviews on our main
SSD page increased 50%
in September compared to the year before period, even though readership had
only grown by 10%. The pageview growth happened despite the fact that the SSD
page had slipped down to #3 (out of hundreds of storage categories.) This
indicates a concentrated shift by readers towards the hottest subjects that
matter most to their future plans. At the same time a greater proportion of the
most popular storage
articles were about SSDs.
Also in September 2006 -
Broadbus was acquired
by Motorola.
In October
2006 -
SimpleTech acquired UK
SSD maker Gnutek.
In
November 2006 - Microsoft
announced business availability of its
new
Vista operating system - the first PC market OS which included SSD-aware
support and native SSD cache management.
Also in November 2006
- SimpleTech
demonstrated the first single chip SSD with
USB or IDE interface. The
chip is available with upto 4GB capacity.
Also in November 2006
- SanDisk acquired
M-Systems which had
been the fastest
growing storage company in 2004.
In December 2006 -
Microsoft published
an article:-
Windows
PC Accelerators - which described in detail how the recently launched
Windows Vista OS supports solid state disks.
Also in December
2006 - Advanced
Media entered the SSD market taking the total number of SSD manufacturers
listed on STORAGEsearch.com to 44 - which is 4 times as many as in 1999.
2007 - Year of SSD Revolutions
In
January 2007 - pageviews of
the Solid State
Disks Buyers Guide (the most popular article on STORAGEsearch.com) increased
by 74% compared to the year before period. Overall site readership
increased 31% compared to Jan 2006.
In February 2007 - amid competing claims from various other
oems
Mtron launched the
fastest 2.5" PATA SSD - with 80M bytes / sec sustained write time.
Cornice became the first
hard disk maker to be ejected out from the hard disk business due to inability
to compete with flash
SSDs.
March 2007
What had been the profitable SSD business
in SimpleTech confirmed the legal change of its company name to
STEC.
SanDisk joined the
overheating market for 2.5" SATA SSDs... In fact there are more oems now
making 2.5" flash
SSDs than hard drives.
What does that tell you?
Intel (at long last) entered
the SSD market with an 8GB
USB connected module.
Super Talent
Technology extended its SSD range to include SATA interfaces and
Attorn
increased the speed and capacity of its HyperDrive4.
Samsung said it has
developed a 64GB 1.8" flash SSD - which has a 60% faster write speed than
its earlier 32G model.
April 2007
STORAGEsearch.com
reported that SSDs were the 2nd most popular subject viewed by readers in the
preceding month - nudging hard
disks down to #3.
Fujitsu announced it had
terminated plans to manufacture 1.8"
hard drives for
portable products - because in this form factor
SSDs can offer better
speed, lower power, lower weight and lower cost.
STEC announced a 512GB
3.5" SSD.
Dell
joined the growing roster of notebook oems offering SSDs as a standard option.
May 2007
STORAGEsearch.com
published a dedicated directory of
flash SSDs. The
F-SSD vendor list had previously been buried within the
SSD Buyers Guide.
Extracting it with related articles, news and ads makes it easier for readers
to sift through the growing content in this segment.
MOSAID Technologies
announced its new flash chip technology could deliver 800M bytes / second
sustained throughput for flash SSDs using today's technology. That's 10x faster
than the fastest commercially available 2.5" SSDs.
PNY Technologies announced at
Computex, it will enter the SSD market with a product launch June 5th..
June 2007
STORAGEsearch.com reported that the
fastest climbing subject in May 2007 was
Flash - based Solid
State Disks - which became the 4th most popular destination visited by
readers in the same month that the page was introduced.
Concurrent Computer
launched the MediaCache 1000, the first in a line of
rackmount flash SSD
storage products based on COTS technology aimed at the broadcast market.
SanDisk launched 64G
1.8" and 2.5"
flash SSDs for the
notebook market.
Cenatek launched the
Rocket Drive Micro:- an
ExpressCard
form-factor, high speed solid state disk designed for use with any ExpressCard
equipped laptop or desktop.
SanDisk launched 64G
1.8" and 2.5"
flash SSDs for the
notebook market.
Apacer showed a 2.5",
128GB flash SSD at
Computex and previewed an SSD based
RAID.
STORAGEsearch.com published a new
2.5" SSD Directory
with quick links to nearly 100 SSD models from 24 oems actively marketing SSDs
in the 2.5 inch form factor.
Myung unveiled its low
power MyStor product family which includes 2.5" IDE, and 3.5" IDE or
SCSI
flash SSD
products.
Samsung began mass
production of 64GB 1.8" SSDs for mobile computing applications.
STORAGEsearch.com published a
directory of the
Fastest SSDs in
each popular form factor....
SiliconSystems
said that it had received an additional patent for its PowerArmor voltage
detection and regulation technology. PowerArmor, used in the company's
SiliconDrives protects critical operating system files and application data
from corruption due to power disturbances.
July 2007
SiliconSystems
launched the first high reliability
USB SSD in CF form factor.
STORAGEsearch.com published a new
article - the Top 10
Solid State Disk OEMs
Solid Data Systems
launched the
StorageSPIRE, a
terabyte capacity Fibre
Channel connected SSD array.
STORAGEsearch.com published a new
3.5" SSD Directory
with quick links to over 22 SSD models from 11 oems.
SanDisk announced that
its SATA 5000 2.5-inch SSD will be offered as an option in IBM's new
BladeCenter HS21 XM.
August 2007
STEC announced it will
sample 3.5" SAS
SSDs in Q108.
Violin
Memory launched world's fastest 2U SSD.
VMETRO acquired
Micro Memory
Attorn said its
new rackmount HyperDrive4 provided the the lowest price per gigabyte for a
RAM based solid state drive.
Targa Systems launched a 64G
3U CompactPCI flash SSD with USB interface.
EasyCo launched its "Managed
Flash Technology" a storage system which includes a RAID-5 array of
flash SSDs with a
patent pending drive management layer which results in system write performance
that is 100x faster than the bare solid state flash drive.
STORAGEsearch.com published a new
article:- RAM SSDs
versus Flash SSDs - which is Best? With features from the world's
leading SSD companies this article looks at how technology and price trends have
reduced the gaps between the 2 main SSD technologies.
September 2007
BiTMICRO Networks
received $9.3 million in Series F funding and promised to ship 412GB 2.5"
flash SSDs in Q108.
Texas Memory Systems
launched the RamSan-500 - which delivers 2 terabytes of high speed flash SSD in
a 4U rackmount package. Performance is 100,000 IOPS sustained random read,
10,000 IOPS sustained random write. Throughput performance from fibre-channel
hosts to internal flash storage is 2G bytes / sec sustainable (3G bytes / sec
peak).
Objective
Analysis published a 110 page report called -
the
Solid State Disk Market: A Rigorous Look to their offering
Third I/O demonstrated a
prelaunch version of its Iris SSD at the Intel Developer's Forum in San
Francisco. Sustained performance reached 1,540MB/s on a single 8 Gb/s port.
Austin Semiconductor
announced its Solid State Disk on Chip - a PATA compatible flash SSD in a 1.22"
square footprint with upto 16GB capacity.
October 2007
Addonics Technologies
launched what it called a "low cost large capacity SSD" platform. It's
a PCI card that can be installed with 4 Compact Flash cards with inbuilt
RAID support. The risk
with this approach is that most CF cards aren't designed for intensive write
operations and don't have wear levelling controllers. That means if a user
installs such a product in a server application - as a lower cost alternative to
a true SSD - the storage media may fail in under a year.
STORAGEsearch.com published the new
quarterly ranking of - the
Top 10 Solid State Disk OEMs
Texas Memory Systems took
part in an 8Gbps Fibre Channel demo at
Storage Networking World
Violin Memory said it would
announce a supported InfiniBand
interface for its Memory Appliance at November's
SC07 .
SiliconSystems
launched a postage-stamp sized
USB solid-state drive
designed for embedded storage applications - called the SiliconDrive USB Blade.
November 2007
BiTMICRO Networks
announced plans to sample a terabyte class 3.5" flash SSD in Q108. With
1.6TB capacity and a 4Gbps Fibre
Channel interface - it will deliver sustained throughput more than 230MBps
and upwards of 55,000 IOPS.
Samsung
Electronics announced it was sampling faster versions of its 64G 1.8"
and 2.5" SATA flash SSDs with sequential write speed of 100MB / sec
and sequential read speed of 120MB / sec.
SanDisk launched a PCIe
compatible 16G flash SSD.
Micron Technology said it
would launch a family of SATA 1.8" and 2.5" flash SSDs in Q1 2008
bringing the total number of market active
SSD oems to 60.
INTELLIAM launched its
LeanSTOR flash SSDs with AMC card form factor, SATA interface and 128GB
capacity.
December 2007
SSD Alliance is
founded to develop compatibility standards for flash SSDs.
RunCore launched the
E-drive, a PCIe SSD
with upto 256GB capacity and R/W speed upto 400MB/s or 200MB/s respectively.
STEC started shipping its
MACH8-MLC 1.8" and 2.5" PATA / SATA flash SSDs aimed at the notebook
market. While the performance is at the middle range of the market spectrum -
the new SSDs are available in high capacities upto 512GB (2.5"). Pricing is
aggressive. STEC offers this SSD family at pricing of $5/GB today, declining to
less than $2/GB within two years.
Toshiba said it will enter
the SSD market with 1.8" and 2.5" SATA models which will be sampled in
January 2008.
Commenting on the current success of the
disk to disk backup market
- STORAGEsearch.com predicted that
the earliest realistic threat to
hard disks as a backup
media (from solid state storage) wouldn't be before around 2014.
White Electronic Designs,
well known as a supplier of high
reliability
products in the military
market, announced its first medical series CompactFlash cards.
Objective Analysis
predicted that the
Hybrid Hard Drive
would not make a big splash in 2008 in a new 36-page report called Hybrid Hard
Drives: How, Why, And When? - The author Jim Handy said - "Unfortunately,
the hardware is ready but the software support is weak. Hybrid drives will have
to wait for better support to justify their small additional cost."
SSD
market revenue in 2007 reached $400 million according to a (later /
June 2008 ) report from IDC.
2008 - SSD oems market passes 100 companies
in server market fast flash SSDs break asymmetric R/W IOPS barrier
January 2008
Nanochip (founded in
1996) said it expects to sample its first commercial products in 2009. The
company will compete with
flash SSDs using
its own proprietary non volatile storage technology.
After a 20 year
gap
EMC re-entered the SSD
market with the launch of its Symmetrix DMX-4 networked storage systems
populated with SSDs from
STEC. You may not
realise that EMC was an SSD pioneer 20 years ago (in
1987).
Samsung
announced it has developed a 128GB MLC flash SSD in 1.8" and 2.5"
form factors that will ship in volume in the first half of 2008.
Texas Memory Systems
announced new SSD IOPS records (audited by
SPC). Its RamSan-400 SSD
delivered 291,208 SPC-1 IOPS with a record average response time of just
0.86 milliseconds.
BiTMICRO Networks said it
will sample its highest capacity 2.5" flash SSD -the E-Disk Altima 832GB
- in the 2nd quarter of 2008 - with volume production expected in Q3.
Memoright announced
availability of 64GB and 128GB versions of its 2.5" PATA / SATA flash
SSDs.
February 2008
SMART Modular
Technologies acquired
Adtron.
Intel and
Micron Technology
unveiled details of their new
high speed NAND
flash technology which can sustain speeds up to 200MB/s for reads and
100MB/s for writes.
Ridata brand SSDs (made by
Advanced Media)
appeared in retail outlets - in 34 Fry's Electronics stores.
Mtron said that in April it
would be producing a 1.8" flash SSD aimed at notebooks with a maximum read
speed of 120MB/s and write speed of 100MB/s.
Pliant Technology
announced it had received $8 million in Series A
funding to drive the
development of SSD storage devices for enterprise computing markets.
STEC launched
the the 32GB MACH4 CompactFlash - the fastest CF form factor SSD on the market
with 90MB/s read and 55MB/s write speeds. It's got low power consumption too
- just 1W.
March 2008
Imation entered the SSD
market with products oemed from
Mtron
SeaChange claimed it had
eliminated the need for spinning disks in the on-air broadcast chain with the
announcement of its FML200 - rackmount flash SSD broadcast library.
Memoright launched a
faster family of 2.5" SATA flash SSD. The GT Series has upto 64GB
capacity and 120MB/s sustained read/write.
OCZ entered the SSD market
with a 2.5" flash
SSD - taking the number of SSD
oems listed on STORAGEsearch.com to 70.
STEC announced Q407 revenue
declined 28% compared to the year ago quarter.
STORAGEsearch.com published a new
1.8" storage drives
directory listing 21 oems actively marketing SSDs and HDDs in the 1.8
inch form factor.
Toshiba launched 3 MLC
flash SSD families with SATA
interfaces and form factors including module,
1.8" and
2.5".
Trident Space & Defense
launched the BGADrive - an IDE compatible 32GB flash SSD in a 29mm x 29mm form
factor module for embedded applications.
A
CNET
article insinuating high customer reject rates for
Dell's SSD based notebooks
was dismissed as
not
true.
XLC Disk
unveiled its multi-level cell nand flash technology for high density flash
SSDs.
International
Microsystems launched a range of
SATA flash SSD
testers for parametric qualification and burn-in.
Fusion-io announced it
had secured $19 million funding for its ioDrive.
April 2008
Texas Memory Systems
celebrated 30 years making SSDs.
Seagate filed suit against
STEC alleging patent
infringements related to hard disk interfaces.
Nimbus Data Systems
announced an SSD
accelerator option in its Breeze H-series 10GbE IP Storage.
STEC said it was in volume
shipment of its Zeus-IOPS
range of 2.5" and 3.5" flash SSDs with
4Gbps Fibre Channel
ports.
Link_A_Media
Devices secured $22 million in Series B
financing. Its
controller chip technology will increase
IOPS and
data recovery in flash
SSDs.
STORAGEsearch.com
published the new quarterly ranking of -
the Top 10 SSD OEMs
...and also a timeline
Predicting Future Flash
SSD Performance ...and also a new directory of
PCIe, PCI & cPCI SSDs,
and also a new directory of
1.0" and smaller SSDs.
Shining Technology
entered the flash SSD
market with the launch of its 32GB CitiDISK SSD aimed at the digital video
camera market.
Panasonic
said it would ship a 64GB version of its proprietary P2 card SSD for use in its
camcorders in the fall. Panasonic has delivered more than 80,000 P2 HD/P2
units worldwide with over 840 television networks and stations having adopted
the solid-state recording format.
Adtron started sampling
true industrial grade SLC flash SSDs with 128GB capacity in a 9.5mm-high
package - the highest density SLC SSD in this form factor.
May 2008
California based
SiliconSystems
opened its first office in the People's Republic of China. And its founder and
CEO, Michael Hajeck, was selected as a regional finalist for the Ernst
& Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the 2nd consecutive year.
STEC launched a
PCIe mini card form
SSD with 32GB capacity and 55MBps / 25MBps R/W speeds.
Mtron said it will ship
faster versions of its PRO 7500 series 2.5" and 3.5" flash SSDs in
June. The SATA drives will have a read speed of 130MB/s and write speed of
120MB/s.
Solid
Access Technologies announced that its 2U RAM SSDs are now available with
128GB and 256GB capacity. They deliver random read/write performance of 95,000
IOPS using a single Fibre Channel link and over 70,000 IOPS using SAS. The 128GB
model costs
$75,000.
In a new article -
Calling for an
End to Unrealistic SSD vs HDD IOPS Comparisons -
STORAGEsearch.com's editor bemoaned
the tired old thinking implicit in many new SSD articles and press releases.
Super Talent
Technology said its new 2.5" 120GB MLC SSDs cost about $699 - more than
6x lower in price than its 128GB SSDs were 8 months earlier - in
September 2007.
Is the SSD Market
Recession-Proof? - a new article published this month identifies which
types of SSD products will be the most likely winners and losers if there is a
recession and IT spending slowdown.
In an
exclusive interview
with STORAGEsearch.com - AMCC
3ware confirmed it is working with leading SSD oems to develop products
which will support the flash SSD RAID market.
Sans Digital launched
the CompactRAID CR2T enclosure - which adapts 2x CF cards into a 2.5" SATA
mirrored SSD.
Samsung
said it will sample a fast 256GB MLC flash SSD in September 2008. It will have
a sequential read speed of 200MB/s and sequential write speed of 160MB/s.
June 2008
Fusion-io said it's
adapting its flash SSDs to provide acceleration in HP's BladeSystem servers.
InnoDisk announced the
world's physically smallest SATA SSD - the SATADOM - measuring 39mm by 20.5mm
by 8mm. Capacity ranges from 128MB to 8GB. The SLC flash SSD has a
sustainable read speed of 24MB/sec and write speed of 14MB/sec.
Sun Microsystems announced
it would start shipping flash SSD based products in the 2nd half of the year.
That was no surprise. 4 years ago I
predicted that Sun
would be the first server oem to announce end-to-end SSD solutions.
Marvell
announced
its entry into the SSD controller market with the introduction of the
ultra-slim Marvell 88NV8120 PCIe based NAND flash controller, the first Marvell
product in a planned range of solid state storage controllers. The Marvell
88NV8120 is compatible with both Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems,
and offers comprehensive platform support for PC motherboards.
Mtron said it will supply
SSDs to Hynix. Mtron also
unveiled details of its new 8 channel controller technology which the company
says will enable R/W throughput upto 260/240MB/s and 8,000 random write IOPS
(using 4KB blocks) in flash SSD products shipping in Q1 2009.
Texas Memory Systems
secured a patent for its "Instant-On I/O" technology (IO²) ,
which enables instant access to data from a RAM-based SSD after a unit is
powered on.
STORAGEsearch.com
published a new article about the
Hybrid Storage
Drives market and called for papers re
Understanding Data
Failure Modes in Large Solid State Storage Arrays.
Silicon Motion
announced a new family of flash SSD controllers which enable oems to mix and
match MLC and SLC chips in the same drive. The controller can analyze the
incoming files from the host and intelligently move frequently accessed data to
SLC NAND and non-frequently accessed data to MLC NAND. With this innovative
hybrid architecture, the SSD system cost is significantly reduced to a level
comparable to a pure MLC-based SSD, while endurance is significantly enhanced
and comparable to a pure SLC-based SSD.
July 2008
SanDisk proposed a new way
of specifying flash SSD endurance that it hopes will be adopted by the industry.
ACARD Technology unveiled
the 9010 RAM Disk - a 5.25" form factor, 64GB SATA compatible
RAM SSD.
Advanced Media
said it would ship a faster family of SATA
2.5" MLC flash
SSDs this month. The Ridata Ultra-S Plus Series has a read speed upto 128MB/s,
and write speed upto 80MB/s. The 128GB model costs approx $537 in low volume.
OCZ launched a range of fast
2.5" SATA flash SSDs - called the Core series. Read performance is 120-143
MB/s, and write speeds are 80-93 MB/s. It's unclear as we go to press whether
these are sustainable or burst figures. MSRPs at time of launch are $169 for
32GB, $259 64GB and $479 for 128GB models respectively.
STORAGEsearch.com published the new
quarterly ranking of - the
Top 10 SSD OEMs and a new article warning customers about the need for
continual QA testing in the flash SSD market called -
Can you trust your
flash SSD's specs?
ULINK Technology launched a
test suite for flash SSD makers which includes SSD specific tests for SSD Wear
Leveling and SSD Garbage Collection in addition to conventional PATA / SATA
compliance, power interrupt and integrity tests.
Samsung and
Sun Microsystems said they
were collaborating on developing higher endurance "server grade" SLC
flash for use in SSDs.
Texas Memory Systems
announced the RamSan-440 - a fast 4U rackmount RAM SSD with 512GB capacity and
4Gbps fibre-channel interfaces. It delivers 600,000 sustained random IOPS and
over 4GB/S of sustained random read or write bandwidth, with latency of less
than 15 microseconds. The RamSan-440 uses RAID protected flash instead of hard
disks to backup and restore data in case of a power outage. Data from the RAM
SSD can be instantly accessed on power up and the full SSD is restored 20x
faster than with hard disk backed RAM SSDs.
JEDEC announced it was starting a new
subcommittee JC-64.8 to co-ordinate standards for SSDs - in particular
those related to form factors, interfaces and reliability.
August 2008
Indilinx unveiled its
230MB/s flash SSD controller, and said it is working with
MOSAID Technologies on a
600MB/s SATA-3 design.
SiliconSystems
doubled the capacity of its miniature embedded USB SiliconDrives.
Violin Memory said it had
delivered 1 million IOPS on a single interface port (a world record)
using the latest version of its Violin 1010 memory appliance. Violin also said
that its new technology would deliver 100K write IOPS on a flash SSD version of
their product (which hasn't been announced yet.)
Following 4 straight
quarters of revenue declines,
STEC reported 29%
revenue growth for its most recent fiscal quarter.
SMART Modular
Technologies announced 6 new SSDs which will sample in Q3. These include
faster 2.5" and
1.8" models. The SMART
2.5" XceedUltra2 SATA SSD delivers sustained read/write performance of
up to 135MB/s and 105MB/s, respectively, while requiring fewer than 2 watts in
active mode. The SMART 1.8" XceedLite SATA SSD operates at 72MB/s read
and 55MB/s sustained write speeds and uses under 1 watt of power in active
mode.
Objective
Analysis published a new report (price $5,000) called - "Solid State
Drives in the Enterprise"
Fusion-io added RAID
protection to the flash memory array in its Fusion-io PCIe SSD and improved R/W
performance.
September 2008
Toshiba sampled a 256GB 2.5"
SATA MLC flash SSD with R/W speeds of 120 / 70 MB/s.
Soliware emerged from
stealth mode.
Samsung
Electronics published an
open
letter aimed at shareholders offering to buy
SanDisk.
Cypress Semiconductor
introduced the industry's first device to integrate a non-volatile static random
access memory and a programmable system on chip. This may be useful in future
hybrid designs
of very fast flash SSDs
which could use nvSRAM in the controller and thereby deliver better latency for
small random reads / writes.
Solid Access
Technologies announced that SAMSUNG Securities Co., Ltd had ordered 28
of its 2U RAM SSD (model
USSD 200) systems to accelerate its financial market trading servers -
following a 6 months evaluation of alternative
RAM SSDs
SNIA announced the formation
of its Solid State Storage Initiative. Unlike the
SSD Alliance ,
which was launched in 2007, founding members of SNIA's SSSI include
manufacturers of both RAM
SSDs and flash
SSDs
Intel
launched a range of 1.8" and 2.5" SATA flash SSDs with 80GB
capacity, 70MB/S write speed, 250MB/S read and 85-microseconds read latency
priced at around $595.
Fusion-io unveiled the
ioSAN - a 10GbE or Infiniband
attached flash SSD on PCIe form factor which will ship in 2009.
STORAGEsearch.com
published 4 new SSD directories -
SATA SSDs,
SSD market research,
Fibre-Channel SSDs and
SSD User Groups.
The first 3 are fully populated (as you'd expect). The user group directory is
currently a blank canvas. Do big SSD buyers think they need to talk to each
other in user groups? We'll see what happens.
Samsung revealed
details of the new form factor for flash SSDs which it started sampling a
few weeks ago.
The dimensions are:- 39mm (L) x 54mm (W) x 4mm (H). 2 of the new Samsung SSDs
fit into the same pcb space as a single 1.8" drive, and also in half the
height. Available in densities of 8GB, 16GB and 32GB, the 32GB device reads
data (sequentially) at 90MB/s and writes (sequentially) at 70MB/s.
October 2008
pureSilicon emerged from
stealth mode and said it was sampling the Renegade SSD - a rugged MIL-STD-810F
compliant 128GB SATA flash SSD with integrated encryption.
SMART Modular
Technologies started shipping the Xcel-10 SSD - a 2.5" SLC flash SSD
with upto 128GB capacity. Sustained read speed is 115MB/s, and write speed is
125MB/s. (It really is faster than the read speed). It delivers 5,580 IOPS at
100% read or 980 IOPS at 67% read, 33% write, for random I/O using 4K block
size.
SanDisk
announced it may offload $1 billion worth of fab costs to joint partner
Toshiba - after SanDisk
reported 21% revenue decline for the most recent quarter.
Cactus Technologies
launched the SDChip - a 4GB BGA module with SD interface designed to be
soldered as a component for customers in the industrial embedded marketplace.
Intel started
shipping the X-25E - a
fast
2.5" 32GB
SATA SLC
flash SSD. Read
latency is 75 microseconds and a 10 parallel channel architecture enables it to
sustain R/W throughputs of 250 / 170 MB/s. Random IOPS performance is
impressive with a 10 to 1 R/W ratio which is inline with the best
designed enterprise flash SSDs. Using 4kB blocks - random R/W IOPS are 35,000
and 3,300 respectively.
SiliconSystems
contributed its SiliconDrive II Blade specification to the
Small Form Factor Special Interest Group for
the purpose of creating an official governing standard.
Dataram re-entered the SSD
market with the acquisition of strategic assets from
Cenatek whose CEO has
joined Dataram to lead the company's return to solid state storage, an area they
pioneered almost 40 years ago.
Virtium Technology
entered the SSD market with its LeanSTOR - an AMC form factor SSD module for
the AdvancedTCA market.
IMEC said it had started new
research activities on resistive RAM (RRAM) cells - as a possible future
technology to replace flash.
November 2008
A-DATA launched the XPG -
a dual interface USB and
SATA
2.5" SSD.
Available with capacities from 32GB to 192GB - it has a read speed upto 170MB/s
and write speed upto 100MB/s.
Spansion filed a
multibillion dollar patent infringement suit with the ITC against
Samsung related to
flash memory IP.
Samsung
announced it was shipping a fast
2.5" SATA MLC SSD
with 256GB capacity in standard 9.5mm height, with 220MB/s read, and 200MB/s
sustained write speed. No IOPS data was available at launch. But on R/W specs -
this is one of the top 3
fastest 2.5"
SSDs.
Violin
Memory announced availability of a new 1010 Memory Appliance - a fast 4TB
SLC flash SSD in a 2U rackmount. Its patent pending non blocking architecture
delivers the best ratio of flash R/W IOPS in the industry - over 200K random
Read IOPS and 100K random Write IOPS (4K block). Interface options include:-
PCIe,
Fibre Channel and
Ethernet.
Austin
Semiconductor announced a new physically smaller SSD chip for
ruggedized embedded applications. Measuring 31mm sq x 7.8mm high it has an
embedded IDE, PIO/4 interface, an MTBF of more than 2 million hours and upto
16GB capacity.
Sun Microsystems
launched its 7000 family of rackmount NAS systems - which includes hybrid HDD
/ flash SSD arrays. Sun says its Solaris ZFS can optimize the SSDs
intelligently as a part of a storage pool. MSRP for a 4U system with 44TB
of 7,200 RPM hard drives, 36GB flash SSD and 64GB RAM is $117,995.
Curtiss-Wright
launched 2 new flash SSDs in XMC and PMC form factors with upto 32GB capacity.
Each card contains 2 independent SATA SSDs with upto 30MB/s throughput. For
maximum throughput (50MB/s) the 2 drives can be run in RAID 0 mode.
Solid Access
Technologies launched a new range of RAM SSDs available with
Fibre Channel,
SAS or
SCSI interfaces. The USSD
300 family includes the world's fastest 1U SSD with 256GB capacity, 10
microseconds latency and 100K IOPS on a single port. The 2U model supports
4GB/s sustained bandwidth and upto 6 ports.
BiTMICRO Networks said it
had started customer shipments of 128GB models from its E-Disk Altima family
of 3.5" 4Gbps Fibre Channel SLC flash SSDs.
Network Appliance
published details of its corporate thinking re SSDs. NetApp's paper -
Flash Memory Technology
in Enterprise Storage (pdf) doesn't actually say much beyond the fact
they're qualifying some products and will launch systems offerings which
include flash SSDs sometime in 2009.
SanDisk published a new
white paper on the subject of
Virtual
RPM for flash SSDs (pdf). The unoriginal concept is apparently aimed
at people who have been trapped in a stasis field for the past several years and
who are still making
unrealistic SSD
vs HDD IOPS comparisons. SanDisk also promised faster SSDs in 2009. No oem
has yet promised to ship slower devices next year. Now that would be newsworthy!
December 2008
RunCore announced
1.8" PATA SSDs aimed
at the notebook upgrade market. Available with capacity upto 128GB (retail
price $389.99 ) an inbuilt slave
USB port enables users to
easily clone their internal hard
drive using Acronis
True Image (or similar) software. The SSD can then be installed in the notebook
typically giving a 4x speedup. RunCore also launched its Hyper Speed - a
2.5"
SATA SSD with 256GB
with RW speeds of 230MB/s and 150MB/s respectively priced under $700.
A-DATA launched the XPG
- a 3.5" SSD enclosure for 2x 2.5" SATA SSDs. It can operate as
a single mirror protected unit, or as a single high capacity drive.
Super Talent
Technology said it will sample a new range of 2.5" SATA flash SSDs in
January 2009. The SLC unit has 128GB capacity and R/W speeds upto 230/170
MB/sec. The MLC unit has 256GB capacity and R/W speeds upto 200/160 MB/sec.
Toshiba said it
will sample a new family of MLC flash SSDs with 256GB capacity in 2.5" and
128GB capacity in 1.8" form factors in Q1 2009.
Hitachi and
Intel announced they were
jointly designing a new range of high IOPS flash SSDs with
Fibre Channel and
SAS interfaces for
the server market. The new products, which will be exclusively marketed by
Hitachi GST - are expected to ship in Q1 2010.
SiliconSystems
published a significant whitepaper -
NAND
Evolution and its Effects on SSD Useable Life (pdf). Starting with a tour
of the state of the art in the flash SSD market the paper introduces several
new concepts (including write amplification and wear leveling efficiency) to
help systems designers understand why current wear usage models don't give a
complete picture.
STEC
issued
new
guidance for the revenue outlook in Q4 2008. STEC downgraded its revenue
guidance for the 4th quarter by 20% - which is not unremarkable given
the current state of the economy. Notwithstanding that - STEC's SSD business is
expected to have revenues in 2008 which are 5x the level in 2007.
January 2009
PQI launched a 32GB
ExpressCard SSD with 88MB/s read speed, and 48MB/s write.
Kingston Technology
announced it will sell rebranded high speed SSDs supplied by
Intel as Kingston's
SSDNow E Series.
RunCore
infringed copyright by publishing an article from
StorageSearch.com on its website in
full without permission, and without any attribution.
Verbatim said it will
ship a 64GB ExpressCard SSD in February (price $299.99 ) with read speed upto
125MB/s, and write speed upto 30MB/s.
G-Technology launched the
G-RAID mini SSD - a desktop
RAID system for the Mac
market - with internal 2.5" SSDs and
eSATA,
FireWire and
USB interfaces.
StorageSearch.com disclosed that
in the 1st 4 weeks of January pageviews for
PCIe (PCI Express) SSDs
had overtaken all other SSD form factors except
2.5" SSDs. The
interest in PCIe SSDs has accelerated dramatically.
Toshiba announced it will
start volume production of dual port
SAS SLC flash SSDs in
Q2 2009. The 2.5" SSDs
will have 100GB capacity, and 25,000 read IOPS, and 20,000 write IOPS. One of
the enabling factors for the high write IOPS is the use of a non-volatile cache
- which was predicted in StorageSearch.com's article -
the Flash SSD Performance
Roadmap. This brings the number of oems who have announced
SAS SSDs to 6.
Samsung announced details
of a new 100GB 2.5" SLC flash SSD that will ship this quarter. For the 1st
time Samsung disclosed IOPS data - 25k random read IOPS and 6k write IOPS. R/W
throughput is 230MB/s and 180MB/s respectively.
SanDisk unveiled a new
family of 1.8" and 2.5" MLC flash SSDs that will ship in mid 2009.
Capacities (and anticipated MSRPs) are as follows:- 60GB ($149), 120GB ($249)
and 240GB ($499). Anticipated sequential performance is quoted as:- 200MB/s
read and 140MB/s write.
pureSilicon said it is
sampling the highest density
2.5" SSD - with
1TB capacity in a 9.5mm high form factor. Sustained read / write performance is
240MB/s and 215MB/s respectively. The
SATA SSD has latency
under 100 µsec and is rated at 50,000 read IOPS, and 10,000 write IOPS.
The company emerged from stealth mode in October 2008 as a
military storage oem -
but the new products could find a much bigger market in commercial servers. I
asked if compression was involved in achieving the capacity - but was told - no.
Internally it's got 128 pieces of 64Gb MLC NAND.
Texas Memory Systems
announced that its SSD revenue in 2008 had grown 20% compared to 2007,
and that it had also achieved record revenue in Q4 (the time when the Credit
Crunch iceberg hit the Titanic world economy hard enough for even the 1st
class passengers to take pause).
Nimbus Data Systems
launched its
DH200 - a 4
port 10GbE NAS - which
supports upto 10TB of flash SSD storage.
RAID Inc - launched a 1U
rackmount SSD -
the Razor SSD - a 12 bay 4
port fibre-channel system
using COTS 2.5" SAS
SSDs in a RAID array.
The
SSD market notched another kill when
Fujitsu announced it
will discontinue its HDD
business this quarter. ...Later:- in February 2009 - it emerged the new owner
will be Toshiba who
plans to marry its flash SSD technology with Fujitsu's HDD IP to spawn new
enterprise SSDs.
Apacer
launched a miniature SLC flash SSD - the
Mini
SAFD 25M - which fits into 1/2 the footprint of a
2.5" SSD. Capacity
ranges from 256MB to 16GB and R/W speed is 35MB/s and 25MB/s respectively. A
shell is available for users who want to mount this in a 2.5" hard disk
slot.
CoreSolidStorage
launched the world's lightest 2.5" SLC flash SSD. Weighing just 62g, the
SATA compatible Ares has 64GB capacity and R/W speed 170MB/s and 135MB/s
respectively.
February 2009
Seagate announced it had
dismissed its patent suit against
STEC.
SanDisk announced that it
will begin mass-production of the world's first 4-bits-per-cell (X4) flash
memory. Using 43nm process technology, this breakthrough enables 64Gb memory in
a single die - the highest capacity in the industry
DTS announced availability
of the fastest 3.5" SATA SSD - the Platinum HDD 2009 model. Internally it
has a 1GB RAM SSD which operates as a non volatile RAM cache for an internal
flash SSD (320GB to 512GB). Aimed at server acceleration applications
performance is 25,000 R/W IOPS, read speed is 250MB/s, and write speed is upto
240MB/s. DTS says the huge nv cache also attenuates writes (opposite of write
amplification) - thereby reducing flash wear by x10 to x400 compared to
conventional flash SSDs.
White Electronic Designs
announced a new technology which automatically
sanitizes a
flash SSD to military standards - when the device is moved outside a specified
operating zone - to prevent data falling into enemy hands.
SalvationDATA
announced it has developed a new technology for
flash SSD data
recovery. The company says its methodology will work with all commercial
devices (excluding military and industrial SSDs which have inbuilt secure
erase). The new tool is expected to launch in May 2009.
Steve Wozniak became
Chief Scientist at
Fusion-io. Wozniak
will act as a key technical advisor to the Fusion-io research and development
group and will also work closely with the executive team of Fusion-io in
formulating a strategy that will accelerate the expansion of major global
accounts.
Viking
Modular Solutions launched the ArxCis-NV - an SSD based backup for
RAID controller cache.
When the external logic power rail drops - internal Supercapacitors sustain
power inside the module long enough (typically 10 to 15 seconds) to save the
cache contents to an SLC SSD.
Network Appliance
announced 2 strands in its solid state storage acceleration strategy:-
support for the
RamSan-500 flash SSD
array (from Texas Memory
Systems' ) via NetApp's V-Series storage controller and also a new
Performance
Acceleration Module which provides a read cache (16GB to 80GB)
implemented by PCI Express DRAM cards.
Hyperstone launched a
controller chip for oems designing industrial grade CF compatible SSDs. The F4
provides safe power-fail handling, proven error detection and correction and
static wear leveling. Data transfer rate to the attached flash memory array (16
chips) is upto 80MB/s. Sustained R/W via the CF interface is upto 50MB/s and
40MB/s respectively. Alternatively oems can add a
SATA bridge, or
RAID controller for
other markets.
Hitachi
GST announced it is acquiring
Fabrik, the parent company of
G-Technology.
SMART Modular
Technologies announced new
3.5" parallel
SCSI SSDs with upto
128GB and faster secure erase for industrial, defense, and other embedded
applications that require extremely rugged storage devices and legacy
interfaces.
Linkvast
Technologies unveiled a family of
4 channel
(32bit/32CE) and 8
channel (64bit/64CE) SATA flash SSD controllers that will ship in June,
2009. The controllers support all mainstream SLC & MLC
flash memory devices. The
external DRAM architecture enhances SSD performance and can reduce flash
wear out. Package is 279-Balls 15mm x 15mm LBGA.
Coraid added
SSDs to the
drives supported in its AoE
compatible RAID systems.
March 2009
Western Digital entered
the SSD market by acquiring
SiliconSystems
for $65 million in a cash transaction.
STEC announced that its
revenue
in 2008 had grown 20% year on year to $227.4 million.
EMC announced it has
qualified higher capacity
400GB flash
SSDs for use in its storage systems.
OCZ Technology Group unveiled
a PCIe SSD at
CeBIT. The Z Drive uses
MLC flash and has
1TB capacity.
4DS
announced
additional funding
as part of a multi-million dollar equity investment to port its
RRAM
technology to existing semiconductor fabs.
LSI
announced better support for
flash SSDs in the
latest update to its
MegaRAID
SAS adapters. LSI calls this new feature SSD Guard - which can anticipate
some types of flash SSD failures in
RAID 0 configurations
and starts rebuilding data on a spare unit.
Texas Memory
Systems unveiled a PCIe
SSD that will ship in Q2 2009. The
RamSan-20 has 450GB
of RAID protected SLC flash with 80 microseconds latency. R/W bandwidth is
700MB/s and 500MB/s respectively. Sustained IOPS are:- 120,000 random read, and
50,000 random write. Endurance is rated at 12 years (assuming 25% continuous
writes). List price is about $18,000.
Hagiwara Sys-Com
extended its range of
1" SSDs - with
the launch of the
CFast Storage
Card which will ship in Q2. These industrial grade SSDs are form factor
compatible with CF cards, but have a
SATA interface.
Capacities range from 2GB to 16GB. See also:-
CFast -
Evolution (pdf)
Pillar
Data Systems launched the Axiom SSD Brick, a storage module with upto 12
Intel SSDs which is
compatible with Pillar's distributed RAID systems. Pillar's application
aware QoS software dynamically chooses storage types (SSD, FC-HDD, or SATA-HDD)
and tunes performance to satisfy quality of service priorities based on
user selections for each type of application.
Fusion-io announced an
oem deal with HP whose new
PCIe based
StorageWorks
IO Accelerator for for HP BladeSystem c-Class servers is based on
Fusion's ioMemory SSD technology. A low level formatting tool for the HP SSD
enables users to choose what level of
over-provisioning is
used - as a performance
tweaking option.
A-DATA
launched a 512GB 2.5" flash SSD at
CeBIT. The dual interface (USB and
SATA) compatible SSD
has R/W speeds upto 230MB/s and 160MB/s and is aimed at notebooks.
Pretec Electronics is
sampling a 128GB ExpressCard SSD for the notebook market with 38/30MB/s R/W
speeds and hardware encryption. Volume shipments are expected next month.
Solid
Access Technologies said it has broken the $10,000 price barrier
for a high performance rackmount
RAM SSD. It's offering
a 2U 16GB FC or
SAS connected USSD
200 model for just $9,900.
Sun Microsystems
launched its new Sun
Flash Analyzer - a free Java tool to help users determine how much their
(Solaris, Windows and Linux) servers could benefit from SSD acceleration. The
company also launched a try before you buy marketing promotion for its servers
which have Sun branded 2.5" SLC flash SSDs pre-integrated. The 32GB SATA
SSDs have sequential R/W upto 250MB/s and 170MB/s respectively. Random R/W IOPS
are upto 35,000 and 3,300 respectively (4k blocks). Endurance is 3 years -
assuming max write speed and 100% write duty cycle.
Dell announced
SSD
options for its iSCSI
compatible EqualLogic PS6000 storage arrays. Pricing starts at $25,000. This
brings the number of rackmount
SSD oems to 34. That number is expected to reach 300 in 2010.
SiliconSystems
announced that it has shipped over 4 million SiliconDrives integrated
with the company's
SiSMART
technology. SiliconSystems also said it will ship faster versions of its 2.5"
and 1.8" SiliconDrives in the next quarter - with R/W speeds up to 100MB/s
and 80MB/s respectively, and (SLC) capacity upto 128GB.
Dolphin launched the
StorExpress
a rackmount SLC
flash SSD with upto 960GB capacity. The
PCIe connected SSD has
R/W throughput upto 2,700MB/s and 50 microsecond access latency. Dolphin quotes
a figure of 270,000 IOPS but the initial datasheet doesn't break out IOPS
figures for reads and writes. The StorExpress can be located upto 10m from the
host bus using copper cable and 300m with optical fibre.
Winchester Systems
said it will launch a range of rugged
rackmount SSDs
this month at FOSE
. Among these is a 1U RAID 5 / 6 protected rugged SSD array - the
RX-1300 FlashDisk
- which houses 12x
2.5" SSDs.
Interface options for the array include
SAS,
FC and
PCIe.
Viking Modular Solutions
launched the SATA Cube - a flash SSD which provides upto 256GB capacity in a
small 30x32mm footprint. Sustained R/W speeds are 110MB/s and 79MB/s
respectively. It's available as a BGA device or with a MicroSATA connector.
Fusion-io announced an
enhanced version of its ioDrive - called the
ioDrive Duo
which will ship next month. Capacity has doubled to 640GB with 1.2TB planned
for the 2nd half of 2009. Performance has been enhanced too. The ioDrive Duo
can easily sustain 1.5 Gbytes/sec of read bandwidth. Read IOPS performance is
186,000 (4k packet size). Write IOPS reaches 167,000 (4k packet size).
Memoright said it will
ship a new industrial grade 2.5" flash SSD range in May. The rSSD
(upto 128GB capacity) is designed to operate from -40 to +85 degrees C and
the company says its product testing processes satisfy MIL-STD-810F. R/W speeds
are both upto 120MB/s.
Compellent
announced
it would demonstrate its tiered SSD technology at a user event in May 2009.
The physical layer is based on
STEC's ZeusIOPS SSDs.
The soft part, something which Compellent calls
policy
driven Data Progression apparently " minimizes the number of SSDs
required while providing the highest levels of performance for mission-critical
applications."
Mobile Mode launched a
PCIe SSD for the
Windows Vista / XP market - the
G-Monster-PCIe
Turbo Speed SSD. Capacity options include:- 256GB, 512GB and 1TB. Both
MLC and SLC options
are available. The flash array includes onboard RAID protection and has R/W
speeds upto 750MB/s and 700MB/s respectively.
April 2009
StorageSearch.com
launched a new directory of merchant market
SSD controller chip
vendors.
SandForce
unveiled its
SF-1000 family of SSD
Processors - aimed at oems building SATA flash SSDs. Its 2.5" SSD reference
design kit is the fastest 2.5" SATA flash SSD on the market - with 250MB/s
symmetric R/W throughput and 30,000 R/W IOPS.
Fusion-io was named the
#1 company in StorageSearch.com's
list of the the Top 10
SSD OEMs based on search volume in Q1 2009. This was the 1st time that the
#1 slot has been held by a company which does not make traditional
hard-disk form-factor
SSDs. Also this month, Fusion-io announced it has closed $47.5 million
in Series B funding and
named a new CEO,
David Bradford.
Super
Talent Technology pre-announced its
RAIDDrives
SSD product line. This connects via
PCIe and supports up
to 2TB of RAID5 protected MLC flash storage. R/W performance is upto 1.2GB/s
and 1.3GB/s respectively. More details are promised in June 2009.
Solidata announced
it has
appointed
Melbourne based Solid
State Central as its new exclusive distributor for the
SSD market in Australia.
Intel said it is EOLing
its
Z-P230
SSD module which was aimed at the netbook market. 25 companies now make
SSD chips, DOMs or SSD
modules designed to fit into very small footprints.
Samsung will pay Spansion $70 million as
part of a flash memory
patent
settlement.
The companies have also exchanged rights in their patent portfolios in the form
of licenses and covenants subject to a confidential settlement agreement.
Samsung claimed to be
the 1st company to offer
SSDs with hardware-based
encryption in a misleading press release.
OCZ
unveiled its
1st miniPCI-Express
compatible SSDs. Aimed at
notebooks OCZ miniPCI-E options include:- 16GB or 32GB capacity, and 2
interface options.
SATA
models - have R/W speeds 110MB/s and 51MB/s respectively .
PATA
models - have R/W speeds 45MB/s and 35MB/s respectively.
Texas Memory Systems
announced the RamSan-620
- a 2U rackmount
SLC Flash SSD with 2TB ($88,000 list price) to 5TB capacity and 2 to 8
FC or
InfiniBand ports.
Throughput is 3GB/s. R/W latency is 250µS and 80µS respectively.
Transactional performance is 250,000 random IOPS. Power consumption is 325W.
Multiple RamSan-620s can scale to higher capacities.
MAGMA and
Dolphin jointly
announced
they have collaborated to develop an improved version of the latter's
previously announced 2U StorExpress
PCIe SSD product line,
which will ship next month. Capacity options include 0.5TB (under $20K), 1TB and
2TB. It achieves 270K read and write IOPs (512 bytes to 4KB blocks) and up to
2.8GB/s of sustained bandwidth. Latency is less than 50µS. The StorExpress
enclosure can be positioned 1,000 feet away from the host server using fiber.
SSD news /
Storage History
/ StorageSearch.com |
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| SSD Myths and
Legends - "write endurance" |
| Does
the fatal gene of "write endurance" built into
flash
solid state
disks prevent their deployment in intensive server acceleration
applications - such as RAID
systems? |
It
was certainly true as little as a few years ago.
What's the risk with
today's devices?
This article looks at the current generation of
products and calculates how much (or how little) you should be worried. |
 | |
| RAM based SSDs have been
used alongside RAID for years - but
flash SSDs are
physically smaller and have bigger capacity (upto 412G in 2.5", 832G in
3.5") and are lower cost than RAM-SSDs and could actually be configured
in standard RAID boxes. F-SSDs aren't as fast as RAM based products but a single
flash SSD can deliver 20,000 IOPs - which when scaled up in an array - starts to
look interesting.
...read the
article,
storage reliability
solid state disks | |
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the Fastest Solid State
Disks
Speed isn't everything, and it comes at a price. |
But if
you do need the speediest
SSD then wading through the web sites of 100 current
SSD oems to find a suitable
candidate slows you down.
And the SSD search problem will get even
worse. |
| |
| I've done the research for you
to save you time. And this page is updated daily from
storage news and direct
inputs from oems. ...read
the article, | |
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 |
Flash
Memory vs. Hard Disk Drives - Which Will Win? - article by Semico Research
There's
a confusing picture in many consumer products like phones, cameras and music
players in which one day it seems that the storage function is done by flash
and next day another company announces they're doing the same thing with
miniature hard disks.
Is there any sense to this seemingly random
choice?
This article uses pricing trends, technology trends and
unique market analysis insights to show that users and oems may be able to
reliably predict which storage devices will be most cost effective depending
where you are on the future history curve. ...read the article,
...Semico Research profile,
Hard disk drives,
Flash Memory,
Market research,
Solid state disks | |
| . |
| Z's Laws - Predicting
Future Flash SSD Performance |
A few months ago a
reader asked me a very good question.
"Is there an industry
roadmap for future flash
SSD performance?"
That prompted other questions like...
- How fast are flash SSDs going to be in 2009?, 2010? or 2012?
- What are the technology factors which relate to flash SSD throughput and
IOPS?
- How close will flash SSDs get to
RAM SSD performance?
There wasn't a simple answer I could give at the time. Clues lay
scattered all across this web site
and in my many one on one discussions with readers about the market... |
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But I agreed there should be
a single place on the web where these answers could be found.
Forget
Moore's
Law. That gives you the wrong answer, and this article explains why. ...read the article | | |
| . |
Timeline Correction
I
originally stated that - in January 2006 -
NextCom became
the first notebook maker to qualify flash SSDs*.
I later added the
note "for use in Windows XP, Linux and Solaris notebooks."
Thanks
to Robin Harris, editor StorageMojo.com
for this email note (April 19, 2006).
"The original
HP
Omnibook 300 offered a PCMCIA flash disk as a several hundred dollar
option ($400?) back in (I think) 1993.
"I know because I bought it and used one for years. The option
had 10MB of capacity and HP packaged in a compression utility that
automatically compressed everything on the flash card, so the effective
capacity was 20MB.
"The real benefit wasn't weight, as the 300 weighed in at 2.9lbs
with or without a hard disk. The win was battery life - which went to 10
hours with the SSD from about 3-4 hours with the HDD.
"With an instant-on feature that really worked, and a decent PDA
and terminal emulation, built in Word & Excel (to which I added
Powerpoint) I had a very solid, unfussy machine that I only had to charge
every few days. Lived with it daily for 5 years until I had to give it up
because it would no longer do what I needed."
See also:-
article:-
Passing of an Old Friend - HP's Omnibook
Editor:- strictly speaking
the Omnibook drive wasn't an SSD, because it didn't include
wear-leveling. But
it was an early example of
flash replacing hard
disk storage in a notebook style product. | |
| . |
| Are MLC SSDs Ever
Safe in Enterprise Apps? |
This is a follow up
article to the popular
SSD Myths and
Legends which, in early 2007, demolished the myth that flash memory
wear-out (a comfort blanket beloved by many
RAM SSD makers)
precluded the use of flash in heavy duty datacenters.
This new
article, published in Feb 2008, looks at the risks posed by MLC Nand Flash
SSDs which have recently hatched from their breeeding ground as chip modules
in cellphones and morphed into
hard disk form
factors. |
 |
It starts down a familiar
lane but an unexpected technology twist (which arrived in my email this
morning) takes you to a startling new world of possibilities. ...read the article | | |
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| . |
More about one the early
references at the beginning of this article
I mentioned a
company at the start of this article called "Square D.
In
1978 they launched their 2nd generation programmable controller called the
SY/MAX-20. This was a real-time industrial computer which was EMI / RFI
hardened to operate reliably in factory automation applications alongside
welding equipment, cranes etc - and running through its entire program and
updating all I/O deterministically every 20 milliseconds. It used an
AMD
bit
slice architecture - organized as a 12 bit register and ALU - to run the
company's interpreted ladder logic language an order of magnitude faster than
the 8 bit microprocessors which were at that time available.
If you
read the Pulitzer Prize winning
Soul of a New
Machine (published 1981) which describes what was happening in Data
General's minicomputer design team - you get the general idea of what companies
were doing at this time.
When I joined the SY/MAX-20 design team in
1979 - the bit slice product had already been in volume production for a while.
The company was worried about the customer removable solid state
storage modules which held the customer programs. The 1st generation modules
had used electrically alterable memory chips - but the permanence and wear-out
were being revised drastically downwards compared to the original
extrapolated life which chipmakers had forecast.
So as many other
companies would do later - Square D - redesigned these modules to use battery
backed CMOS RAMs. Because these computers directly operated big dangerous
machines - in high electrical interference enviroments - it was critical to
design protection circuits around the removable solid state memory which would
guarantee that no data corruption occured regardless of how many transient
spikes might hit the logic system.
Another factor was that the
removable modules had to be capable of being dropped onto a concrete floor -
when out of the system - and also be capable of being inserted and removed
while the host system was under power - and run under extremes of temperature.
In
my time at Square D I designed some intelligent analog I/O modules - and then
moved onto other companies to focus on high accuracy process instrumentation and
pushing some boundaries in analog design.
Later in the mid to late
80s I was technical manager at a company whose business was to design the
world's fastest real-time I/O platforms for defense and research applications.
There we used solid state storage to run disk operating systems in
multi-processor VMEbus racks. We had to rewrite part of the OS, and we wrote all
our own drivers too, but that was common in those days.
The solid state
storage gave faster performance and better reliability than was available from
disk systems. We also built our own
RAID controller and
designed data recorders which could do wire-speed throughput of analog data to
hard disks and real-time radar to big memory arrays for our deep pocketed
government customers. They could analyze the data too - with internal array
processors or embedded SPARC workstations. It was great fun and a good
education for my later career here at StorageSearch.com. | |
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|
SSD
Industry Articles and Bookmarks - March 10, 2009
suggested by -
Rey Bruce, CEO BiTMICRO |
Here's an article written by or
about BiTMICRO
Flash Solid
State Disk Write Endurance in Database Environments
Rey Bruce says
he chose this article because
"It contains valuable information
and thorough discussion of issues surrounding Flash SSDs write endurance
performance in various database applications in the enterprise market. It is a
very good reference for everyone who seeks better understanding of what flash
SSDs offer."
Other SSD article suggestions...
Storage
vendors debate Flash as cache - published in
IT Knowledge
Exchange
Rey Bruce says he recommends this article because - "It
is an indication of the SSD industry's diversified outlook in terms of the best
usage for flash. It's all a matter of serving the right option for every
customer."
Editor:- thanks Rey for sharing your SSD links.
see also:-
BiTMICRO
- editor mentions on StorageSearch.com | | |
