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LSI

LSI is a leading provider of innovative silicon,
systems and software technologies that enable
products which seamlessly bring people, information
and digital content together.
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The company's products are trusted by the world's
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SandForce SSD processors - click for more info
the award winning silicon driving leading SSDs
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..... LSI - addresses and links

Corporate Headquarters

LSI Corp
1320 Ridder Park Drive,
San Jose, CA 95131
USA

url:- http://www.lsi.com
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See also:- LSI - editor mentions on StorageSearch.com and LSI's SSD page

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Editor's comments:- January 2013 - LSI - ranked #12 in the top SSD companies in Q1 2013 - operates in the PCIe SSD, SSD controller and auto tiering / SSD ASAPs markets.

The company sampled its 1st SSD product in March 2010. It was a PCIe SSD - which is software compatible with SAS - an interface which LSI helped to pioneer. Elements of the IP in the new SSD design came from Seagate and SandForce.

LSI acquired SandForce in January 2012 - and revealed the strategic significance of this shortly afterwards when it revealed that LSI's PCIe SSD product - the WarpDrive - was being oemed by EMC.

LSI's SSDs are small (rather than big) SSD architecture and span a wide range of market applications including:- enterprise SSDs, industrial SSDs and consumer SSDs.

The company has not - at the time of writing this - revealed what it's doing to develop adaptive DSP ECC IP for SSDs. But it must be on the roadmap.
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LSI - selected SSD milestones from 30 Years of SSD Market History

In March 2009 - 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.

In December 2009 - LSI announced it is sampling the LSISAS2208 dual-core 6Gb/s SAS RAID-on-Chip IC to OEM customers. It's intended to support the forthcoming PCIe 3.0 specification, currently under development and provide performance levels that meet the needs of next-generation server platforms based on flash SSD storage. The new LSI SAS ROC will deliver performance levels of up to 600,000 IOPS.

In January 2010 - LSI and Seagate announced they have collaborated on designing PCIe SSDs for the enterprise accelerator market - which started sampling in March 2010. At that time - LSI was approximately the 163rd company to enter the SSD market (not counting SSD SoC makers - which would push the score to about 185).

in November, 2010 - Demartek published a sponsored test report (pdf) which compares the performance of SSDs and HDDs in a simulated web server environment when managed by LSI's CacheCade software - which provides SSD ASAP functionality.

Editor's commnents:- The report shows that throughput and access times were improved by at least 3x using a single SSD cache compared to the HDD only situation.

However - it's disappointing that the sizing of the test was not best chosen to draw meaningful conclusions. Because the web content was only 25% larger than the SSD capacity! It would have been more helpful to design a simulated case in which there was at least a 10x or 100x size difference. Because if you can fit all the web content onto an SSD then you don't need the burden of the "cache" software at all - and might get better results by switching it off.

There are case studies going back nearly 10 years which show that SSDs can provide big speedups in web servers. The exact speedup depends on how fast the SSD is. This test report doesn't answer the question - is LSI's CacheCade useful in a realistically scaled environment?

In March 2011 - LSI finally spun off the Engenio systems business - selling it for $480 million to Network Appliance.

In June 2011 - LSI was one of several compatible companies named in FlashSoft's launch of its auto tiering SSD software.

In October 2011 - LSI announced a definitive agreement to acquire SandForce for approximately $322 million. The transaction is expected to close early in the first quarter of 2012. SandForce president and CEO, Michael Raam will become General Manager of LSI's newly formed Flash Components Division.

In January 2012 - LSI announced it has completed the acquisition of SandForce. And LSI also announced that its PCIe SSD product - the WarpDrive - will be oemed by EMC.

In April 2012 - LSI announced details of its new Nytro family of SSD technologies - which integrate and join up several previously standalone elements in its product line in a new unified marketing roadmap.

In June 2012 - LSI demonstrated its SandForce SF-2000 flash controllers working with Toshiba 19nm and Intel 20nm NAND flash memory at Computex 2012 in Taipei, Taiwan.
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LSI announces a new technology roadmap for SSD accelerator components
Editor:- April 2, 2012 - LSI today announced details of its new Nytro family of SSD technologies - which integrate and join up several previously standalone elements in its product line in a new unified marketing direction.

In particular LSI is saying that its legacy MegaRAID controllers and software stack can be used as reliable proven launch pads for its SSD ASAP / acceleration software - which is being integrated in new upcoming generations of PCIe SSD cards (now called Nytro WarpDrives) which use LSI/SandForce controllers.

Editor's comments:- in a 2009 storage market forecast I said - "the high end of the RAID controller market is going to disappear" - and I explained why companies in that market - like LSI had to migrate to PCIe SSDs and SSD systems array technology such as SSD ASAPs to satisfy the emerging needs of their oem customers - which in previous decades had been met by RAID adapters and controller chips.

What LSI has done in the past few years is acquire or develop individual pieces of the technology puzzle - and selling their storage systems business Engenio 12 months ago so that they didn't compete with their storage oem customers - was just as important as acquiring SandForce.

I spoke to LSI about the new Nytro technology last week. From the sales point of view they see this as offering affordable SSD acceleration for the masses. So you're going to see low price point fast-enough SSD ASAPs - rather than the fastest.

Other common features in the product line are that the products are bootable, work with legacy SAS software and have minimal load on the server CPU.

LSI will also work to get better integration between the functionality of its SSD controllers and the host cards and caching software. That should lead to better latency and reliability in the future.

difference between LSI and FIO?

What's the single biggest difference you may ask - between LSI and some of the other companies in this part of the PCIe SSD ASAP market? And in particular a company like Fusion-io?

The technical ingredients above are very different - and I could summarize that by saying LSI is at heart an SSD hardware company with most of its IP in chips - whereas FIO is at heart an SSD software company which uses chips as deliverables - but nearly all FIO's IP is in software. That's one way of looking at it - but the clearest difference I see between LSI and FIO is where they are in the philosophy of their thinking re the SSD market adoption model.

All the Nytro marketing orientation materials I saw still talked a lot about how SSDs would fit into an HDD world.

When I questioned that - I got the impression that LSI's corporate marketing hasn't gone much beyond that stage. LSI is still at the "SSDs help HDDs point" whereas FIO and many other SSD makers - and this publication - and many of you too are beyond that and know that the future of all enterprise storage is solid state. The tricky part is navigating safely from here to there.

Finally - Nytro sounds like a good name for an SSD brand - but it's not entirely original.
pcie  SSDs - click to read article A company called Curtis used to sell a 3.5" FC SSD family called Nitro!FC about 10 years ago. See also:- Inanimate Power, Speed and Strength Metaphors in SSD brands
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SSD ad - click for more info
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How big was the thinking in this SSD's design?
Does size really does matter in SSD design?

By that I mean how big was the mental map? - not how many inches wide is the SSD.

The novel and the short story both have their place in literature and the pages look exactly the same. But you know from experience which works best in different situations and why.

When it comes to SSDs - Big versus Small SSD architecture - is something which was in the designer's mind. Even if they didn't think about it that way at the time.
click to read the article - Big versus Small SSD  architectures For designers, integrators, end users and investors alike - understanding what follows from these simple choices predicts a lot of important consequences. ...read the article
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SSD sudden power loss vulnerability guide
Why should you care what happens in an SSD when the power goes down?

This important design feature - which barely rates a mention in most SSD datasheets and press releases - has a strong impact on SSD data integrity and operational reliability.

This article will help you understand why some SSDs which (work perfectly well in one type of application) might fail in others... even when the changes in the operational environment appear to be negligible.
image shows Megabyte's hot air balloon - click to read the article SSD power down architectures and acharacteristics If you thought endurance was the end of the SSD reliability story - think again. ...read the article
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more articles on StorageSearch.com
the Survivor's Guide to Enterprise SSDs - a list of do's and don'ts

the Business Case for SSD ASAPs - (Auto-tuning SSD Accelerated Pools of storage) - also includes directory of articles re auto-tiering and caching

what do enterprise SSD users want? - and why aren't vendors asking.

how fast can your SSD run backwards? - 11 Key a/Symmetries in SSD design

The big market impact of SSD dark matter - some of the very biggest direct customer opportunities for SSDs aren't the big name computer and storage oems.

Where are we now with SSD software? - (And how did we get into this mess?)

adaptive R/W flash care management IP (including DSP) for SSDs - what is it? and who does it? This will be a disruptive transition.

enterprise SSDs - exploring the limits of the market in your head - is about enterprise SSD futurology.

Can you tell me the best way to SSD Street? - I'm like the Old Woman of the SSD Village who talks to everyone that passes through. No wonder I have a unique perspective. It would be strange if I didn't.

comparing the SSD market today to earlier tech disruptions - applying a sense of perspective to what's happening now with SSDs
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we're #2 in PCIe SSDs and growing fast - says LSI
Editor:- May 15, 2013 - LSI today announced it shipped over 40,000 PCIe SSDs in the past 12 months - and has been ranked the #2 merchant supplier of enterprise PCIe SSDs in the US, and is the fastest growing vendor in this category according to a recent report by Forward Insights.
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new LSI blog on the value of enterprise flash
Editor:- March 14, 2013 - You won't be surprised to see me mentioning a recently published blog by Robert Ober, System and Processor Architect, LSI - about the value of PCIe SSDs in big datacenters - which includes these statements:-
  • "Work/$ is the correct metric (and not crazy expensive $/bit)."
  • "when users say - $8k PCIe card in a $4k server really? - I am always stunned by this"
I'm guessing that the title of Robert's blog - What are the driving forces behind going diskless? Will 100% flash storage make sense in enterprise? - was either inspired by SEO considerations (stuffing the title with value-loaded words for search-engines) or was predetermined before the blog was written.

I prefer this alternative title - suggested by a banner graphic in the blog itself - An $8K PCIe card in an $4k server - huh!?!
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NetApp and LSI do that "my software loves your SSD" thing
Editor:- March 6, 2013 - LSI today announced that its Nytro WarpDrive (PCIe SSDs) have been validated for use with NetApp's Flash Accel (SSD ASAP) software.

Editor's comments:- According to NetApp's pdf - "Flash Accel has the ability to keep the cache warm and coherent in the event of disruptive operations and restart caching from the reboot/crash point, rather than restarting from a cold cache."

But it's not as unique in these respects as their document would have you believe - although this suggestion is probably because of when the document was written.

LSI says in its press release that its "advanced off-loaded multiprocessor architecture uses up to 4x less CPU and memory resources than competing solutions".

Now when you see that phrase - off-loaded - in this kind of context - you can be sure that it's a dig at Fusion-io.

The pros and cons - in architectural efficiency and performance - aren't as straightforward as they appear from this subliminal value-loaded phrasing. I discussed these issues a few years ago in an article in FIO's product page here on the mouse site.

The motivational reasons you might choose LSI rather than FIO (or the other way around) probably have less to do with whether you understand or like the way they design SSD controllers (which are evidence rather than motivations of what lies behind their SSD architecture thinking) and instead I think the reasons you might prefer one or other as a strategic supplier would have rather more to do with whether you're comfortable with their different philosophies about the best routes to the future of enterprise storage and, in particular, whether you agree with their speculation of what the destination looks like.

If you're going to be in the same waggon train for 2-3 years - bumping along comfortably together is what's important.
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Over-provisioning flash capacity in SSDs - article by LSI
Editor:- January 8, 2013 - Understanding SSD over-provisioning - is the title of a new article published in EDN and written by Kent Smith, Sr. Director of Product Marketing at the SSD controller part of LSI.

Kent's article describes the trade-offs between performance, the percentage of over-provisioned flash capacity and the useful impact of compressible data - which inside SandForce controllers is leveraged to create additional over-provisioning. The interaction between write amplification counter-measures and the benefits of using TRIM commands on performance are also noted. ...read the article

Editor's comments:- there wasn't anything new for me in this article - which covers similar ground to my 2011 article - flash SSD capacity - the iceberg syndrome - which shows how SSD makers leverage capacity to tweak reliability and performance.

But - having said that - I learned about over-provisioning by 10 years of talking about it - with many SSD companies. And some of the things I put in my own article had been gleaned from past conversations with Kent Smith himself when he was at SandForce - as well as various other people in Violin, Texas Memory Systems and Adtron.

I'm guessing that what Kent would have liked to say on OP may have been "trimmed" by a word count limit in his latest EDN article.

So here are some other suggestions for more substantial and ideas packed articles I recommend - which Kent Smith has written in the past for other publications, and which cover SSD controllers from other angles:-
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LSI ships 1 million SandForce controllers / month
Editor:- July 31, 2012 - LSI has announced enhanced support for the Ultrabook SSDs market in its SandForce SF-2200/2100 controllers:- enabling lower SSD power consumption, faster boot and support for "virtually all MLC flash product families".

"LSI has shipped well over 10 million SandForce processors and we anticipate our shipment volumes will continue to increase, driven by the exploding demand and lowering price points for NAND flash technology," said Thad Omura, VP of marketing, Flash Components Division, LSI.

Editor's comments:- last week I asked LSI if the improved power saving feature was related in any way to adaptive DSP care. I haven't got an answer yet - so it may be the answer is No.

On the other hand maybe they're waiting for the Flash Memory Summit (in 3 weeks time) before they say more about their adaptive write DSP IP roadmap.
SSD SoCs controllers LSI/SandForce have shipped over 10 million SSD controllers - since 2010 - and they're currently shipping over 1 million per month.
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Proximal Data launches AutoCache for PCIe SSDs
Editor:- July 23, 2012 - Proximal Data announced immediate availability of its first product - a software based SSD ASAP - designed to work with PCIe SSDs - and in particular those from LSI and Micron.

AutoCache ($999 for cache sizes less than 500GB) reduces bottlenecks in virtualized servers to increase VM density, efficiency and performance. The company says it can increase VM density upto 3x with absolutely no impact on IT operations.

"LSI and Proximal Data have combined their respective solutions to provide accelerated enterprise storage performance in a virtualized environment," said LSI's director of worldwide channel sales and marketing Brent Blanchard. "Proximal Data's AutoCache, when used with the LSI Nytro WarpDrive PCIe flash card, delivers explosive performance and scalability by lowering data access latencies and resolving the VM density issue that challenges virtualized environments. We are excited to bring this combination to our customers."

Editor's comments:- here are some questions I asked about the new product - and the answers I got from Rich Pappas, Proximal's VP of sales and business development.

Editor:- How long does it take for the algorithms to reach peak efficiency?

Pappas:- It varies by workload, but typically it takes about 15 minutes for the cache to warm to reach peak efficiency.

Editor:- Is the caching only on reads, or is it effective on writes too?

Pappas:- AutoCache will only cache reads, but by virtue of relieving the backend datastore from read traffic, we have actually seen overall write performance improvements as well. This effect is also dependent on the workload.
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