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military SSDs - StorageSearch.comthe fastest SSDsstorage reliability are we ready for infinitely faster RAM? does persistent memory pose new risks? say farewell to reassuringly boring industrial SSDs how to not compile a simple list of military SSD companies EOL and the unknown original "standard SSD" specification | |||||||||||||||||||||
| radiation- tolerant SSDs -
a $20 million business in 2018 already for Mercury Systems Editor:- September 27, 2018 - Mercury Systems announced that it received a $9.2 million follow-on order for custom-engineered radiation-tolerant SSDs for a defense data storage application. Mercury Systems has received orders for this custom SSD exceeding $20 million since initial product announcement in March of calendar year 2018. Mercury's entire suite of SSD devices, including its TRRUST-Stor VPX RT device, was engineered for the rapid commercialization of product variants meeting customer-defined form factors, ruggedization requirements and security features. See also:- the business of custom SSDs Remember SSD - dust you were born and unto dust you shall return Editor:- September 25, 2018 - A reader - Simon Zola - Manager, AVTEL Data Destruction emailed me last week after seeing my recent home page blog - looking back at my 19 years of writing about the data recovery market - which I had concluded with this.. Is there an opposite concept to data recovery? Yes. The flip side to data recovery is fast purge SSDs and disk sanitizers. Simon said - "I have only just come across you and your site and I would love to hear your opinion on meaningful data sanitisation of SSD." So I added an update to my original article. ...read the article wrapping up 40 years of memories about nvm endurance Editor:- July 20, 2018 - wrapping up SSD endurance (selective memories from 40 years of thinking about endurance) is my new blog on StorageSearch.com This is my last article on endurance. No more. Ever. I promise. (I may have said that before but this time I really mean it.) ...read the article new report lists malware attack vectors for memory in processors Editor:- June 14, 2018 - Security Issues for Processors with Memory is a new report (90 pages, $975) by Memory Strategies International with ramifications (I had to use that word) for the memoryfication of processors market. The report includes a comprehensive list of the dimensions in which security can be attacked and outline of design mitigation directions. Among other things the scope includes:- "Issues of volatile vs. non-volatile memory for cache and main memory involve consideration of security hazards. Cryptography in multicore coprocessor systems are an issue. Security of data on network buses is critical for military, medical and financial systems with remedies suggested for replay attacks..." ...see more about this report See also:- is data remanence in persistent memory a new risk factor?, optimizing CPUs for use with SSD architectures, SSD jargon ReRAM based architectures for Processing-In-Memory (guide to papers and deep thinking) Editor:- May 1 , 2018 - Processing in memory and ReRAM are both making their mark independently as noteworthy technologies which each promise new fashions in the shape of future memory systems design. But how about combining both? A new paper - A Survey of ReRAM-Based Architectures for Processing-In-Memory and Neural Networks (pdf) by Sparsh Mittal, Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad summarizes the state of art. In his abstract Sparsh says "As data movement operations and power-budget become key bottlenecks in the design of computing systems, the interest in unconventional approaches such as processing-in-memory (PIM) and machine learning (ML), especially neural network (NN) based accelerators has grown significantly. ReRAM is a promising technology for efficiently architecting PIM and NN based accelerators due to its capabilities to work as both: high-density/low-energy storage and in-memory computation/search engine. In this paper, we present a survey of techniques for designing ReRAM-based PIM and NN architectures. By classifying the techniques based on key parameters, we underscore their similarities and differences." ...read the article (pdf) Editor's comments:- It's fascinating to see how researchers in computational memory architecture have blended techniques borrowed from classical analog computers with pragmatic local digital cleanup and pure digital logic to create hybrid analog digital computing elements which make the best use of latency and resolution to create multiplier accumulator and search by value blocks while using ReRAM. My first reaction was like that when I saw the specifications of the first DSP chips - not very good analog combined with not very good digital - but from those earliest days we got new industries. Mercury says TLC can be used in avionics (if you know how) Editor:- May 1, 2018 - Mercury Systems today announced it is offering TLC flash in a new SSD on a chip (22mm x 32mm BGA) for secure storage roles in SWaP constrained environments such as aircraft, unmanned systems and mobile ground applications including secure laptops and tablets. Mercury says - "While TLC flash technology is ideal for high-capacity data storage in a smaller footprint than MLC and SLC technologies, its reliability and performance in military operating environments has been disputed until today. Mercury has eliminated these threats by custom-engineering a new variant of its ARMOR processor specifically for this new commercial memory technology enabling it to operate in SLC mode for high reliability and long-term endurance while sustaining high-speed read/write operations." Editor's comments:- It is a notable milestone that a pedigree military SSD company like Mercury is using TLC in SLC mode for secure applications. The technique of virtual SLC and its reliability aspects is one of several described in this academic paper a Survey of Techniques for Architecting SLC/MLC/TLC Hybrid Flash Memory based SSDs (27 pages pdf) - which I mentioned in a news story last December. Re the adoption of TLC nand (or any new mainstream memory) into successive markets SSD history demonstrates a timetable of adoption determined by how long it takes for the new devices to shake out processing fluctuations and how long it takes for application markets to deteremine they're good enough. Traditionally consumer SSDs used to be the first target for new memories . Because consumer products have lower data integrity standards. Then some time later enterprise, followed by industrial and military (subject to temperature compatibility) and maybe later still - medical markets. At the latter end of this list the later adoptions are due to longer design times (to evaluate and integrate with other reliability features) and longer customer qualification times. However in recent years the order of memory adoption has changed with big cloud users jumping right in at the start contemporaneously with consumer. Clever cloud architects can live with and work around infant media defects - and are willing to put design effort into using new technologies - provided that the system benefits provide a statistically significant improvement in their systems costs. As a yardstick for how long these successive adoptions can take... It's 2018 now and this is the first news story about a significant military SSD using TLC. In my timeline sugaring flash for the enterprise - it was 2015 when TLC was considered good enough to ship in high quality enterprise all flash arrays. what's the value of infinitely faster RAM? Editor:- April 17, 2018 - A recent blog on StorageSearch.com - are we ready for infinitely faster RAM? - asks - among other things - what's the value of having very much faster memory? Looking at past decades for clues - there was limited scope for being able to change the world of computing by simply having faster memory. Even if you could go back in time and take compatible chips or SSDs from today's market and retrofit them - you wouldn't change very much - because the nature of applications and bottlenecks were a quagmire of limited thinking and finite lookalike expectations. Another complicating factor is this. Would you recognize a new memory accelerator if you saw it? Faster memory systems may not even look like traditional memories and their "fastness" will be application and context dependent. ...read the article Gb NRAM chips could sample in 2019 - says Nantero Editor:- March 29, 2018 - NRAM (a non volatile memory technology which has been in commercial development since 2001) by Nantero may be sampling next year with chip densities of 16Gbit - according to an interview article - Nantero's CEO says NRAM production is close on eeNewsAnalog.com - which says the memory technology supports 5nS write speeds and retention of more than 10 years at 300°C. new 2.5" military SSD from Flexxon self destructs in 2S Editor:- February 7, 2018 - Flexxon recently announced details of its GALAXY Series 2.5" SATA 2 SSDs (pdf) for secure military grade applications. Among other features the built in self destruct can perform physically destructive protection (high voltage burnout of the internal flash chips) to ensure data is unrecoverable within 2 seconds. no write limits (Men in Suits) good immortality (Mad Max country) better Editor:- January 23, 2018 - Foremay today announced the availability its new "Immortal" brand of radiation hardened SSDs for the military and aerospace markets. These rugged SSDs incorporate Foremay's proprietary, patented and patent-pending technologies, including a rugged honeycomb shaped protruded hard shell, a heavyduty solid body, waterproof features, and radiation hardened processes, which enables Immortal SSD drives to be deployed in air, space, sand, muddy & wetland, and underwater applications.  The Immortal series military and industrial SSD tolerates extreme vibration and shock operating conditions that far exceed MIL-STD-810G standards. These SSDs operate in extreme cold and hot temperatures from -55ºC to 125ºC (optional feature). Currently in production the Immortal™ series include a 2.5" SATA with a capacity up to 16 TB, 2.5" NVMe U.2 with a capacity up to 16 TB, and 1.8" microSATA with a capacity up to 2 TB. ...read more (pdf) Editor's comments:- in Q3 2017 the enterprise SSD market saw the arrival of the first "no write limits SAS SSDs" (see DWPD for more) and that has reset expectations in the storage array market. But the enterprise is an easy environment for solo SSDs compared to the rugged military and space markets where lone wolf SSDs have much closer proximity to unprotected phsyical stresses while being a long way from the helping hands of on call service engineers. The new Immortal series of SSDs from Foremay looks like it consolidates many years of listening to customer experiences and also indicates a renewed confidence that having the right stuff in a difficult to design and manufacture SSD is a worthy endeavor - because there is a real and present market for such drives. I will - of course - soon add Immortal to my classic reference article - inanimate Power, Speed and Strength - Metaphors in SSD brands. UMC offers 40nm SuperFlash from SST Editor:- December 21, 2017 - UMC (a leading semiconductor foundry) today announced the availability of the company's 40nm process platform that incorporates SST's embedded SuperFlash non-volatile memory. The newly available 40nm SST process features a >20% reduction in eFlash cell size and 20-30% macro area over UMC's mass production 55nm SST technology. Editor's comments:- Some of you may glance at "40nm" in the headline above and think - what's so great about that? UMC says its robust SST process performs according to JEDEC standards, with 100k endurance and more than 10 years of data retention at 85C and an operating-temperature range of -40C to 125C. BiTMICRO launches raft of secure NVMe SSDs Editor:- October 23, 2017 - BiTMICRO recently announced several new SSDs for the industrial and military markets. For high capacity PCIe SSD applications - a pragmatic approach for systems designers in recent years in cloud markets has been to use carriers which can support multiple M.2 SSDs. BiTMICRO announced the MAXio S-Series NVMe HHHL PCIe industrial grade PCIe x8 add-in card that aggregates the performance and capacity of upto 4x M.2 SSDs in a temperature tolerant, rugged reliable NVMe SSD with upto 8TB capacity today. For military 2.5" SATA and U.2 NVMe applications - BiTMICRO announced availability of 2 new secure erase SSDs which support a wide range of temperatures, altitudes of up to 120,000 feet, and 1500G of shock. The new SSDs are available with MLC or pSLC flash, maximum pSLC is 1TB, and maximum MLC is 2TB. "BiTMICRO is an industry pioneer, delivering ruggedized and secure solid state drives to leading customers in the industrial and military markets for over 17 years, and has continually strived to meet the expectations of our customers. This level of customer support coupled with our experienced team and proprietary technology differentiates our product offerings from the rest of the market," said Stephen Uriarte, President of BiTMICRO. Mercury's 3D BuiltSECURE memory will take to the skies Editor:- September 11, 2017 -Mercury Systems today announced it received a $8 million order from a leading defense prime contractor for BuiltSECURE high density secure memory devices manufactured at its DMEA-trusted facility in Phoenix, Ariz. The high-speed memory devices will be integrated into active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar systems deployed on an advanced airborne military platform. BuiltSECURE high density secure memory devices use Mercury's 3D packaging technology to transform a 2D array of discrete memory devices into a single, vertically stacked, dense ball grid array (BGA) package. Delivering space savings up to 75%, the memory devices are also precision engineered to withstand the harshest of operating conditions encountered during military operations. See also:- what's RAM really? - RAM in an SSD context Micron Awarded Virginia Values Veterans Certification Editor:- August 3, 2017 - Micron today announced that its site in Virginia has been recognized for its services which support veterans within the company's hiring program. Among other things Micron said... "More than 10% of Micron Technology Virginia site's nearly 1,300 full time team members are military veterans. Micron has also funded the creation of two internal military service employee resource groups, providing veterans with peer support opportunities to help diminish some of the difficulties that transitioning to civilian life can bring. At the corporate level, Micron connects with local military bases across the country through TAP (Transition Assistance Programs) and actively participates in the Hiring our Heroes program." Reactive acquires obsolete drive emulation specialist ARRAID Editor:- June 16, 2017 - Reactive Group today announced the acquisition of ARRAID. Integrating proprietary FPGA-based technology and industrial grade CF cards as the media, Arraid manufactures new drive replacements for SMD, HISI, HPIB, MAC, OMTI, Pertec and XMD protocols, and several other legacy drive replacements including SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 and floppy disk drives. V&G releases Kylin compatible rugged VPX SSDs Editor:- May 10, 2017 - If rugged 6U SSD cards for military radar and flight recorder applications is your thing then you may be interested in 2 new products released by V&G. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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VxWorks, Solaris, Linux etc. Editor's comments:- for a few years now I've had interesting conversations with Limuel Yap , VP - Global Business Operations - V&G about the various aspects of the custom SSD market and especially the ways in which SSD companies which have a strong focus on the military market create product lines which can be just as interesting as the standard products for publicly known applications that we read so much about on the web. The ingenuity and problem solving of these companies largely remains unknown for good reasons. Following up on the new products above Limuel told me this. "Developing these products will separate us from other SSD suppliers that only have the standard SSD. This marks down our capabilities to offer all kinds of memory storage most specially for military and data recorders users." | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| SMART HRS announces 8TB 2.5"
SATA SSDs for aerospace roles Editor:- April 25, 2017 - SMART High Reliability Solutions today announced new higher capacity models in its HRS-M1HC family of aerospace targeted 2.5" SATA MLC SSDs.
Editor's comments:- This family is also supported by an impressive array of triggerable military erase sequences as order options. IP-Maker elevates performance ceiling of low power embedded systems with "no server CPU" NVMe SSD FPGA IP Editor:- April 19, 2017 - A dilemma for designers of embedded systems which require high SSD performance is how can you get the benefits of enterprise class NVMe SSDs for simple applications - which integrate video for example - without at the same time escalating the wattage footprint of the entire attached micro server? A new paper published today by IP-Maker - Allowing server-class storage in embedded applications (pdf) discusses the problem and how their new FPGA based IP enables any NVMe PCIe SSD to be used in embedded systems to provide sub-microsecond latency using "20x better power efficiency, and 20x lower cost compared to a CPU-based system."  The company says the NVMe host IP - which is now available - can be used in an FPGA connected between the PCIe root port and the cache memory, internal SRAM or external DRAM. It fully controls the NVMe protocol by setting and managing the NVMe commands. No CPU is required. It supports PCIe gen 3 x 8 interface. Michael Guyard, Marketing Director said that - among other things - applications include:-
M.2 PCIe SSDs for secure industrial / military applications? Editor:- March 20, 2017 - Do you know who makes M.2 PCIe SSDs which can operate at industrial temperatures and have security strong enough for a military application? That's a question I was asked recently by a reader in the defense sector. So I looked into it. He was right. They are hard to find. (Nearly all the industrial M.2 SSDs are SATA and not PCIe.) And the manufacturers' own websites hinder the discovery process. The only companies which I have been able to confirm in this category (by direct contact rather than a promissory future web note) are:-
Micron's SSDs tough enough for army use Editor:- February 25, 2017 - Micron isn't a name that would sping to mind when thinking about military SSDs. Which is why I found a new applications white paper from Micron interesting. Micron's IT SSDs withstand DRS' Toughest Tests (pdf) describes how DRS (which is a military SSD company) requalified an industrial SSD - M500IT - which had originally been designed for the automotive market so that it could be used in a large Army program. ...read the article (pdf) MRAM's fitness for high altitude and hot environments discussed in a blog by Everspin Editor:- February 22, 2017 - A new blog - MRAM earns its stripes in HiRel applications - by Duncan Bennett, Product Marketing Manager at Everspin lists some of the intrinsic characteristics of MRAM and their advantages for roles in aerospace applications. Among other things Duncan Bennett says:-
Editor's comments:- this article only talks about the virtues of MRAM but another recent paper which I mentioned recently in SSD news - a Survey of Soft-Error Mitigation Techniques for Non-Volatile Memories (pdf) - raised doubts about the simplicity of using MRAM due to its soft error sensitivity to read disturb errors. Admittedly this was looking at an enterprise memory context where the more memory you have the sooner you are likely to witness such errors. But it's just my way of reminding you that there are no magic products in the memory ecosystem. To be fair Everspin's article also mentioned that some mission critical customers use screening processes to select "hardened" MRAM - because - just as with traditional memories - some devices are just better than others. PS - A useful sanity check in this context is a (2013) paper - MRAM Technology Status (pdf) - by Jason Heidecker at JPL NASA which includes a history of MRAM upto the first commercial product availability and anecdotal data about the space readiness of the technology based on data integrity tests in various flights. ...read the article (pdf) Whatever happened to that old MIL SSD company? Editor:- February 15, 2017 - In the past 11 years some good defense focused SSD businesses have been terminated when their company was acquired by buyers who wanted to use their SSD technology for other strategic markets - such as enterprise storage (typically for rackmount SSDs or cloud applications) or consumer SSD markets (phones and shiny toys). In such cases when the acquiring company has absolutely no interest in retaining the defense part of the business (for example when SanDisk bought M-Systems in 2006 and when Western Digital bought STEC in 2013) the pre-acquisition military SSD product lines end up in the scrapheap of famous EOL SSDs. This is in contrast to the situation when military systems companies which are habitual acquirers of other military technology companies (habitual acquirers being such as Curtiss-Wright and Mercury Systems and you may know others) continue to supply many of the original products they acquired. One acquisition which followed an entirely different pattern was when SanDisk bought SMART in July 2013. What did seem clear at the time was that the main purpose of the acquisition was to get adaptive DSP ECC flash controller technology - because of the cost saving implications when this was applied to arrays of SSDs for use in the cloud market. And another interesting enterprise product which SMART was involved with at the time (in a design collaboration with Diablo) was a fledgling memory channel SSD. What wasn't clear to me in 2013 was that not everything which had been in SMART prior to 2013 was scheduled to get sucked into SanDisk. Some of the business units didn't get acquired. Nearly 4 years later... in February 2017 - I had the opportunity to talk to some people in one of the SMART SSD business units which remained standing outside the tractor beam of the SanDisk acquisition. That's SMART High Reliability Solutions which (and this is where I get to the point of this story) is in the military SSD business. If - like me - you just look at their web site - it looks a bit samey (you know the sort of thing where photos of 2.5" SSDs appear against a backdrop of war planes and ships). We know how easy it is to do web pages that. But what's behind it? I asked some questions about their rugged SSD business. And got some useful answers which I wrote up and added in their profile page here. Foremay fires patent warning post about flash data destruct spikes Editor:- January 10, 2017 - If you're seriously interested in data security in SSDs you'll already know that encryption is simply a promise to delay access to secured data rather than a guarantee that it will remain denied to those who shouldn't see it. That's why the SSD fast purge / autonomous data destruct / fast secure erase market has developed so many ingenious ways to offer better security assurance - which you can pick to match your deployment's time to erase, electrical power to erase and monetary cost budget. I noticed a new post on linkedin by Dennis Eodice VP Strategic Sales - Foremay - who says the company has a patent - 9,317,422 - for a technique which physically destroys the nand flash in an SSD using addressibly directed high voltage. The implied message being that if any other companies have used similar techniques to secure SSDs which are sold in other regions - Foremay thinks this patent is enforceable to prevent this technique being used in competing SSDs sold in the US. SSD article in Military and Aerospace Electronics Editor:- January 4, 2017 - If you're interested in military SSDs and mil SSD companies then a recent article - security and solid-state media driving data storage in the December edition of Military and Aerospace Electronics includes comments from various companies in the market. Among other things the article says... "Today almost all aerospace and defense data storage for deployed applications have moved to solid state memory." ...read the article See also:- SSD market history, User Value Propositions for buying SSDs (2005) Recadata enters rugged M.2 SSD market Editor:- December 20, 2016 - The M.2 SSD form factor was originally designed as a mainstream solution for consumer SSDs but in recent years we've seen many new M.2 products appearing in other markets where size matters too. Today Recadata - which is best known for its rugged SSDs aimed at military systems launched an M.2 SSD product line - the M700 Series M.2 SSD series. Databeans expects growth in 2017 mil / aero semico market Editor:- November 16, 2016 - A new blog by Databeans - a Turn Around on the Horizon for Mil/Aero says it expects revenue for semiconductors used in the military and aerospace market to grow by 8% in 2017. ...read the article See also:- storage market research (news and list of research companies) Foremay ships aerospace capable 8TB 2.5" U.2 NVMe SSD Editor:- September 26, 2016 - Foremay today announced volume production of 8TB models in its rugged secure 2.5" U.2 NVMe SSD product range - which with PCIe x4 lanes has R/W speeds up to 1.2GB/s with latency as little as 25 microseconds. Optional features of the SC199 hi rel model include:-
Microsemi's rad tolerant FPGAs orbit Jupiter Editor:- September 20, 2016 - Microsemi today announced that its radiation-tolerant FPGAs are in use on NASA's Juno Spacecraft within the space vehicle's command and control systems, and in various instruments which have now been deployed and are returning scientific data. Juno recently entered Jupiter's orbit after a 5 year journey. See also:- Juno mission (pdf), data chips in space floppy dependent assets get EOL kicker from flash Editor:- September 1, 2016 - SSDL today announced it has launched a floppy drive emulator - FLOPPYFlash (pdf) - which provides electronic emulation at the host interface level for a wide range of historic legacy floppy drives (3.5", 5.25" and 8"). The replaceable media "floppy" is implemented by a 3.5" cassette which looks similar to a floppy but in which the storage media is implemented by industrial CompactFlash card technology. Editor's comment:- Strange as it sounds there are still expensive legacy systems in which the embedded computers and software rely on the integration of floppy drives for their operation. This is something I've been told by James Hilken, Sales Director of SSDL and others in the EOL SSD support market. In such systems the availability of field replaceable peripherals saves users a tremendous amount of cost and operational disruption for their connected assets. new MIL-STD-461E/F EMI filtered NAS JBOD SSD from V&G Editor:- August 24, 2016 - I found it interesting to see the level of detail available in the datasheet for a new rugged 8TB NAS JBOD SSD box (8.66 in (L) x 7.61 in (W) x 4.65 in (H)) from V&G because often such vital info is missing unless you sign up to get it. Among other things - the RVAS3400 (pdf) has these features and options:-
SST qualifies NOR SuperFlash on mixed signal platform Editor:- July 12, 2016 - SST today announced qualification and availability of its low-mask-count embedded SuperFlash NOR NVM on GLOBALFOUNDRIES' 130 nm BCDLite advanced analog, mixed-signal and RF technology platform. SST's embedded SuperFlash memory solution requires the addition of only 4 masking steps to enable cost-effective, high-endurance embedded flash for demanding battery-powered applications such as drones, intelligent motor control, and normally-off mobile computing. How Flash Arrays Help US DoD and DHS protect against threats Editor:- July 2, 2016 - A new blog by Zophar Sante, VP of Business Development at BiTMICRO - How AFAs Help US DoD and DHS outlines how the roles of solid state storage have changed in US government defense and security agencies in the past 20 years. Among other things: - Zoph says - "The DoD and DHS are using what they learned from SSDs in field and applying the same technology to their data centers." ...read the article Editor's comments:- From the SSD history perspective BiTMICRO was a pioneer of high performance flash SSDs for the military market and one of the earliest advocates of flash in enterprise arrays. Before the onset of the flash SSD era, however, DoD was already using rackmount SSDs in the late 1980s for mobile data capture and analysis. In those days the SSD memory technology in such boxes was inevitably DRAM. You can read recollections about that in the 2010 retrospective paper - TMS History of Working With the US DoD (pdf) by the founder of Texas Memory Systems. We just made the first tri-state DRAM chip in the world Editor:- June 2, 2016 - In his recent linkedin note - This chip gonna rock the DRAM industry - Wayne Zhang, President and CEO at Encrip enthuses about his company's new tri-state DRAM technology which he says can work with any standard process - even 10nm. Wayne says - "For the same capacity DRAM chip, with using our patented technologies, we could reduce the memory array area up to 36%, we could reduce the power consumption up to 40%, we could also increase the chip access speed." ...read the article See also:- DRAM news in an SSD context what goes on inside AES encrypted SSDs? Editor:- May 6, 2016 - Securing SSDs with AES Disk Encryption - by C.C. Wu, VP - Innodisk - is a new article published on Electronic Design. Among other things in this very detailed and educational article Wu cautions readers about the limitations of encrypted SSDs... "As strong as the 256-bit AES encryption is on encrypted SSDs, it only protects data at rest, i.e., when the system is turned off. To protect data in flight, data-loss-prevention (DLP) techniques, use of secure communication protocols, and other security measures must be taken." ...read the article a simple list of military SSD manufacturers Editor:- April 15, 2016 - Nowadays web pages like this one inevitably deliver a blend of related content (news, article links and ads) some of which you need and find useful - and other parts of which you don't. I was thinking back to the simpler web pages of 20 years ago and wondering - should I just create a new minimalistic list of military SSD companies for those who just want a supplier list which they can follow up in their own way? Usually I'm quick to decide such things... A simple list... military SSD makers - hard can that be? You can see the tangled mess of thoughts I waded through - in my new blog - a simple list of military SSD companies. Microsemi's secure SSD business to be acquired by Mercury Editor:- March 23 , 2016 - Mercury Systems has agreed to acquire the secure SSD business of Microsemi as part of a $300 million deal which includes several other business units focused on the defense electronics market which altogether employ approximately 275 people based at facilities in Phoenix, Ariz., Camarillo, Calif., San Jose, Calif., and West Lafayette, Ind. Renice announces pSLC military SSD Editor:- March 22 , 2016 - Renice Technology today announced the imminent availability of a 2TB 2.5" SATA MLC SSD family for the military market. The new X9 R-SATA uses the company's own controller. Interesting aspects of this announcment are:-
I've asked Renice to say more about their reliability claim for pSLC. Until I hear more I think the difference between the 2 companies stems from different approaches to controller design. In this context I think the key differences in SSD design are:- adaptive versus classical flash management and also skinny versus regular RAM flash cache ratio. As we know from SSD history - the data integrity and reliability you measure is just as dependent on the controller architecture as the intrinsic flash. So once you steer a course for your product line down these permutation avenues (due to past experience or convenient access to you own related IP) then the consequences you get - in terms of product envelope - are not necessarily reproducible by competitors who chose a different road. On the rugged SATA connector issue:- the first time I recall seeing that being mentioned in a rugged military SSD news story was April 9, 2012. how fast is fast erase? Editor:- January 26, 2016 - When it comes to SSD security - how fast is fast erase? Over the years I've reported many examples of this (erase) and also other methods of data destruction the rule of thumb has been:- the bigger the capacity of the drive - the more time in seconds it takes (and more electrical energy too). A press release today from Foremay suggests a fast and scalable sanitization route may come from what they call "crypto erase" - which renders all data scrambled, scattered and useless. It's fast. Takes only a second to complete the crypto erase of a Foremay SED SSD with capacity of up to 20TB. This erase can be triggered by a command or a user presettable threshold of failed access attempts. Commenting on the benefits of intrinsic hardware encryption instead of relying on software and aside from the obvious performance - Foremay says hardware encryption is far more secure because software can be corrupted... "Information security on SSD drives has become increasingly important to all users, particularly in government, defense, financial and medical industries," said Jack Winters, Foremay's CTO and cofounder. Editor's comments:- The effect - I guess - is a bit like the accidental predicament of needing data recovery for a damaged and unsupported encrypted SSD. But a deliberate erase like this will be more systematic and probably doesn't have a single mode recovery lever. Avere bridges NASA to the cloud Editor:- January 19, 2016 - NASA has selected Avere Systems to help consolidate legacy storage and migrate research datasets created at the Ames Research Center over to the Amazon's AWS - it was announced today. Avere says that cloud related latencies will be mitigated by its FlashCloud (SSD ASAP) architecture. NSF funds project to progress in-situ SSD processing Editor:- December 16, 2015 - NxGn Data today announced it has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 grant (about $150K) from the National Science Foundation. "We've made great strides in developing our fundamental SSD technology, with a working prototype (of in-situ SSD processing) now running in our lab," said Nader Salessi, CEO and founder of NxGn Data. The grant application says - "This project explores the Big Data paradigm shift where processing capability is pushed as close to the data as possible. The in-situ processing technology pushes this concept to the absolute limit, by putting the computational capability directly into the storage itself and eliminating the need to move the data to main memory before processing." Themis ships rugged mobile datacenter platform Editor:- November 17, 2015 - Themis Computer today announced immediate availability of a rugged Infiniband connected rackmount SSD system - called Hyper-Unity which integrates scalable SDS architecture software from Atlantis Computing with 4 ruggedized, 8 hot pluggable SSD drive, RES-XR5-1U rack mounted servers (MIL-STD-461) to run virtualized applications for rugged mobile datacenter applications. "With the Hyper-Unity solution, Themis and Atlantis Computing are changing the way that the DoD buys and consumes storage" said Bill Kehret, president and CEO of Themis Computer. "The DoD requires enhanced reliability, ultra-fast, cost-effective storage from a trusted source – on hardware built to survive the rigors of demanding environments..." toughening up DWPD Editor:- October 28, 2015 - DWPD ratings have become a useful shortcut to filter enterprise SSDs because there's consensus that the number should somehow map into recognizable application zones and price bands. Now we're seeing more military SSDs wearing DWPD badges too. Toughening up DWPD - is my new blog about this trend. Solidata ships military grade 2.5" MLC SSD with IOPS attitude Editor:- October 16, 2015 - Solidata recently announced shipments of a new rugged 2.5" SATA military grade industrial SSD with 1TB raw (972.5GB usable) MLC SSD - for high capacity, performance demanding applications in harsh environments. R/W for 4KB blocks is approximately 70K IOPS. Solidata says the new Rana which has regular RAM cache (1GB DDR) and 3 seconds capacitor hold up time is available with all the features you'd expect from a military grade SSD (such as full drive auto erase in under 18S) but - as it uses MLC instead of SLC - it can be a more cost-effective alternative for many applications such as airborne/ shipborne digital recording systems, pipeline inspection and remote DVRs. Microsemi fills key gap in TRRUST-Stor military SSD line Editor:- August 14, 2015 - Microsemi recently added a low power MO-300 mSATA SLC SSD to its TRRUST-Stor® family of secure / military SSDs. The MM3064AN2R-M001 can be sanitized according to the NSA 9-12 protocol in less than 2 minutes.  "In the advanced deep sleep low power mode, the SSD is only using 150mW and can be 'instant on.' said Bill Sorrentino, tactical marketing manager for Microsemi's Memory and Storage business. "This feature will enable longer field life for battery powered applications. In addition, it will cut down on cooling required for products where heat is a concern." ...Later:- 2 weeks later - Microsemi expanded their secure rugged SSD range still further with a new XMC form factor SSD - the MXMCM256 - which has upto 512GB SLC in an air cooled or conduction cooled XMC mezzanine. Details include:-
rugged COTS NAS case study - real-time helicopter data - case study by Curtiss-Wright Editor:- July 21, 2015 - Curtiss-Wright recently published an applications note (pdf) which describes an 8TB rugged flash SSD based data recorder providing real-time sensor recording and playback capabilities (with multiple 200MB/s channels) for a helicopter platform which uses the company's COTS network storage boxes. ...read the paper (pdf) Editor's comments:- The most useful thing about this paper is it gives you an idea of the physical size and throughput if you've got something similar in mind. The main thing which has changed with this type of application for SSDs in recent decades is the size, storage capacity, power consumption and price. (Sensors stay pretty much the same.) For a comparison (of memory types and interfaces in rugged "mobile" SSD based data recorders) take a look at this story from 1988 - TMS History of Working With the US DoD (pdf) Microsemi announces availability of 900GB usable 2.5" military SSDs in 9.5mm for those who loathe supercaps but love SLC Editor:- July 16, 2015 - Designers of military and secure industrial systems for whom SLC is the only flash memory good enough - but who also needed higher capacities in their 2.5" SATA slots have - until recently - had little choice but to consider SSDs with significant internal capacitor holdup for their toughest designs. And that, in turn means a complex qualification process and really getting to know the internal ad hoc internal details of SSD architectures and related firmware which might well change considerably over the lifetime of their projects. Meeting the need for those who prefer a simpler and more predictable controller architecture roadmap Microsemi today announced the availability of a new enhanced capacity model in its TRRUST-STOR line of military SSDs. Microsemi's new MSD01TAM3R provides 1TB raw (900GB usable) SLC NAND flash in a 2.5" 9.5mm high package in a US made product with all the features you'd expect from this established military SSD product line.
Nantero gets $31 million funding for 300º C retention nvram Editor:- June 2, 2015 - Nantero today announced a $31 million Series E financing round for its NRAM technology which the company says is scalable to below 5nm and which has >1,000 years retention at 85º C or more than 10 years at 300º C. Editor's comments:- Nantero was founded 14 years ago, and the last time I wrote about them was in 2006. But the size and educational sophistication of the SSD ecosystem today means that designers (and investors) can appreciate the nuances of difference which might be useful in extreme boundary applications. Offering a scalability roadmap below the current commercial limits of flash, and ruggedness way beyond flash - Nantero's technology has attractive features which might lure SSD designers out of their 40 year comfort zone of trapped charges in semiconductor cells. repairable vertical architecture could result in bigger ReRAM Editor:- May 27, 2015 - ReRAM has already been promised for delivery in military SSDs (see Jan 2015 news below) but forthcoming advances in repairable vertical architecture could increase the density to the point where it's attractive as an intermediate level of memory in servers too... In various interview clips in a recent article - 3D NAND, MRAM, RRAM: Emerging opportunities and challenges in Solid State Technology - the author Paula Doe reports how some of the contenders to flash memory see their roles within the SSD ecosystem. ...read the article Adesto has 16Mbit flash for +125 degrees C operation Editor:- March 30, 2015 - Adesto Technologies today announced new serial flash products available upto 16Mbit densities which are designed to operate between -40 to +125 degrees Celsius. Adesto's Fusion Serial Flash chips have ultra-deep power down which operates at <300nA and (as you'd expect in a low capacity device) small 256-byte page erase. 0 to 3 S - aspects of extreme diversity in SSD design Editor:- March 23, 2015 - zero to three seconds are 2 numbers which demonstrate some of the extreme diversity in SSD design. The examples in my new blog today are the hold up times inside 2 different 2.5" SATA SSDs designed for the military market. ...read more Microsemi's new BGA SSD Editor:- March 17, 2015 - Microsemi today introduced its 2nd generation highly secure, rugged 64GB BGA SLC SSD - the MSM064. Features include:-
"the most reliable 2.5 inch MLC SATA III SSD" paves way to new budget military SSD - from Cactus Editor:- February 23, 2015 - Cactus Technologies today announced the release of a new military 2.5" SATA SSD - the 230S PRO series - a military adapted variation of the company's proven 230S commercial grade family which Cactus describes as "the most reliable MLC based 2.5" SATA III SSD on the market." Describing application roles Joseph Chang, VP of Engineering said that -it meets the price budget for applications where intense writing or extreme temperatures are not prevalent. Features include:-
Waitan launches secure self destructible SSDs for drone and other hostile military zone deployments
"We believe the remote controlled secure erase and self-destruction functions are highly valuable for UAV, drone, and other remote controlled and unmanned systems where data on the systems' storage drives is confidential, which needs to be destroyed from afar during accidents or emergency scenarios" said James Zheng, Waitan's CTO. Editor's comments:- Remotely triggered data destruction isn't a new idea in secure SSDs - but it hasn't really taken hold in the past due to the disruptive effect of false positives - such as when a security perimeter has been incorrectly set up or when a pacifier signal is lost for a short time for innocent reasons. For those reasons Waitan's StellaHunter is triggered by 2 or more preset conditions. Users can also choose whether the SSD should be reusable after the secure erase or whether the SSD should have a destructive erase. MSS wraps 2.5" SSDs snugly for surveillance drone flights Editor:- February 3, 2015 - Mountain Secure Systems today announced it has recently shipped an order of hot swappable 2.5" SATA SSD modules to a leading defense contractor, which will be integrated into a pod system for the MQ-9 Reaper Drone - for use by the U.S. military to monitor U.S. borders and gather video surveillance intelligence. The removable 2.5" SATA memory devices mate with a customized docking bay and are environmentally sealed for protection against rapid decompression, EMI, humidity, dust, salt fog, immersion and condensation.  The hot swappable device (pdf) includes mini mil-circular connectors (rated for 100,000 insertion cycles), +28VDC power, EMI filters, and captive thumb screws for docking. "Mountain Secure Systems is proud to be a part of this important program," said Ken Dickson, GM of Mountain Secure Systems. "Our ruggedized data storage solutions have been extremely dependable for both commercial and military customers." Microsem licenses DPA countermeasure technologies from Rambus
Among other things - this agreement includes DPA Resistant AES cryptographic cores that offer chipmakers an easy-to-integrate solution to protect against side-channel attack vulnerabilities. As the first major FPGA company to license DPA countermeasures, Microsemi has identified DPA as a significant vulnerability in chip security, specifically for the mission-critical applications found in government and military settings.
Editor:- January 23, 2015 - Tezzaron Semiconductor recently announced it will use Rambus's ReRAM technology in forthcoming storage-class 3D memory devices for military, aerospace and commercial applications. The first of these designs is scheduled for production in 2016. See all SSD news in January 2015 "military SSD feature sets" - as distinct from "industrial" Editor:- December 19, 2014 - What are the essential requirements of SSDs in military applications? You may think it's obvious. But if you're trying to summarize this in a list of attributes - you soon find that must-have assumptions which seemed safe a few years ago or in another project are starting to get a bit slippery. And when you're researching possible new suppliers of military SSDs - you may get attracted by one feature you saw in a news story or search result - and then later have to drop it from your list because of another (less advertised) feature - which is missing. You know you're safe with hard military suppliers - who don't do anything but military SSDs - but many industrial SSD makers offer some products which also suit military applications too. But navigating through their product lines with your military needs filter - isn't always as easy as it should be. That's why I was interested to see a new guide - Military SSD Feature Sets - from Cactus Technologies which is a clear set of statements about what the company can offer in the way of military variants adapted and enhanced from its embedded 2.5" SATA SSD product lines. Within its industrial SSD product line - Cactus uses 43nm, 32nm and 25nm SLC NAND devices - more than are mentioned in its educational whitepaper - SLC vs MLC NAND and the Impact of Technology Scaling (pdf). The company told me they are going to update it - and when the new edition is available I'll let you know - but the original still makes good reading. XES says FPGA based controllers are better for delaying EOL Editor:- December 8, 2014 - For SSD specifiers in military applications - the biggest pressure on BOM stability has always come from obsolete components. XES made some interesting comments about this in a press release related to the SSDs used in the company's rugged flight proven secure SSD based storage modules. XES says "An important feature of these high-density, high-performance storage products is that they use an FPGA-based storage controller. This directly addresses EOL and Obsolescence issues commonly associated with foreign-designed and manufactured storage controllers, which often are discontinued before a system can go into production." See all SSD news in December 2014 Foremay says MIL designers can now have 8TB in a 2.5" secure, rugged SATA SSD Editor:- November 19, 2014 - How much capacity do you need in a 2.5" SSD? That depends on the economics of your application and what other alternatives you have. But 2.5" SATA is emerging as a safe roadmap form factor for high capacity embedded projects in the rugged / military market - and if you are a designer with a mission critical app you can now stretch your capacity beyond the tame limits of the consumer and enterprise markets with a COTS (or soon to be off the shelf) SSD. Jack Winters, CTO - Foremay said "When we asked our customers what we should do for the next step in SSDs, most replied with capacity, capacity and capacity." That's why Foremay announced this week it is now offering 8TB as a variation in its encrypted, secure rugged SSD range. Editor's comments:- I spoke to Foremay yesterday to clarify the availability versus "unveiling" status of the new 8TB SSDs. Foremay said - We are accepting orders for small quantites now. Mass production is expected in Q1'2015 Skyera's skyHawk and the mobile center Editor:- October 29, 2014 - Size weight and power (swap) savings and new opportunities for using efficiently designed high capacity rackmount SSDs in the mobile data center (specifically - hundreds of terabytes of flash in a Hummer for example) were among the things I discussed recently with Skyera's CEO - Frankie Roohparvar. You can read more about it in archived SSD news - Skyera's new skyHawk FS A3CUBE will use military connectors in datacenter fabric Editor:- August 4, 2014 - A3CUBE today announced that its emerging PCIe compatible distributed shared memory architecture - the RONNIEE Express - is supported by a military grade rugged connector technology. A3CUBE teamed with a specialist connector manufacturer AirBorn Inc on this aspect of the implemenetation. A3CUBE says that RONNIE RIO is the first network adapter card designed with carrier-grade and military-grade reliability and is designed to bring mission-critical features to the standard data center interconnection network and data plane. is there a market for I'M Intelligent Memory inside SSDs? Editor:- June 4, 2014 - Are there applications in the SSD market for DRAM chips which integrate ECC correction inside the RAM chip - and which plug into standard JEDEC sockets? That was the question put to me this afternoon by Thorsten Wronski - whose company MEMPHIS Electronic AG distributes I'M Intelligent Memory in Europe. Thorsten told me he's had a good reaction from the SSD companies he's spoken to - which is why he phoned. But in a long conversation about the economics and architectures of end to end error correction in SSDs and the different ratios of RAM cache to flash in SSDs - I told him that my initial reaction was he should look at embedded applications - which depend on the reliability of a single SSD - rather than enterprise systems in which the economics analysis for arrays point to a system wide solution rather than a point product fix. The interesting thing is he said he's done tests on the new I'M memory as drop in replacements for unprotected memory designs- in which he accelerated the likely incidence of error events by increasing the interval between refreshes and raising the temperature. Here's what he said. "We assembled a standard 1GB unbuffered DIMM with 8 chips of 1Gbit ECC DRAM. Then we put this into a test board and ran RSTPro (a very strong memory test software). No error found. Next we put the whole board into a temperature chamber at 95°C, which normally requires the refresh rate to be doubled (32mS instead of 64mS). No error found. Finally we wrote a software to change the refresh-register of the CPU on the board, so we were able to set higher values. The highest possible was 750mS, so the DRAM did almost not get any more refreshes. Still it continued working in RSTPro without a single error for 24 hours. We tried the same with Samsung and Hynix modules, but none of them came even close to those results. Most failed at refresh-rates of 150 to 200 mS, which is not bad indeed. Many more tests will follow." Editor's comments:- the reason I mention this - is because adapting the refresh rate was one of the things mentioned in my recent blog - Are you ready to rethink RAM? However - most of the leading SSDs in industrial markets don't have RAM caches for other reasons (to reduce the physical space, power consumption, hold-up time, or because don't need the performance). So I told Thorsten I don't see an industry wide demand inside SSDs. But some of you might already have thought of applications. See also:- I'M ECC DRAM product brief (pdf) Cactus adds write disable switch to industrial CFast Editor:- April 10, 2014 - Cactus Technologies today announced that it has introduced a new security option - of having a physical write protect switch - in its 900S series of industrial SLC CFast SSDs. It works like this. When the write protect switch is in the disabled position, the CFast card reads and writes as normal. When the switch is enabled, the card will read as normal, but all write attempts are ignored. Data already stored on the card is safe from overwrite. "This write protect feature has already been successfully implemented in the gaming, military and other markets" said Sai-Ying Ng, President of Cactus Technologies. See also:- SSD Security we killed SLC faster than MLC Editor:- March 14, 2014 - I've been talking to the experienced founders of an SSD company which is currently emerging from "under the market radar". They had some interesting things to say about the reliability aspects of SLC, MLC and 3D nand in the context of designing rugged and reliable SSDs. See more in my article - Who's who in SSD? - getting to know a Full Metal Jacket SSD maker Conduant's new 3U 8TB PXIe SSD Editor:- February 10, 2014 - Conduant today launched a 3U single slot PXIe module which can be populated with upto 8 mSATA SSDs. The Big River DM-8M-3U has a PCIe Gen 2 interface which connects to the flash array via an on-board Marvell controller. See also:- test systems EOL and gone-away SSD news Editor:- January 20, 2014 -Eventually - for every new SSD product which gets launched and every new startup which enters the market in a blaze of news glory there comes the day (maybe without the same fanfare) when the product is end of lifed, or the company is acquired. What happens then? Or long after... Some of you still need to know. 9 years ago in March 2005 - if you were in the market for industrial SSDs and looking for a supplier of PATA SSDs or PCMCIA SSDs designed for embedded applications - then obtaining such products was about to get much easier - because Bell Micro had just announced a distribution agreement for SiliconSystems SSDs. But - if you've still got legacy systems installed - which use those products where would you look today in 2014? One of the companies which services those needs for plug compatible functional replacements of this kind is PCcardsDirect which recently published an alternative parts numbers list for PCMCIA Type II ATA SSDs. Michael Furtado, Director of Sales at PCcardsDirect told me recently he collaborated with some former engineers from SiliconSystems to design a guide which enables you to locate competitive new replacements for many of those old hard to get drives. SBU NAS SSD from Curtiss-Wright Editor:- September 30, 2013 - I learned a new (to me) acronym today in an incoming email: - SBU (Sensitive But Unclassified) - used to describe a 2TB rugged NAS file server made by Curtiss-Wright for transporting removable military data between a base station and aircraft or mobile vehicle. The product concept itself isn't new, and it looks like "SBU" itself has been around for a while too - but it shows there's still a lot you can learn - even when you think you already know a market well. The different degrees of SSD security classification are one of the many signs of multiple use-case inspired product segments within SSD markets which outsiders mistakenly regard as being simpler and homogeneous. It's not just the enterprise SSD market which is growing in SSD product diversity. See also:- SSD jargon, military acronyms A to Z Microsemi's new SSD for vetronics can erase 256GB in < 8S Editor:- May 23, 2013 - Microsemi today announced that it has secured multiple design-wins for its new Series 200 TRRUST-Stor (rugged self encrypting, 2.5" SATA SSD with 256GB SLC capacity and fast purge). The company says a full hardware-based erase takes less than 8 seconds. The 200 model has R/W throughput which is twice as fast as the company's earlier TRRUST-Stor due to a new generation of the company's Armor processor. Developed to endure harsh environments the new SSD - which has hardware-implemented AES 256 encryption - can withstand up to 3,000G shock and 30G rms of vibration. new SSD module for mobile military systems Editor:- April 22, 2013 - Curtiss-Wright today announced the availability of conduction cooled secure 1TB SATA SLC SSD modules for use in its rugged 4 port NAS module which is designed to fit on an ARINC tray. The Vortex SSD - designed for applications such as helicopters, UAVs and mobile radar systems - is certified to FIPS 140-2 and provides 4 modes of key management. Crocus gets funding for x8 multibit magnetic semiconductor memory Editor:- April 8, 2013 - Crocus Technology today announced it has been awarded a contract from IARPA to develop an 8-bit per cell memory based on its Magnetic Logic Unit technology. This will greatly reduce the energy consumed per written-bit compared to any other memory technology, including DRAM, Flash, SRAM and MRAM. Douglas Lee, VP, product development at Crocus compared the 8 bits per cell which the company thinks it can get from its MLU technology with the state-of-the-art in nand flash - which is 3-4 bits per cell and also compared to alternative magnetic semiconductor technologies like MRAM - which is still only 1 bit per cell storage (SLC). Editor's comments:- here's some context. If it were possible to do x8 MLC flash - then Samsung's model 840 SSD would have 16TB capacity instead of the 512GB which it has using x3 (TLC) - which is the state of the art bits per cell shipping in a regular 2.5" SSD. But don't get too excited by this comparison as x8 flash currently exists only in the realm of science fiction. Having multibit capability in a magnetic semiconductor cell will undoubtedly be a breakthrough for that type of non volatile technology. But the density of such x8 MLU memories would still be 100x smaller than today's flash. The good news is that unlike flash - MLU will operate at very hot ambient temperatures - past 200 degrees C. experimental technique eliminates flash endurance limit Editor:- December 2, 2012 - An article in IEEE Spectrum - Flash Memory Survives 100 Million Cycles - summarizes a recent research paper by Macronix - which described an experimental technique to redesign flash cells to improve endurance. The technique - which StorageSearch.com does not think is feasible to scale for commercially competitive memory densities - involves designing addressable heaters in the memory array which can pulse upto 800 degrees C for a few milliseconds. This thermal "refreshing cycle" anneals the chip material and heals common wear-out defects while also enabling the cells to be run faster. "Afterward, we realized that there was no new physics principle invented here, and we could have done this 10 years ago" said Hang-Ting Lue, the project director at Macronix temperature related data rot in flash SSDs... a blog by WD Editor:- July 26, 2012 - A good analysis of temperature affects on flash data integrity can be seen in a recent blog - about intrinsic temperature related data rot in flash SSDs - by Eli Tiomkin, Director, Business Development, WD Solid State Storage who says (among other things) - "Over time, NAND cells may lose enough charge and flip enough bits to overwhelm the ECC capability of the drive controller and cause data loss." Eli Tiomkin's useful table lets you look up the SSD storage temperature and see how much more quickly the native flash will corrupt - if a suitable controller or healing process isn't in place to detect changes and fix them....read the article CWCDS offers 5TB version of SANbric SSD JBOD Editor:- June 19, 2012 - today Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions announced a new version of its FC compatible SSDs the SANbric which supports just under 5TB and weighs about 5 lbs and is designed for deployment in high speed rugged data streaming apps such as on-board wide body aircraft, and helicopter platforms. Microsemi eliminates weakest link in high capacity SATA SSDs Editor:- April 9, 2012 - Microsemi today announced it is offering a new type of ruggedized SATA connector option for its its TRRUST-Stor SSDs which provides a complete vibration-resistant solution which eliminates pin fretting and intermittent disconnects to assure long-term dependability. "The weakest link in many embedded applications is the connector, which can sabotage the operation of critical hardware," said B J Heggli, VP of Strategic Development for Microsemi. "Our new connector family protects against the effects of severe shock and vibration, which safeguards the flow of data. As a result, we can now offer customers what is perhaps the most secure and rugged SSD available on the market." TCS ships 200GB fast erase MIL-STD-810 2.5" SSD Editor:- January 24, 2012 - TCS today announced shipments of a rugged 200GB 2.5" SLC SSD which has has been verified by outside labs to meet MIL-STD-810 requirements for shock, vibration, temperature range, temperature shock, humidity and altitude. The new Galatea SSD has 40K IOPS performance, includes 128-bit AES encryption and can fast erase the full drive in less than 15 seconds. "Few solid-state drives combine the quality, data capacity and ruggedization features of Galatea," said Michael Bristol, senior VP and GM of TCS' Government Solutions Group. "It is ideal for a wide range of extreme industrial and defense applications, including oil and gas exploration, avionics and data logging in a variety of air, land and sea vehicles. Galatea combines superior access latency and power consumption performance with long-term reliability." Editor's comments:- I hadn't heard of TCS before in the SSD market - and I feel uncomfortable when I see a significant new SSD product pop out from seemingly nowhere. But then I recognized one of the legacy products names - Triton and sure enough TCS is the new identity for Trident Space & Defense - which was acquired a year ago. I googled "Galatea" - and I'd like to think it was named after one of the Harry Potter characters - who taught defence against the dark arts. Later today:- Charlie Cassidy who is Director of the Advanced Products Group at TCS contacted me to say - "I thought I would let you in on the "secret" of the Galatea name. No Harry Potter involved, we didn't even realize that connection. Our SSDs (Triton, Proteus, Galatea) are named after themoons of Neptune - paying homage to the Trident heritage." Conduction cooled rugged NAS SSDs find seats in war-planes Editor:- November 1, 2011 - Curtiss-Wright today announced that it has received a contract from Lockheed Martin Aeronautics to provide its rugged conduction cooled NAS SSDs - Vortex CNS products - to the U.S. Air Force's HC/MC-130J Super Hercules aircraft program. The initial order is valued at $800,000, with a potential lifetime contract value estimated at $7.5 million. Editor's comments:- using ethernet connected rugged SSDs on-board transport is a well established idea. Back in 2002 we ran ads for an early NAS flash SSD - a product called the NAS-168F. Some of the SSDs used in military projects nowadays are very sophisticated network devices as well as being very rugged. For example the TuffServ 480 - an iSCSI SSD system designed by Ampex . Meanwhile if you're talking about luggable SSD storage for real-time data capture - Texas Memory Systems offers a 4U specially shielded variant of their enterprise rackmount SSDs for airborne applications - called the RamSan-640. At the other end of the weight scale - Targa's 2.5" Removable DTU's are small enough to be panel mounted in cockpit systems. SMART samples new MIL SATA 3 SSD Editor:- October 26, 2011 - SMART today announced imminent sampling of a SATA 3 version of its MIL-STD-810 compliant 2.5" SSD family - which includes encryption and fast erase. The new Xcel-200 provides from 60GB to 240GB SLC capacity, 500MB/s sequential R/W speeds and 60K/40K random R/W IOPS. It operates at standard industrial temperature ranges and is certified for operation at altitudes up to 80,000 ft. Fusion-io can do secure erase in less than 60 seconds Editor:- September 15, 2011 - Fusion-io today announced that its new SureErase data sanitization tool has been confirmed as meeting Department of Defense sanitization standards by the Defense Information Systems Agency. SureErase enables users to securely remove/erase all data on any ioMemory-based technology, following DoD/NIST standards, regardless of capacity, in less than 1 minute. Editor's comments:- although that sounds like a long time - relative to fast purge SSDs (and it is too long for some applications) nevertheless when you take into account that many of Fusion-io's PCIe SSDs have multi-terabyte capacities - it's impressive. See also:- disk sanitizers I wish I had an SSD in Iraq Editor:- August 23, 2011 - the problems caused by sand blowing into hard drives in the context of a desert war - is the subject of a recent blog by Mark Flournoy, VP of Government & Defense at STEC. Among other things this article shows the consequences of data storage failures. It's the best blog I've seen so far on STEC's previously anemic SSD blog site. ...read the article . Emphase launches 2.5" MIL SSD family Editor:- May 11, 2011 - Emphase today launched a new range of rugged, MIL-STD-810F compliant 2.5" SATA SLC SSDs - which are currently available with upto 128GB capacity. The MIL-SPEC S5 SSD has R/W speeds upto 170 / 90MB/sec respectively and fast erase. Should the drive lose power during a protect, erase, or destroy command, the device will resume the operation as soon as power is restored. Standard product has high tolerance for high altitudes, shock, vibration, temperature, and humidity - options include conformal coating. CWCEC launches new rugged XMC/PMC SATA SSD Editor:- December 3, 2010 - Curtiss-Wright launched the XMC-552 - a rugged 256GB XMC/PMC form factor SATA SSD with 200MB/s throughput, fast purge (in 4 seconds), bad block blocking and 128-bit AES encryption - for defense and aerospace applications. Dataram's SSD ASAP accelerates rocket defense science Editor:- November 18, 2010 - ever since the first SSD ASAPs came to market just over a year ago - I've been curious to know what type of real customers would get a benefit from this new type of technology. Dataram this week provided a clue. It says that Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab has purchased and installed Dataram's XcelaSAN acceleration appliance for use in its missile defense research. Dataram also provides server and workstation memory products to JHU/APL. Texas Memory Systems' founder writes about 20 years of DoD SSDs Editor:- September 20, 2010 - Holly Frost founder of Texas Memory Systems has written a paper (pdf) which describes how variants of the company's newer SSDs like the RamSan-630 have been used recently by the US DoD and Intelligence Community. In another article he describes some features of their 1st DoD SSD in 1988. The company launched its 1st commercial enterprise SSDs in 2001 - but has continued evolving its defense based array processing capabilities. Update on the smallest PATA SSD Editor:- August 18, 2010 - Micross Components indicated that a future version of its microSSD (the world's smallest PATA SSD - which has a footprint of 14 x 24 x 1.3mm and weighs only 0.8 grams) may be offered with extended operation upto 105 degrees C. flash SSD integrity architectures for space-craft Editor:- April 13, 2010 - for those interested in flash SSD data integrity issues - Phil White, President of ECC Technologies has released a white paper - NAND Flash Memories for Spacecraft (doc). Phil has been working with ECC for almost 37 years and his company is developing future ECC designs to allow systems architects to develop NAND flash memories that are highly reliable and fault-tolerant even if the NAND flash chips themselves are not so reliable. NASA is using ECC Tek's designs in multiple missions. 2 of the designs are in space at the present time and are working perfectly. Phil White recently wrote a document for NASA and JPL which outlines how to design NAND Flash memories for spacecraft. The 22 page "preview" document excludes confidential data but gives a taste of the technology available for licensing. ...read the article Radar buffs get 8GB XMC Editor:- March 25, 2010 - Curtiss-Wright today announced it has doubled the memory from 4GB to 8GB on its MM-617 buffer memory XMC card - which is designed to provide volatile, deep storage for a wide range of military applications including RADAR, signal intelligence, and image processing. Editor's comments:- customers always want more memory for this type of application. In one project I managed in 1991 - we designed a system which captured radar data and streamed it continuously to 16 x 6U of the fastest COTS memory cards then available at the maximum operating speed of the VMEbus. That required weeding out badly designed backplanes and memory cards - and playing with early generations of Altera FPGAs. It was similar projects streaming to hard disk arrays (and analyzing the data ASAP) where I learned a lot of useful things about storage too. Viking's DOM MIL certified Editor:- March 3, 2010 - Viking Modular Solutions today announced that its SATA Cube3 128GB DOM (launched in March 2009) has successfully completed tests pursuant to the MIL-STD-810F specification. Aitech's new XMC SSD Editor:- February 18, 2010 - Aitech launched a new model in its family of PMC/XMC SSDs. The M224 has 128GB capacity, and hardware RAID options which support the onboard flash array. Sustained sequential R/W speeds are 170MB/s and 120MB/s respectively. The M224 is available in air-cooled and conduction-cooled versions as well as in 3 levels of ruggedization depending on shock, vibration and humidity requirements. OS support includes VxWorks, Windows and Linux. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| That's not quite it yet Editor's note:- Due to length considerations - I had to truncate this page somewhere - but my buyers' guides covering military peripherals and systems go back to 1992. For narratively driven chronologial highlights try these resurces...
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suggested articles and directories 1" SSDs - includes SSDs on a chip 2.5" SSDs PATA SSDs SATA SSDs SSD reliability SSD security disk sanitizers SSD controllers industrial SSDs the fastest SSDs SSD market history memory channel SSDs old style parallel SCSI SSDs fast purge / secure erase SSDs fault tolerant / high availability SSDs surviving unexpected SSD power loss endurance - the forever war in flash SSDs adaptive DSP is going inside flash controllers . | |||||||
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