A-DATA Launches
Dual Interface 2.5" SSD
Taipei, Taiwan -
November 21, 2008 - A-DATA launched the XPG - a dual interface USB and
SATA 2.5" flash SSD.
Available with capacities from 32GB to
192GB - it has a read speed upto 170MB/s and write speed upto 100MB/s. Operating
temperature is -10°C to 70°C. It weighs 85 grams and has a shock
resistance upto 1500G/0.5ms.
...A-DATA profile
Editor's
comments:-STEC
launched the world's first dual interface
3.5" SSD in
September 2005.
At launch time the Zeus Dual Interface SSD which had both a
USB and
SATA interface,
offered capacities up to 192GB and sustained read/write rates of 60MB/s.
Samsung Ships Fast 2.5" MLC SSDs
Seoul,
Korea - November 20, 2008 - Samsung announced today that it has begun
mass producing 2.5" SATA MLC SSDs with 256GB capacity in standard 9.5mm
height, with 220MB/s read, and 200MB/s sustained write speed.
Aimed
at the notebook and desktop PC market Samsung says it can store large data sets
- such as movies - 3x faster than a 7,200 RPM hard disk, and load applications
10x faster while consuming less than ½ the power. No IOPS data was
available at launch. But on published R/W specs - this is one of the top 3
fastest 2.5"
SSDs.
Samsung Semiconductor's VP memory marketing Jim Elliott said - "Getting
our exceptionally high performing 256GB SSD in a notebook is analogous to having
a 15,000 RPM drive, without all of its size, noise, power and heating drawbacks."
...Samsung profile,
2.5" SSDs
TheInfoPro Reports High ExaGrid Penetration in D2d/Dedupe
Westborough,
Mass - November 19, 2008 - ExaGrid Systems, Inc. today announced it is
the 2nd most used vendor of deduplicating disk backup appliances in
mid-size enterprises according to recent market research from TheInfoPro.
ExaGrid VP Marc Crespi said "ExaGrid has established
itself as the performance and scalability leader in the rapidly growing
disk-based backup with
deduplication
market." ...ExaGrid
profile, ...TheInfoPro
profile
Toshiba Announces 500GB 2.5" HDD
IRVINE,
Calif. - November 18, 2008 - Toshiba today announced a 500GB 2.5"
hard drive for mobile applications.
The SATA compatible
MK5055GSX
HDD has 4 heads and 2 platters and spins (with low acoustic noise) at 5,400
RPM. Media transfer rate is upto 952Mbps
...Toshiba profile,
Hard disk drives
Emulex Promises FCoE for Sun's COMSTAR
COSTA MESA, Calif. -
November 18, 2008 - Emulex Corp today announced that it will offer
FCoE adapters for use with Sun Microsystems' COMSTAR.
COMSTAR - Common
Multiprotocol SCSI Target - is a software framework that enables you to turn
any OpenSolaris host into a SCSI
target that can be accessed over the network by initiator hosts. Emulex's FCoE
adapters can simplify networking infrastructure by consolidating
Fibre Channel and
networking traffic over a 10Gb/s Ethernet network, to reduce overall
infrastructure costs.
...Emulex profile,
SPARC Product Directory,
FCoE
- editor mentions on STORAGE search .com
Spansion Launches $100 billion Flash Suit
SunnyvaleCalif.
- November 17, 2008 -
Spansion Inc. today announced that it is filing patent infringement
complaints against Samsung with the ITC.
In one of the
largest patent infringement claims ever filed, Spansion is seeking the exclusion
from the U.S. market of well over 100 million mp3 players, cell phones, digital
cameras and other consumer electronic devices containing Samsung's infringing
flash memory components. The complaint also seeks an injunction and 3x damages
for patent violations relating to Samsung flash memory, that Spansion estimates
has accounted for more than $30 billion in Samsung's global revenues since 2003.
Although Samsung is the target of the litigations, Spansion is
required to name the manufacturers of downstream products containing Samsung's
infringing devices in its ITC complaint. Companies named in the ITC case
include: Samsung, Apple, Asus, Kingston, Lenovo, PNY, RIM, Sony, Sony-Ericsson,
Transcend, some of their subsidiaries and 3rd party manufacturing companies.
The Spansion patents named in these law suits are fundamental to
floating gate technology, which is the foundation for approximately 90% of the
flash memory market.
Spansion is also leading the industry with MirrorBit, a charge-trapping
technology, that represents a growing share of the Flash memory market and is
expected to replace floating gate technology in the future. Flash memory
companies including Samsung have publicly announced their plans to transition to
charge-trapping type technologies for their future generation products.
...Spansion profile,
...Samsung profile
Analyst
comments:- from Jim Handy founder of
Objective
Analysis - "Spansion explains that they have been in conversations
with the majority of flash memory manufacturers to discuss friendly ways of
licensing their charge-trapping IP on fair terms, but that the company's
negotiations with Samsung came to a sudden stop a few months ago..."
...read
article analyzing this (pdf)
Solid Access Technologies Launches World's Fastest 1U SSD
Austin, TX - November 17, 2008 - At
SC08 today Solid Access Technologies announced the immediate
availability of its new generation of DRAM SSD products, the USSD Series 300.
Solid Access says the 4 new models are aimed at organizations
requiring the highest capacity, "no compromises" IOPS and data
bandwidth performance in the smallest possible footprint. Interface options
within the family include 8Gbps
Fibre Channel, 6Gbps
SAS and
320MB/s LVD SCSI
interfaces. R/W latency is under 10 microseconds and the models support upto
100K IOPS on a single port.
- Model 310 is a 256GB, 1U rackmount offering for high IOPS needs
- Model 310T is a 1TB, 4U tower, targeted at high performance databases
- Model 315 is a combined server and 128GB RAM SSD, 1U device, for custom
projects
- Model 320, a 256GB, 2U product which supports upto 6 ports and 4GB/s
sustained aggregated data bandwidth.
Solid Access says it guarantees equivalent or better application I/O
acceleration as well as the lowest price of any comparable SSD, and has launched
a "test before you buy" program.
"Five years ago when
we introduced the first open architecture, ultra-fast DRAM SSD, our goal was to
offer the best performance, most flexible interfacing, highest density and best
price of any offering in the segment" said Tomas Havrda, Solid Access
Managing Director. "The new USSD 300 Series is the capstone to our efforts
in a year in which we have enjoyed 500% growth. The
recent 28 unit
USSD sale to Samsung Securities is further proof that customers of all sizes are
taking notice." ...Solid Access
Technologies profile
Editor's comments:- for several years
there has been a gap in the market for a really high performance 1U
rackmount SSD. My
gut feeling is it could become a very popular form factor in Google style
(democratic) server architectures - which contain large numbers of identical
servers..
As the cost of
RAM SSDs easily makes
them the most expensive box per rackmount unit in the datacenter - the
availability of 1U models reduces the incremental deployment costs for customers
who are continuously upgrading their systems. It also lowers the cost of holding
immediately deployable spares. |
 |
A-DATA Offers Less
Irritating USB Flash Drive
Editor:- November 17, 2008 - A-DATA has recently
launched the S805 - a 2GB to 8GB
USB flash drive with a
swivel design connector to eliminate cap loss.
Housed in zinc alloy
the S805 has a sports accessory style clip for attaching to a key chain.
One of the irritating scenarios with some key chain USB sticks is
when you're part way through a 30 minute back-up and need to remove your keys to
get something from outside.
Although I use a short USB cable to
connect my notebook to its backup - the thin wire loop on many backup devices is
a mechanically weak link in the design. |
 |
|
BiTMICRO Ships
Flagship 3.5" SSDs
Austin, TX -
November 17, 2008 - BiTMICRO Networks announced at SC08 the
first customer shipment of its E-Disk Altima 3.5" 4Gb Fibre Channel SSD.
The drive, a 128GB E-Disk Altima FC SSD, was shipped to Rafael Advanced Defense
Systems Ltd of Israel.
The high capacity product family (upto 1.6TB SLC) delivers full
duplex burst rates upto 800MB/s and sustained throughput upto 230MB/s.
"...We were very pleased at how the E-Disk Altima 4Gb Fibre
Channel SSD came together and successfully passed performance and
manufacturability tests for engineering prototypes with flying colors,"
said Rudy Bruce, Executive VP for Marketing and Sales of BiTMICRO Networks. "The
enterprise storage market is primed for the entry of solid state storage
devices, and our company believes that the E-Disk Altima solid state drives will
deliver outstanding storage performance required by IOPS-hungry commercial
applications."
...BiTMICRO profile,
3.5" SSDs
EDN Publishes Benchmarks on Intel's Fast Flash SSD
Editor:- November
17, 2008 - EDN has published benchmarks comparing Intel's new
fast SLC flash SSDs with various other SATA flash SSDs and HDDs.
The
author, EDN Senior Technical Editor Brian
Dipert, has also
published
useful raw results on R/W IOPS and throughput.
However Dipert
voices some concerns
about the validity of these tests on flash SSDs.
"Since the
data sets I wrote to the drives were fairly small in comparison to the SSDs'
total available capacities, and since the drives were freshly formatted at the
beginning of the tests, I suspect that the file patterns I wrote to the SSDs
didn't trigger much if any media management. But sooner or later under normal
usage conditions, the drive controller will need to begin tackling..."
The
halo effect caused by invalid hard disk benchmark assumption were discussed in
my article
Can you trust your
flash SSD's specs? |
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| Looking for
2009 Storage Plan Inputs? |
Editor:- November 17, 2008 - traditionally this
is the time of year when storage
marketers realize it would be good
to include some plausible projections, trends, quotes or even hard facts
inside their otherwise "wishful thinking" based business plans for
next year.
If you're in that predicament the
market research page
lists nearly 70 analyst organizations which cover the storage market.
And
if you're looking at SSDs
you're in luck - because there's an
SSD analysts
directory devoted exclusively to that very subject. But be warned.
It's a very complicated market which will
segment
into many application strands during the coming years as the market gets
bigger.
For many vendors - the outlook next year is dimmed under
the shadow of recession. But excellent products and services which solve real
customer needs conveniently or economically can actually do better in budget
constrained circumstances.
Users too face problems. Because the Old
Regime's expensive solutions are no longer affordable - users are forced to
look at alternative suppliers and technologies. And although it's hard work
and uncomfortable researching new ways of doing things - and thinking in new
ways - it can lead to greater efficiency.
Many parts of the storage
market will emerge bigger and stronger after several years of recession - while
others (which were already past their use-by- date anyway) will shrink and
disappear.
We've been here many times before - see what happened last
time in - Storage Winners
and Losers from the 2000-2003 IT Recession | | |
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| It may seem like a huge
leap from a 4U $290K rackmount RAM SSD (with internal flash backup and
load) to hybrid DIMM (modules) but good ideas in SSD architecture have
often made that kind of transition in SSD history. |
| flash backed DIMMs /
NVDIMMs | | | |
