Fremont,
CA - October 29, 2008 - SMART Modular
Technologies, Inc. today announced availability of its Xcel-10 - a 2.5"
SATA SLC flash SSD with upto 128GB capacity designed for the enterprise and
commercial systems markets.
It delivers 5,580
IOPS at 100%
read or 980 IOPS at 67% read, 33% write, for random I/O using 4K block size. For
applications using large block sequential I/O, the Xcel-10 SSD delivers
sustained read speeds of up to 115MB/s and sustained write speeds up to 125MB/s.
(It really is faster than the read speed).
"The enterprise market for SSDs is in its early stages, but is on
track for steady growth," says Jeff Janukowicz, Research Manager for Solid
State Drives at IDC. "We
project that the market will grow from $75 million in 2008 to more than $158
million in 2009, with continued growth in 2010 and beyond. Increasing storage
performance and efficiency are key requirements for the enterprise and
commercial systems market. Solutions, like SMART's new Xcel-10 SSD, are in a
position to capitalize on the opportunities associated with these market needs."
"Since it supports both high sequential performance (measured in
MB/s) or random I/O performance (measured in IOPS), the SMART Xcel-10 SSD is
targeted at cost-sensitive enterprise server applications and embedded
applications," explained Wade Campbell, SMART's Director of SSD Marketing
and Product Management. "Most SSDs are optimized for applications using
either sequential or random I/O. The Xcel-10 drive is unique because it has the
versatility to easily support both types of applications in dedicated solutions
and application mixes found in enterprise server environments."
Editor's comments:- comparing SMART's new SSD with
Intel's launched earlier
this month illustrates the different choices made by SSD product marketers.
There's a limit to how many chips you can pack into a
2.5" 9.5mm high SSD.
So all products are a compromize with costs and features weighted differently
for different (real or imagined) markets.
The Intel product delivers
faster IOPS but has 4x lower capacity. You either have more
controller chips or
more flash memory. You
can't do both in this form factor. Although other SSD form factors such as
rackmounts and
PCIe are not so
restrictive in PCB footprint they have the disadvantage of addressing smaller
available markets. Looking at the popularity of SSD vendors here on
storagesearch.com suggests that SMART's product hits a bigger applications
segment today.
pureSilicon Samples MIL SSDs
Editor:- October 28, 2008 - pureSilicon emerged
from stealth mode today and said it is sampling the Renegade SSD - a rugged
MIL-STD-810F compliant 128GB SATA flash SSD with integrated encryption.
To
protect the SSD from harsh physical environments, the Renegade features a
hard-anodized unibody enclosure, carved from a single piece of aluminum and the
internal PCBs are conformally coated. Volume shipments commence in Q1 2009.
See also:- Military &
Rugged SSDs
Texas Memory Systems installs 1 million IOPS 20TB flash SSD
Houston, Texas -
October 28, 2008 - Texas
Memory Systems today announced it has shipped a datacenter class flash
SSD system - the RamSan-5000.
Taking 40U of rack space it provides up to 20TB of RAID-protected
flash memory and delivers 1 million random read IOPS at under one-millisecond
response time and up to 20GB/s of read or write bandwidth using either Fibre
Channel or InfiniBand interfaces.
Texas Memory Systems' new Turbo
feature allows users to lock a logical unit of storage in the large
RAM cache of
the predominantly flash-based
RamSan-500 units that
make up the RamSan-5000 solid state system. The Turbo feature transitions the
RamSan system into a self-contained tiered storage solution with
frequently-accessed files placed in persistent RAM storage while the remaining
files are stored in Flash. A single RamSan-500 with the Turbo feature can
provide over 300,000 random IOPS based on a mixture of accesses to the locked
LUN and Flash memory. Therefore, a RamSan-5000 comprised of 10 Turbo-enabled
RamSan-500s offers several million random IOPS.
"We were
installing a 20 terabyte one-million IOPS RamSan-5000 at a customer site while
other vendors were announcing lab results," said Woody Hutsell, Executive
VP at Texas Memory Systems. "We won the business because the system met
strict performance
requirements and was determined to be the most cost-effective solution
available, today or on the horizon."
See also:- the
fastest SSDs
Dynamic Solutions International Signs 100th Virtual Tape Library
Customer
ENGLEWOOD, Colo - October 28, 2008 - Dynamic Solutions International
today announced it has implemented its 100th mainframe attached
virtual tape library system at the City of Detroit.
DSI's VTL storage
appliance is used by the City of Detroit's IT department as an enterprise
backup solution for their Unisys MCP-based payroll system, Windows 2000
servers, Novell servers and a HP-UX test system. It has enabled backups to
be completed in a fraction of the time that it used to take with the previous
physical tape libraries.
Chris Johnson, VP of storage solutions for DSI said "We are
the only FalconStor
partner with support for mainframe attached VTL's, and with over 35 years for
experience in the storage industry, have particularly strong relationships with
our customers around the world. There has been much success with the DSI VTL
family of products, and we are delighted to mark our 100th mainframe attached
VTL installation with the City of Detroit."
MicroNet Ships Low Cost Unified SMB Storage
Torrance, CA - October
27, 2008 - MicroNet
Technology today introduced its first unified NAS/iSCSI ipSAN-ready
storage solution for the desktop SMB market with 5 hot swappable 3.5"
drives.
Features include:- 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports with load balancing
and failover, selective
iSCSI target mode,
RAID 0/1/5/6/10/JBOD/SPAN,
3 USB expansion ports and 1x eSATA port for storage and printer sharing. The
MaxNAS is available immediately with an MSRP of $1,349 for a 2.5TB
configuration, $1,699 for the 5TB model and $2,499 for the 7.5TB appliance.
,
NAS
Plasmon Restructures as New Company
Colorado Springs, Colo -
October 23, 2008 - Newly formed Plasmon Holding LLC announced today that
it has completed a management buyout and organisational restructuring of assets
from Plasmon PLC,
a trusted source of data archiving systems for over 20 years.
The
transaction is intended to capitalise and reposition Plasmon over the long term.
Under the restructuring, Plasmon Inc, formerly a US-based subsidiary to the UK
company, will become the worldwide headquarters. The "new" Plasmon
will offer its market leading archiving solutions and services in all global
territories. See also:-
Optical Storage Libraries
Samsung Takes its Ball Away
Editor:- October 22, 2008
- Samsung
announced it has
withdrawn
its offer to buy
SanDisk.
SanDisk
replied - it remains open to "good" offers.
For the
interrupted game commentary see either:- ...Samsung profile,
...SanDisk profile
Analyst comments:-
from - Jim Handy,
Objective
Analysis
"This is good for Samsung. Samsung's stockholders will be
rewarded if the company can acquire SanDisk at the lowest possible price...
(if) today's announcement helps Samsung push SanDisk's share price lower, making
it possible to acquire the company at a better deal than the $26 per share that
Samsung previously offered."
Later:- In 2015 SanDisk agreed to be acquired by
WDC
Dot Hill Increments RAID IP
Carlsbad, Calif. -
October 22, 2008 - Dot
Hill Systems Corp today announced that the US Patent and Trademark
Office has granted the company 3 new RAID related patents.
U.S.
patent 7,340,555, "RAID System for
Performing Efficient Mirrored Posted-Write Operations" - This relates
to Dot Hill's SimulCache data caching architecture which leverages redundant
RAID controllers, thus
eliminating the performance degradation associated with conventional cache
mirroring. The implementation of a high-speed dedicated PCIe bus streamlines
write performance, resulting in superior overall system responsiveness to drive
faster application throughput in database-related deployments.
U.S. patent 7,380,115, "Transferring Data using
Direct Memory Access" - This relates to a method of improving
controller performance by consolidating RAID functions into hardware and adding
advanced memory controller technology.
U.S. patent 7,380,055, "Apparatus and Method in
a Cached RAID Controller Utilizing a Solid State Backup Device for Improving
Data Availability Time" - This relates to Dot Hill EcoStor, an
environmentally friendly "green," battery-free alternative that
leverages a combination of super capacitors and compact
flash technology for
non-volatile cache memory. With up to a 10-year life span, EcoStor practically
eliminates service calls for battery replacement, new battery inventory
management, and the issues of battery disposal, as well as the periodic
replacement downtime associated with batteries. Additionally, it offers an
improved customer experience upon installation or power restore as it does not
require lengthy battery charging time. The array operates in high-performance
write-back cache mode within minutes of installation, versus hours with
batteries.
"OEMs look to Dot Hill for innovative 'out-of-the
box' solutions that solve their customers' storage challenges and provide a
competitive advantage to our OEM partners," said Jim Kuentzel, senior vp of
Engineering for Dot Hill. "These latest additions to our ever-expanding
patent portfolio are a testament to the expertise of our seasoned engineering
team."
See also:- RAID
systems,
enterprise
SSD market consolidation |
