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| Pliant
Technology Kicks off - the SSD Industry Bookmarks |
Editor:- March 5,
2009 - Pliant
Technology's VP of Marketing, Greg Goelz shares his
SSD Bookmarks
in the 1st episode of a classic new series starting today on StorageSearch.com.
The
topic of SSDs on the web is clouded by misunderstanding and misinformation
making it hard to find reliable information. The new series will include
suggestions for SSD links and articles from SSD visionaries and thought leaders
at the pinnacle of the SSD market which introduce you to quality vetted
resources outside the well known StorageSearch space.
Winchester Systems Unveils Rugged Rackmount SSD RAID
Editor:-
March 5, 2009 - Winchester
Systems says its will launch a range of rugged
rackmount SSDs
next week at FOSE
.
Among the new products is a 1U RAID 5 / 6 protected rugged
SSD array - the RX-1300
FlashDisk - which houses 12x
2.5" SSDs.
Interface options for the array include
SAS,
FC and
PCIe.
"Customers
find that they need field deployable storage and servers that exceed standard
commercial capabilities but not full
military rugged
specifications or prices," explained Joel Leider, the company's CEO. "Our
rugged storage and servers provide extra security and protection against dust,
rain, shock and vibration at COTS prices which are about half of full military
standard costs."
The US Army has approved these units for field use. They are deployed
in harsh environments worldwide in HUMVEEs and stationary shelters. |
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| Creative
Storage Conference Invites Visitors and Sponsors |
| Editor:- March 4,
2009 - The 3rd Annual Creative
Storage Conference will be held in conjunction with the The NAB Show at the Flamingo Hotel in
Las Vegas on April 19, 2009. |
Registration for
CS09 visitors opened today. Price for the 1 day event is $295 until April
10th - and $395 thereafter.
The organizers say
sponsorships and
exhibits are still available.
See also:-
Storage Events |
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|
Solid Access
Breaks the $10K Price Barrier for 16GB Enterprise RAM SSD
Editor:-
March 4, 2009 - Solid Access
Technologies announced today it has broken the $10,000 price
barrier for a high performance rackmount
RAM SSD.
It's
offering a 2U 16GB FC or
SAS connected USSD
200 model for just $9,900.
Fast IOPs and fast ROI can go together if you've got the right
applications. The company has published a
white
paper (pdf) which shows what one customer in the GIS market did with this
entry level configuration. Their current
Q1 2009 price lists go
all the way up to $375k for a 1TB 8 port 4Gbps FC model.
On a
historical
note - Solid Access was the first SSD manufacturer to display end user pricing
online for the full range of its enterprise SSD products - back in April 2006.
Before that SSD oems were
coy due to the ever volatile nature of memory pricing. That strategy seems to
be paying off - because in 2008 - the company's sales grew more than 400%.
A-DATA Launches 512GB 2.5" SSD
Editor:- March 3,
2009 -
A-DATA launched
a 512GB 2.5"
flash SSD today at CeBIT.
The dual interface (USB
and SATA) compatible
SSD has R/W speeds upto
230MB/s and 160MB/s respectively, and is aimed at notebooks.
A-DATA's
press release
mistakenly claims this is the highest capacity
2.5" SSD.
Pretec Samples Highest Capacity ExpressCard SSD
Editor:-
March 3, 2009 -
Pretec Electronics
announced
today it is sampling a 128GB ExpressCard
SSD for the notebook market with 38/30MB/s R/W speeds and hardware encryption.
Volume shipments are expected next month.
Other ExpressCard
SSD oems listed in the
SSD Buyers Guide
include:- A-DATA,
Cenatek,
Lexar Media,
PQI,
Transcend and
Verbatim
HP oems Fusion-io's SSD Accelerator Technology
Editor:-
March 3, 2009 -
Fusion-io
announced an oem
deal with HP
whose new PCIe based
StorageWorks
IO Accelerator for for HP BladeSystem c-Class servers is based on
Fusion's ioMemory SSD technology.
A low level formatting tool for the
HP SSD enables users to choose what level of
over-provisioning is
used - as a performance
tweaking option.
What's Holding up the SSD market? - Podcast on Denali.com
Editor:-
March 3, 2009 - Denali.com has posted an interview with Tom
Coughlin on the subject of - 'What's Holding up the SSD market?'"
In
this 20 minute podcast Coughlin discusses many of the uncertainties and
complicating factors that will have to be resolved before
flash SSDs can
significantly displace magnetic
media in the broad range of computing products.
Among the many insights:- many new flash SSD oems aiming at the
notebook market just don't know enough about what happens to hard disks in all
the many applications they are used in, and this is a multi-year learning curve.
- I'd certainly agree with that. In my view there are many hastily designed
SSDs in the market which merely represent what the designer could cut and paste
from their own IP, sometimes tweaked to
look good in
benchmarks.
In the server acceleration space (sometimes referred to as
tier zero storage) - Coughlin is asked what proportion of this market for hard
drives is accessible to SSDs. In line with
long established SSD
industry thinking Coughlin says that SSDs don't replace hard drives - but that
maybe about 1 in 10 drives could usefully be deployed as SSDs. Tom also talks
about the importance of Storage
Events. ...hear
the article, ...Coughlin
Associates profile, 100+
articles about SSDs
DOJ Investigates EMC
Editor:-
March 3, 2009 - an article today in BostonHerald.com discusses EMC's
disclosure that it is being investigated by the DOJ.
These
matters were disclosed in an
SEC
filing yesterday. ...EMC
profile
AFN Manages Video Content with Front Porch Digital
LOUISVILLE, Colo. - March
2, 2009 - Front Porch Digital today announced that the American
Forces Network broadcast center has implemented the company's systems to
support management, retrieval, and long-term preservation of video content.
From its Riverside, Calif., facility,
AFN provides radio and television
programming to approximately 900,000 U.S. service men and women, Department of
Defense civilians, and families stationed outside the United States. By means of
12 full-time television channels, AFN offers entertainment and information to
personnel located in 177 countries and on Navy ships at sea.
"AFN's
mandate is to provide 'a taste of home' to U.S. personnel and dependents the
world over," said Mike Knaisch, president of Front Porch Digital. "Front
Porch Digital's content storage management solutions constitute a flexible,
scalable, and cost-effective way to manage video programming content in support
of that important mission."
...Front Porch Digital
profile, Storage
Services, Military &
Rugged Storage
Some Hard Disk Markets May Grow - Despite Recession
Editor:-
March 2, 2009 - a mixed picture is starting to emerge about storage winners and
losers in the current recession.
The single biggest winner still looks
like being the SSD market.
But even within the battered
hard disk market there
are signs of both winning as well as losing categories.
In February
2009 - pageviews on the
HDD Duplicators page
here on StorageSearch.com declined
by 18% compared to the year ago period. These products are mainly
purchased by systems integrators and oems rather than end-users. With PC and
server volumes in declining year on year - there are enough of these duplicator
systems in place already - without the need to buy more.
In contrast,
due to growing user awareness and fears about storage data
security, pageviews
for Disk Sanitizers
(some of which are essentially disk duplicators populated by different
firmware) increased 5% in the same period. It's the end-user community
which drives the market for storage sanitizers. Responsible organizations want
to ensure that disk drives with sensitive financial, customer. medical, legal
or other information are properly cleansed when those assets are disposed of.
Meanwhile pageviews for the top 5
SSD articles in
February 2009 grew 51% year on year.
Spansion Files for Bankruptcy
SUNNYVALE,
Calif. - March 1, 2009 - Spansion Inc. the world's largest pure-play
provider of flash memory solutions, today filed a voluntary petition for
reorganization under chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
The
company believes that its current and anticipated cash resources will be
sufficient to pay its expenses and maintain its business operations while it
explores and implements options to address its long-term cash needs. Spansion
emphasized that it intends to maintain customer service throughout the
reorganization.
...Spansion profile,
Flash Memory Chips &
Cards
Analyst
comments:- Jim Handy at
Objective
Analysis explores
what
is likely to happen next? (pdf)
NetApp's Denise Ridolfo Joins SNIA Europe Board
Editor:-
March 2, 2009 - SNIA
Europe announced today the recent appointment of NetApp's Denise
Ridolfo to its Board of Directors.
Ridolfo, who is based in the USA
and France, is NetApp's Industry & Standards Operations Manager, reporting
into the CTO Office, and represents the company in various
industry associations.
Ridolfo has spent over 15 years in the IT and storage networking industry.
Storage People |
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| SSD power down
management architectures |
Why should you care
what happens in an SSD when the power goes down?
This important design
feature - which barely rates a mention in most SSD datasheets and press releases
- is really important in determining SSD data integrity and operational
reliability.
This article (which has become unexpectedly popular)
will help you understand why some SSDs which work perfectly well in one type of
application might fail in others... even when the changes in the operational
environment appear to be negligible. |
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