SMART SSDs
Selected for Avionics Servers
Editor:- October 20, 2009 - SMART today
announced that it has been
selected
by Harris Corp to provide SSDs for use in its Mass Storage Unit
program.
The new MSU, which is part of a larger F/A-18 program, is the
first of a new family of avionics file servers.
Harris selected SMART's
XceedSecure
2.5" SATA SLC flash SSD for the in-flight file server application.
XceedSecure high-performance SSDs range in capacity from 32GB to 256GB and
include EraSure® technology, which provides
secure erase features
that comply with current military data-elimination standards.
Expect 16GFC by 2011 - says FCIA
Editor:- October
20, 2009 - the Fibre
Channel Industry Association announced its has completed the technical
work on
16Gb/s
Fibre Channel (16GFC) - which provides a natural value migration from 8GFC.
Product
roll-outs are anticipated in 2011 according to FCIA Chairman - Skip Jones.
Editor's
comments:- I first published a directory of Fibre-channel adapters way back
in 1994. The first FC connected storage array product listed in that
was the
SPARCstorageArray
from
Sun Microsystems.
It's reassuring that users in the FC market can anticipate another
level of performance evolution - but FC is no longer a growth market. So this
could be the last post for FC - just as
15K RPM
was the end of the road for hard disks.
For dispersed systems
ethernet based storage (NAS)
long ago became the dominant network storage connect - while for local use and
higher performance InfiniBand
and PCIe have taken
hold in distinct functional pockets.
Samsung invests in Fusion-io
Editor:- October 20,
2009 - Samsung
has invested in
Fusion-io .
These
2 leading SSD companies
have also agreed to jointly evaluate technology for new SSD applications.
Samsung's
strategic financial investment will drive further solid-state innovation at
Fusion-io, which is expected to result in a steady evolution of state-of-the-art
storage media.
"In securing these agreements, Samsung is furthering its
working relationship with Fusion-io," said Jim Elliott, VP, Memory
Marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. "We continue to be impressed with
the technology Fusion-io is creating and are now taking our relationship with
them to a new level."
"Samsung's superior quality, product consistency and close
working partnership have been important contributors to our success to date,"
said David Flynn, president and CTO of Fusion-io. "We are honored by
Samsung's recognition of our potential and are gratified that these agreements
will ensure that our products use the best NAND flash on the market today."
Editor's comments:- not all
flash memory is created
equal - and an important part of the competitive advantage in an
SSD controller is the
brainpower which the SSD designer has invested into understanding the
personalities of the flash he/she is using. These supplier specific
personalities arise from architecture and process differences in flash memory
and they yield unique distributions of parameters which are often not
explicitly specified in the datasheet. But a good SSD designer can use this
proprietary knowledge to design an SSD which is more economic, or faster, or
more reliable than using generic assumptions.
But those technology
insights can only succeed in the market if the SSD vendor can ensure that they
will get a continuous supply of raw memory products tweaked or batch tested to
fit their controller model. Why should the memory maker restrict their freedom
to innovate their products for the whole market - compared to guaranteeing
features for a single customer?
To make this work the collaborators
have to share confidential technology and market information. That's how this
type of investment agreement starts.
3 years ago
Samsung invested in
SiliconSystems - the background to that was a market in which SLC flash
was expected to be in short supply. Today's investment in Fusion-io has a
different market background - but it demonstrates the 2 companies think they can
do better by working together. Fusion-io said it will be demonstrating new
products based on this collaboration next month.
Ampex ships rugged iSCSI SSD
Editor:- October 19,
2009 - Ampex
announced first customer shipments of the TuffServ 480 SSD - a rugged
iSCSI SSD for airborne
applications to General Atomics.
The
TuffServ 480 provides
2TB of RAID protected hot swappable flash storage in a conduction cooled
MIL-STD-810F certified compact package measuring 5.25" H x 7.25" W x
10" D.
"Higher performance, smaller size, and lighter weight,
and all at a lower cost," is the way that Business Development Manager John
Hardy described Ampex' s new airborne solid-state server system. "The
TuffServ 480 system is specifically designed to meet our customers ever growing
data acquisition needs."
Dane-Elec Unveils USB 3 SSDs
Editor:- October 19,
2009 - Dane-Elec
Memory announced it will start shipping a range of USB 3 compatible
external SSDs with 250MB/s throughput in December.
These new products
leverage Intel's flash
SSDs. Dane-Elec will also be offering USB 3.0-compatible adapters for desktops
with PCIe slots and laptops with PCIXpress slots.
SSD Seminars - US & Canada
Editor:- October 18,
2009 - Objective
Analysis announced that
SSD analyst Jim
Handy will be presenting at Bell Microproducts'
6 city series of SSD
seminars.
This series will take place in October and November
2009 in urban centers across North America and is focused on the theme "The
State of Solid State." Presentations will underscore the innovative
features, capabilities and benefits of SSDs, including a look at total cost of
ownership and detailed technical knowledge.
Samsung Puts its Stamp on Consumer Flash Upgrades
Editor:-
October 16, 2009 -
Samsung is
launching a branded range of flash
cards aimed at the consumer market - initially in Taiwan.
Previously
Samsung manufactured "white-label" digital memory cards for a variety
of leading electronics companies and memory card companies.
Samsung's
new premium "Plus" memory cards, which comply with the Secure Digital
class 6 ratings for performance, are available in SD, microSD and CF formats
with densities of 4GB and 8GB, with a 16GB density for an SD Plus card. Designed
to ensure that valuable data is not lost, Samsung memory cards are
shock-resistant, water-resistant and protected from damage caused by magnetic
interference. iSuppli
estimates the NAND flash-memory retail market is already worth $12 billion in
revenues annually.
Foremay Ships TRIM Compliant SSDs
Editor:- October
15, 2009 -
Foremay today
announced that its PC166 Leopard W-Series SSDs - designed and tested for
compliance with Windows 7 SSD TRIM - are shipping in volume.
With the
TRIM function enabled, the SSD can significantly improve sustainable writing
speed, as well as prevent writing performance degradation when an SSD is at
greater than 50% capacity. "One of the key features of Windows 7 is its
support of the TRIM command," stated Jack Winters, Co-founder and CTO of
Foremay. "Without this support, we had to implement our proprietary active
garbage collection
algorithm in our high end solid state drives that are listed as the
Fastest SSD. Now I
am glad to see that Windows 7 supports TRIM so that we can implement more
cost-effective passive garbage collection techniques into the PC166 Leopard
WSeries and other Foremay SSDs."
Editor's comments:- all good fast enterprise flash SSDs
already had "active garbage collection" - so TRIM makes no difference
to those. But (if it works) Microsoft's TRIM - means oems can use slower and
cheaper controllers in their PC SSDs - and let the OS do the job. |
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| SSDs - the big picture |
| Editor:-
StorageSearch.com was the
world's 1st publication to provide continuous editorial coverage and analysis
of SSDs (in 1998) and since then we've led the market through many interesting
and confusing times. |
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If you often find yourself
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