STEC samples anti-SandForce
2.5" SATA SSDs
Editor:- September 14, 2010 - STEC today announced it
is sampling a new range of fast enterprise optimized
1.8" and
2.5"
SATA SSDs - called
the
MACH16
which is available in SLC and
MLC versions for
commercial and industrial temperature operation.
The SLC models have
upto 200GB capacity, R/W speeds of 240Mbytes/sec and 190Mbytes/sec respectively,
average latency of 50 microseconds and 30,000 / 10,000 sustained R/W IOPS.
Editor's
comments:- the new SSDs compete in the same market segment as others which
have SSD controllers
from Anobit or
SandForce inside.
From the limited info I've seen when posting this news it looks like the access
time of the STEC units is superior.
You may well ask - what's the
point of having better latency if the headline IOPS and throughput etc (which
are consequentially related metrics) aren't as good as the best of the
competitors? I guess an STEC pre-sales engineer would say - real-life apps
don't behave exactly the same as benchmarks. If other things are nearly equal -
latency is more impotant.
Something which STEC does have - which none
of its direct competitors have yet - is a longer track record of delivering
reliable products. But the sheer number of companies in the market with
SandForce controllers - for example - means that when you multiply SSD units
times operating hours - they may catch up real soon in that respect.
And
just in case some of you were squinting at the performance numbers and wondering
if you could squeeze them to look like someone else's SSD IP - a spokesperson I
put this to today, Kenn
Durrence, said "STEC only utilizes internally developed controllers
and firmware. Third party SSD controllers do not provide the quality and
reliability that our customers require."
See also:-
my flash SSD lasts
longer than yours
another $25 million funding - for SandForce
Editor:-
September 14, 2010 - SandForce
today announced
it
has closed $25 million in Series D funding, led by Canaan Partners.
Existing
investors who also participated include DCM, Storm Ventures, Translink Capital,
LSI Corporation & UMC Capital.
"We are increasing volume
shipments of our Enterprise and Client SSD Processors to leading drive
manufacturers around the globe and continue to receive exceptional market
acceptance of our DuraClass technology in I/O intensive storage applications,"
said Michael Raam, president and CEO of SandForce. "This new
funding will help us bring our next-generation products to market, expand our
customer and partner support infrastructure, and accelerate our core technology
development that will extend our market leadership." See also:-
Michael Raam's
SSD Bookmarks, SSD
Controllers / IP, VCs
in storage
SSD talk at IDF
Editor:- September 13, 2010 -
SSDs is one of the
themes
of the Intel Developer Forum
this week in San Francisco.
You can see what they'll be talking about
by clicking the "themes" link above.
SSDs cheaper than HDDs in some new DVRs
Editor:-
September 9, 2010 - SanDisk
today
announced
that NDS (a tv set top box designer
with with over 30 million DVR units deployed) has successfully has designed
SanDisk SSDs into a new range of lower cost set-top DVRs.
The new solution allows for the deployment of energy-efficient
STBs with decreased power consumption, small form factors and virtually silent
operation.
SanDisk says its SanDisk P4 is substantially less expensive in 4GB,
8GB and 16GB capacities than
hard disk drives, which
are often only available in higher capacities. Editor's note - This floor price
SSD penetration model was 1st proposed in the 2005 article by Jim Handy -
Flash vs. Hard Disks -
Which Will Win?
"For the first time, SSDs are now a
cost-effective alternative to hard drives in the STB market," said Doron
Myersdorf, senior director, SSDs, SanDisk.
Editor's comments:-
flash storage has been used in STBs for a long time.
Samsung shipped 117
million units of its 0.5GB OneNAND devices in
2006 into various
markets including STB.
Low acoustic noise was mentioned as a
desirable factor in the world's 1st
SSD user preferences
survey (2004). In those days - because of the
cost of SSDs - we
were talking about silent running in submarines.
For DVRs with
terabytes of storage - HDDs will remain a lower cost option for a while. And
you will probably continue seeing HDDs in new consumer products long after HDDs
have disappeared from the datacenter - because the cost of ownership and
performance envelopes will diverge.
Previously the subject of tv
data storage has been scattered throughout many regions of the mouse
site - filed away by media technology and interface. All that is going to
change soon as I recycle the old
DVD page with new tv
storage content in the coming week.
Pliant does U turn in $A$ SSDs
Editor:- September
8, 2010 - Pliant
Technology
announced it
is sampling MLC
versions of its 2.5" SAS SSD family with upto 400GB capacity and >10K
sustained IOPS.
Editor's
comments:- new dynasty SSD
maker Fusion-io has
successfully demonstrated that there is a healthy market appetite for MLC SSDs
in some "enterprise
apps". How many is "some"? Enough to make a
VC wake up in your
powerpoint presentation!
Most new
2.5" SSD makers
are taking the opposite route to Pliant in that the majority started with
consumer grade (MLC) SSD products with
SATA interfaces and
are busily reworking their products to add
SAS (spelt $A$) so
they can charge higher prices.
Pliant - on the other hand - made a
conservative choice by launching only SLC SSDs when it started sampling its 1st
SSDs 12 months ago. Will Pliant add
SATA SSDs to its line
up too? - Unlikely it could survive in that fiercely competitive market. But
if the company is still around in another 12 months - I wouldn't be surprised
to see them extend their range with a
PCIe SSD. Because you
have to give enterprise customers what they want. Even if the market appears
inconsistent about
what it wants. If the money is there you have to pay attention. |
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time analyzing the performance characteristics and limitations of flash SSDs -
this article will help you to easily predict the characteristics of any new SSDs
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| flash SSD performance
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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 in the 12 years which have followed we've led the market
through many interesting and confusing times. |
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If you often find yourself
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much time immersed in SSD web pages - and need a single, simple, non very
technical reference to suggest - this may be the link they need. | | | |
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