Intel launches Marvell
inside SSD
Editor:- February 28, 2011 -Intel
launched
the SSD 510 - a 2.5"
SATA 3 MLC SSD with
250GB capacity and upto 315MB/s sequential write performance which used an
SSD controller from
Marvell inside.
Atypically the product launch was not followed (a week later) by the
traditional recall /
firmware upgrades which had accompanied previous Intel driven SSDs.
See
also:- consumer
SSDs
Dataram delivers missing piece of the ASAP jigsaw puzzle
Editor:-
February 28, 2011 - Dataram
announced availability of its
XcelaSAN
Model 100 - a new version of its rackmount SSD
ASAP (SAN caching
appliance) - with better
HA support
for mission critical apps.
"The subtle beauty of the Dataram
XcelaSAN Model 100 is mid-level enterprise users have the most cost-effective
and true plug-and-play fast storage appliance (450,000 IOPS), resulting in ease
of integration for existing enterprise architectures. It can be up and running
in less than 2 hours in a
Fibre Channel server
system," said Walker Blount, storage systems analyst at
Web-Feet Research. "Users
are looking for solutions that are easy to implement and that provide real cost
savings – XcelaSAN delivers on both."
new SandForce SSD controllers have adaptive consumer features
Editor:-
February 25, 2011 - SandForce
today announced availability of its 2nd generation SF-2200 processors
optimized for SSDs deployed in client computing applications.
This
enables SSD makers to deliver 500MB/s R/W throughput (6Gbps SATA) and 20K
sustained and 60K burst
IOPS - and
are compatible with newly available ONFi2 and toggle flash memory from all
major suppliers.
Editor's comments:- enterprise SSD designers
were able to get this type of performance from SandForce driven SSDs last year.
But the new SSD controllers are lower cost and include many oem adaptable
features which are particularly suited for consumer applications - as I learned
from talking to SandForce's Product Marketing Director Kent Smith yesterday.
The
first interesting thing is the IOPS. You can get the random IOPS performance
even when connected to a 3Gbps SATA host. So that makes it a worthwhile upgrade
to many existing designs. The way the burst IOPS works is interesting too. In
the enterprise chip the 60K IOPS is sustainable - but in the consumer product
SandForce has tuned the design so that users can get upto 60K IOPS for about 30
to 40 seconds - then performance drops down to 20K. But after another 40 seconds
the burst rate comes back again. This cycling can continue indefinitely. For
many applications - which are peaky in nature - this will be good enough - and
cheaper than alternatives.
The next new feature in this controller is
that the SSD designer can control the power consumption of the chip - by
presetting a single code. The SF processor is clever enough to optimize its
performance upto the set wattage. That make it easier to design battery operated
products which stay within a specified battery operating time - yet still give
fast performance.
Another new feature is the ability for SSD designers
who want to get good performance in cost sensitive consumer apps - is the
ability to remove the RAISE (RAID
for chips) feature. In entry level SSDs this provides significantly more usable
capacity. Error
checking etc remains unchanged - in fact it has been improved in the 2nd
generation chips - but the SSD won't survive the failure of a whole memory
chip as it can do with the feature enabled.
Surveys show SSDs still have low adoption in SANs
Editor:-
February 25, 2011 -Dataram
recently announced the results of a survey which they funded into
FC SAN performance.
200
people responded to the survey which was carried out by a 3rd party.
48%
said they add more storage and/or spindles to solve performance problems.
(This is the tradional solution.)
45% said they are
considering solid state storage for improved performance and efficiency, but
less than 15% have already implemented a solid state solution.
Jason Caulkins,
Dataram's Chief Technologist said "The fact that only 15% of respondents
have deployed solid state indicates that there is plenty of room for growth in
this market..."
Editor's comments:- these results are in
tune with a different recent
survey by Xiotech which said "only 9% already use or are evaluating
SSDs. Another 8% responded that SSDs were in 2011 plans."
These
results support the view that there is plenty of
upside potential
for the enterprise accelerator SSD market - because maybe as many as 80% of
organizations which use SANs haven't yet deployed SSD accelerators. See also:-
SSD market research.
See
also:- estimating
future SSD capacity ratios in the server, SAN and archive
what happens in SSDs when power goes down? - and why you should
care
Editor:- February 24, 2011 - StorageSearch.com today published
a new article -
SSD power is
going down! - which surveys power down management design factors in
SSDs.
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 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. If you thought
endurance
was the end of the SSD
reliability story - think again. ...read the
article
How and why to monitor VM Performance
Editor:-
February 23, 2011 - How
to Proactively Monitor VM Performance is a new article on
Data Center POST written
by Alex Rosemblat,
Product Marketing Manager at VKernel
- who says "Proactive monitoring of a virtualized data center can assist
in finding potential performance problems before they occur..."
Editor's
comments:- OK he says a lot more than that - and that's why I mentioned his
article here.
I used to do a lot of performance analysis in my
pre cut and paste
career because I designed systems with guaranteed apps response times. And
in my current job I always check my stats before I look at my email. So I have
a lot of empathy for the storage
test and analysis market. The more you understand about the internals of
complex systems the less likely you are to get mugged by them. ...
read the article
Super Talent's new PCIe flash SSDs
Editor:- February
21, 2011 - Super
Talent Technology announced imminent shipments of its
2nd
generation PCIe flash SSDs which uses an
SSD controller from
Marvell.
With
upto 64GB capacity, sequential write speeds are 80MB/s for
MLC and
220MB/s for SLC.
Read performance is 350MB/s for both flash types.
Editor's
comments:- compared to server
PCIe cards the performance is unbelievably slow - but the critical thing
about this product is that it will also be available as a mini-PCIe card - which
will fit some notebooks.
Memoright has new rugged SSD
Editor:- February 21,
2011 - Memoright
unveiled a 2nd generation model its
2.5"
SATA SLC SSD family aimed at military and defense markets with -40 to +85
degrees C operating temperature and DoD compliant
fast purge.
The
GTR II - which uses the company's own design of
SSD controller - has a
regular RAM cache
architecture with internal supercaps - which the company says avoids spiky
performance. Capacity is upto 128GB, R/W speeds are 210MB/s, and R/W
IOPS are
10,000/500 respectively
$800 MSRP for 450MB/s 0.5TB 2.5" SSD
Editor:-
February 17, 2011 - PhotoFast
announced it will start shipping
2.5" SATA 3
SSDs with 450MB/s write speeds and upto to 512GB capacity ($800 MSRP) to
customers in Japan in April.
PhotoFast says their new GMonster3 uses
an SSD controller from
an unnamed parrtner in Japan. See also:-
animal brands in
the SSD market, 2.5"
SSDs, SATA SSDs.
Link_A_Media sues Marvell re HDD data integrity IP
Editor:-
February 16, 2011 - Link_A_Media
Devices has filed a lawsuit against Marvell asserting that
Marvell has infringed on Link_A_Media's U.S. Patent No. 7,590,927 ("Soft
Output Viterbi Detector With Error Event Output").
In the complaint, Marvell is accused of willfully and deliberately
manufacturing and selling read channel products for storage devices that
infringe the '927 Patent. Link_A_Media is seeking monetary damages and an
injunction to stop Marvell from continued infringement of the company's patent.
Link_A_Media 's CEO, Hemant K. Thaparcommented
that, "Link_A_Media's pioneering work enables manufacturers of
hard disk drives to
increase the storage density of
mobile storage devices
and to lower manufacturing costs for these products. We intend to enforce and
defend the intellectual property on our work to ensure that Link_A_Media's
inventions are not unfairly exploited."
|
|
|
| ......................................................................................................................... | |
 |
| . |
|
| . |
 |
| . |
| Apps
Acceleration Guides |
Editor:- 2011 is my
company's 20th year publishing enterprise buyers guides. The problem
remains the same... How to make server apps run faster. Only the solutions have
changed (or become more affordable).
In the early 1990s there were only
a handful of SSDs listed in my directories. So what did I spend my time
researching and writing about?
In those days the big moves in apps
acceleration - which I wrote about in the
SPARC Product
Directory - were escalating CPU clock rates (which went from 40MHz to
1,000MHz in the 1990s), widening data busses for microprocessors (from 16 bits
to 64 bits in the 16 years upto 1995) , the move to multiprocessing support in
standard desktop operating systems (starting with SunOS in 1991), the seemingly
slow adoption of RAID systems
(from about 1987 to 1998), the use of optical links (in
early fibre-channel)
and ever faster parallel SCSI.
Today
the single biggest factor which will advance performance and reliability in all
segments of the computer market is solid state disks.
After
2010 -
which I christened the Start
of the SSD Bubble - SSDs are now indisputably a multi-billion market -
with the potential (I think) to grow by another order of magnitude in the next
10 years.
It's always fun (and also a serious undertaking - if you get
it wrong) to guess what the future holds.
I've finished my
List of
11 SSD market predictions for 2011 - which emerged daily in the closing
days of 2010.
In past
years these SSD market predictions have accurately anticipated the tone
of market twists and shifts.
How about other types of storage? And
other people's predictions? |
|
| | |
| . |
 |
| ... |
| |
