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Remember the 1st SSD company who did 1
billion IOPS?
Editor:- January 6, 2012 - in a historic
demo
yesterday showing the capabilities of its latency reducing Auto Commit
Memory (ACM) extension Fusion-io
announced it had exceeded 1 billion IOPS (64 byte data packets) in a
configuration which used 8 HP servers each configured with 8x
ioDrive2 Duo PCIe
SSDs.
Steve Wozniak, Fusion-io's Chief Scientist said - "...As
an engineer, what really excites me about extensions to our core technology such
as ACM are the possibilities introduced when flash is utilized as a new memory
tier. Instead of treating flash like storage, where data passes through all of
the OS kernel subsystems that were built and optimized for traditional storage,
our core ioMemory technology offers a platform with new programming
primitives that can provide system and application developers direct access
to non-volatile memory."
David Flynn, Fusion-io Chairman
and CEO said. "This breakthrough is not something that could be
achieved with hardware alone. Intelligent software that optimizes NAND flash
as a low latency, high-capacity, non-volatile memory solution for enterprise
servers can transform the way organizations process the immense amounts of data
that powers our lives today."
Editor's comments:- although
we're used to thinking about SSD IOPS in terms of bigger packets - such as 4kB -
instead of the very small packet size in this demo -
IOPS is simply
a convenient and not always reliable way of comparing the relative
performance of storage products.
In real life - users don't have a
choice of what size the R/W operations are which take place in their apps. They
occur at all sizes (mostly smaller than 4kB) and when these R/W operations take
place in traditional storage architecture systems - which internally impose
their own restrictions on the minimum size of atomic data packets - that's where
latencies and performance become discontinuous compared to the value of the data
update due to amplification
and packetization effects.
In my view - the important thing about this
demo - is that the same PCIe SSD product which can perform useful work as a
storage device - can also be deployed as a super scaler memory device - when it
is running the appropriate software.
The difference is that with
traditional storage software - you might expect that a 64x PCIe SSD system might
hit 64M IOPS or some similar figure (regardless of the small size of the data
packet). Instead the demo shows that apps developers can get 16x more
performance in small R/W transactions if they are willing to invest the
effort to make their apps work with FIO's new APIs.
It's that order of
magnitude difference which is the attraction for some markets - because it
closes the gap in performance between
RAM SSDs and flash
SSDs. And when you can run apps 10x faster than other flash competitors at the
same price - or support 10x bigger data sets than competitors using RAM SSDs -
that create new markets. See also:-
Record Breaking
Storage
NVMe compliant IP core aims at PCIe SSD designers
Editor:-
January 6, 2012 - IP-Maker
released a
data
transfer manager core - for use in
PCIe SSD designs
fitting between the media and the
flash controller. The
design is compliant with the NVM
Express specification.
"PCIe SSD manufacturers will benefit
from a performance increase thanks to the IP-Maker NVMe IP core" says Mickaël Guyard, Product
Marketing Director at IP-Maker. "This efficient DMA manager ensures the
data flow up to the NandFlash, therefore off-loading the motherboard CPU."
Samsung enters fast erase SSD market
Editor:-
January 5, 2012 - Samsung
has entered the fast
purge SSD market - which currently numbers about 25 companies.
The
company says that models of its PM810 2.5" SATA SSD family with its Crypto
Erase technology deletes targeted data in a couple of seconds regardless of the
overall volume of data or the capacity of the SSD. These models have been
validated for compliance to
NIST
FIPS 140-2
SandForce joins LSI's new Flash Components Division
Editor:-
January 4, 2012 - LSI
today
announced
it has completed the acquisition of SandForce.
"Customer
response to the announcement has been very positive and we are pleased to now be
able to fully demonstrate the benefits of the combined technology capabilities
of LSI and SandForce," said Jeff Richardson,
executive VP and COO. "Together, we offer the broadest storage technology
portfolio in the industry, and are well positioned to help customers manage
their growth and the explosive growth in data across enterprises and the cloud."
Editor's
comments:- most of the leading companies in the earth shaking
PCIe SSD market use
large
architecture controllers or software - which provides cost and efficiency
advantages when you compare
usable
capacities with maximun fault protection enabled.
That puts
competitors who use small SSD architecture (such as
OCZ and
LSI - who use
SandForce's controller
- and STEC which has yet
to establish a stronghold in this market with its own ASIC) at a potential
disadvantage as capacities scale up.
One of the design challenges for
LSI will be to see if they can extract the proven flash management features in
past SandForce controllers and scale them up to support bigger capacities and
faster throughput without adding latency penalties (which currently accrue with
arrays of SFPs) or which uses a new processor core or split controller
architecture to better support larger flash chip populations.
Make no
mistake about it. This acquisition is about developing better tools for the
enterprise SSD goldrush.
And the truest seams that vendors are looking for are the user server caverns
that will be stuffed with
PCIe SSDs. Billions
of dollars of revenue will be the prizes for the lucky strikers.
Opening the SSD market in 2012
Editor:- January 3,
2012 - Happy New Year.
What's the comparative state of the SSD market
in 2012? - In a previous article I already said it would be the
Year of the Enterprise SSD
Goldrush.
In a new
article today - I compare the SSD market with checkpoints in 2 earlier
disruptive markets - the microprocessor and the internet.
Later this
week there will be updates from the Storage
Visions 2012 Conference and new articles about the status of the SSD
market in 2012 - which I
expect will be a fantastic growth year for the enterprise SSD market.
The
new edition of the top
SSD companies - based on search metrics in Q4 2011 - will be published on
January 19. | |
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- SSD Myths
- "write endurance" - In theory the problems are now well
understood - but solving them presents a challenge for each new chip
generation.
.
- SSDs replacing
HDDs? - that's not exactly the way it happened - This new article
brings this old theme up to date.
.
- the SSD
Buyers Guide - summarizes key SSD market developments in the past
quarter and has a top level directory of SSD content.
.
- the Top 20 SSD
companies - updated quarterly.
.
- SSD news - (updated
daily since 1998) gives you a real-time view of the whole SSD market from
chips to cabinets.
.
- PCIe SSDs
- lists oems who market PCIe SSDs, and news and market commentary. We've
reported on PCIe SSDs since the first products shipped in 2007.
.
- the Fastest SSDs
- in each form factor.
.
- Flash v Hard
Disks - Which Will Win? - this classic article published in June 2005 -
introduced the concept of "flash SSD floor price".
.
- RAM v Flash
SSDs - which is Best? - I asked experts from 10 leading SSD companies to
write their views about the strengths and weaknesses of these 2 types of SSD
technologies. The article is updated from time to time - and you may be
surprised to learn that in some heavy duty server apps RAM SSDs are cheaper
to buy than flash - (as well as being faster).
.
- HDD news -
chronicles the last gasp years and historic anecodotes from the hard disk
market - as it reluctantly retires in favor of SSDs.
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| There's a growing
consensus that DWPD should map into recognizable SSD application zones and
price bands - not just in enterprise but in other markets too. |
| what's
the state of DWPD? | | |
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