Radian Memory
Systems, headquartered in Calabasas, California, is redefining software to
enable the next generation of data center Flash storage.
See also:-
Radian faqs,
Radian
mentions on StorageSearch.com |
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| Who's who in SSD? - Radian
Memory | |
by
Zsolt Kerekes,
editor - StorageSearch.com,
September 2015
Radian Memory which emerged from stealth mode in
August 2015 says it had been working for 4 years to develop its core SSD
software technology called Symphonic
which manages the flash resources in SSDs to operate better in an enterprise SSD
perspective - by replacing traditional FTL with a new approach which assigns
functionality and responsibility for dealing with flash management in several
different palces - some at the local controller and some in the host software
stack.
"Radian's Symphonic technology abstracts lower level Flash
attributes while enabling the host system software to perform what the company
calls Cooperative Flash Management."
This is a modern approach to
improving the reliability, performance and efficiency of flash arrays which
we've seen discussed in the past year or so by some big web scale entities - in
particular Baidu.
A year earlier - in
2014
- Memblaze - one of
the first PCIe SSD
companies to talk publicly about this - called this "a 3rd
generation approach".
Also in the same year
InnoDisk said it was
using 2 level controller techniques in enterprise SATA SSDs sold in its
rackmount systems which were later remarketed by its susbsidiary -
AccelStor.
And
my guess was that many of the SSDs and controllers which
Seagate was reported to
be selling to big cloud companies in China would also have their firmware
customized to enable this multi level aray optimized data management..
Returning
to Radian...
The company summarizes its own view of this 3rd generation
controller approach neatly in their
architecture
overview as being - "The right amount of abstraction, at the right
level in the stack".
Radian's launch product was a
2.5" NVMe PCIe
Gen x4 Interface SSD with 2TB eMLC and an unusually high amount (2GB) of "host
controlled" NVRAM.
Radian
explains that the host "can issue a single delegated move command,
transferring data between SSD's NVRAM and Flash without copying data back into
system memory."
While not going as far as the in-situ processing
proposed (but not yet delivered) at that time by
NxGn Data - Radian's
approach is part of design approach what I called "adaptive intelligence
flow symmetry" in my 2012 article -
how fast can your
SSD run backwards? - In which article I said "some companies have SSD
IP sets in which knowledge about different parts of the SSD can be optimized and
fed back to control and enhance SSD functionality over and beyond the standard
accepted SSD function block boundaries".
Radian's software
technology and its compatible launch SSD deservedly
earned
them a best of show award at the August 2015
Flash Memory Summit.
Re
the possibility of support for other SSD interfaces - Radian says this.
"The technology was designed with the intention of being able to support
SAS, but a SAS version
has not been developed or tested. There are no plans to support
SATA." |
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| 90% of the enterprise SSD
companies which you know have no good reasons to survive
|
In one of the most highly read
articles
on StorageSearch.com in
recent years - I looked at drivers, mechanisms and routes towards
consolidation in the enterprise SSD systems market along with some other
outrageous and dangerous ideas. The conclusion?
"90% of
the enterprise SSD companies which you know have no good reasons to survive."
...read
the article | | |
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