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| DDRdrive
Launches Low Cost PCIe RAM SSD |
Editor:- May 4, 2009 - DDRdrive emerged from
stealth mode and launched the
DDRdrive X1 - a
PCIe compatible
RAM SSD with onboard
flash backup.
Load / restore time is 60S. I/O performance is over
200K IOPS (for 512B blocks). For 4kB blocks IOPS is:- 50k (reads) and 35K
(writes). R/W throughput is 215MB/s and 155MB/s respectively. Capacity is
4GB. OS compatibility:- Microsoft Windows (various). Price is $1,495.
Using
Microsoft Windows built-in RAID
support, DDRdrive X1's can be spanned (capacity), striped (performance),
mirrored (redundancy), and RAID-5 configured.
Editor's comments:-
the DDRdrive X1 looks competitively priced for accelerating database
applications in which the hot files can be squeezed into a capacity range from
about 4GB to 12GB. Above that - you get into the region of entry level
rackmount SSDs
and high performance PCIe
flash SSD cards
from companies like Fusion-io
and Texas Memory Systems.
There's definitely a gap in the market for this scale of product (low
entry price, low capacity - high IOPS). For the past year or so DDRdrive
shipped an earlier generation of its SSD accelerators exclusively to a large
enterprise for secret internal projects.
New Guide for SSD Wannabies
Editor:- April 28, 2009
- StorageSearch.com
published a new article today called -
"3 Easy Ways to
Enter the SSD Market."
Nowadays it seems like everyone wants
to get into the SSD market. This tells you how to do it. ...read the article
Pillar Launches Axiom SSD Brick
Editor:- March 9,
2009 - Pillar Data
Systems launched the Axiom SSD Brick, a storage module with upto 12
Intel SSDs which
is compatible with Pillar's distributed RAID systems.
Pillar's
application
aware QoS software dynamically chooses storage types (SSD, FC-HDD, or
SATA-HDD) and tunes performance to satisfy quality of service priorities
based on user selections for each type of application.
ATTO Ships 16 Port 6Gb/s SAS PCIe Adapters
Amherst, NY - February 18,
2009 - ATTO Technology, Inc. today announced availability of its
first 16-port 6Gb/s SAS PCIe Host Adapters - the ExpressSAS H60F.
Throughput
is up to 600MB/s per port. OS compatibility includes Windows, Mac and Linux
environments. ...ATTO
Technology profile, SAS
Storage
Careful with that Storage Cocktail Eugene! - compression, dedupe,
encryption
Editor:- February 5, 2009 - earlier this week Storewize issued a
press release suggesting users could get a 200%
improvement in capacity utilization when real-time compression is used together
with dedeuplication.
There are a lot of magic potions being offered to enterprises - and I
was concerned that the type of users who might be looking at these techniques
might also be looking at encryption too. I had recently read an old paper by
Coughlin Associates
which suggested that encrypting data on hard drives could result in capacity
bloat when followed by compression - because the resultant storage needed could
be more than before compression. So I asked Storewize about that.
I
got a helpful reply to my query today from Peter Smails Senior VP Worldwide
Marketing at Storewize - who said "Our technology is based upon real-time
compression so we compress data before it is written to disk. We are also
completely transparent to any downstream operation whether that be encryption,
deduplication, etc. We actually make them both more efficient. You are correct
that due to the exceptionally high entropy of encrypted data it is not
recommended to compress encrypted data."
They would be happy to
discuss with with readers who are interested. It's a complex subject - like many
aspects of the storage market.
A simple way of thinking about it is
mixing cocktails. As I have found from experience - it's possible to take
perfectly good raw ingredients - mix them together and get good (or bad) results
depending on whether you know what you are doing.
As too with
SSDs. If you don't know
what you're doing - they won't accelerate your application at all - but simply
result in more expensive storage. And even if you think you understand the
bottlenecks in your infrastructure - try before you buy is the safest thing to
do. See also:-
video:-
Pink floyd - Careful With That Axe Eugene |
|
Condre Markets APPLE Video
Optimized RAID
Minneapolis, MN -
November 5 , 2008 - Condre Storage, Inc. is selling a new APPLE
optimized AV RAID - the Bullet.
Built on proven technology with a
4Gb Fibre Channel front
end and SAS/SATA drives. The Bullet AV RAID scales up to 64TB capacity and is
capable of up to 3 streams of (10 bit), 1080, Uncompressed HD video. MSRP is
$11,999 for 12TB of Fibre Channel to SATA storage which includes 1 year next
business day on site support.
...Condre Storage
profile,
Video
- editor mentions on StorageSearch.com
Dynamic Solutions International Signs 100th Virtual Tape Library
Customer
ENGLEWOOD,
Colo - October 28, 2008 - Dynamic Solutions International today
announced it has implemented its 100th mainframe attached virtual tape library
system at the City of Detroit.
DSI's VTL storage appliance is used by the City of Detroit's IT
department as an enterprise backup solution for their Unisys MCP-based payroll
system, Windows 2000 servers, Novell servers and a HP-UX test system. It has
enabled backups to be completed in a fraction of the time that it used to take
with the previous physical tape
libraries.
Chris Johnson, VP of storage solutions for DSI said
"We are the only FalconStor
partner with support for mainframe attached VTL's, and with over 35 years for
experience in the storage industry, have particularly strong relationships with
our customers around the world. There has been much success with the DSI VTL
family of products, and we are delighted to mark our 100th mainframe attached
VTL installation with the City of Detroit." ...Dynamic Solutions International
profile
Tarmin Technologies Appoints US Sales Director
Ongar, UK - September 9, 2008 - Tarmin
Technologies announced today that Bruce Holbert has joined Tarmin as
director of sales, North America.
Holbert was most recently partner accounts manager for national
accounts at EMC. Prior to
that, Holbert spent over 15 years at several start-up and reseller-oriented
companies where he was involved in numerous partnership, channel management, and
direct sales roles.
...Tarmin profile
Editor's
comments:- I'd never heard of this company before getting this press release
so I read some of their
whitepapers.
The papers seem sensible, but bland, and I'm not sure why the world needs
another archiving company. Their
expert opinion
page includes comments from various
storage soothsayers if
you want to read more.
Fusion-io Unveils fast NAS SSD
San Diego, Calif. -
September 8, 2008 - Fusion-io unveiled the ioSAN - a 10GbE or
Infiniband attached flash SSD on PCIe form factor.
Using a
standards-based, memory-speed protocol over either 10GigE or 40GBps QDR
InfiniBand, the
ioSAN shares ioMemory capacity between servers. With latencies of less than 2
microseconds, the ioSAN incorporates an integrated network interface that can
dynamically alternate between 10Gb/s Ethernet or 40Gb/s quad data rate
InfiniBand. The built-in network interface makes it easy to create networked
storage across servers with increased performance and flexibility, and with zero
footprint. This networked storage is extremely easy to integrate and manage
within existing server infrastructure. Prior to general availability of the
ioSAN, Fusion-io is inviting innovative and visionary companies to join them as
they launch their 3rd party development program at the beginning of next year.
"With
this development, everything you thought you knew about
SSD and
storage networking is no
longer true," said David Flynn, CTO of Fusion-io. "The ioSAN fuses SSD
with storage networking, combining the best of direct-attached and storage
networking with the best of SSD and traditional storage. With this revolutionary
advancement, Fusion-io has commoditized high-performance network storage in the
same way that companies like NVIDIA and ATI commoditized high-performance
graphics processing. Fantastic applications of this technology are now beginning
to emerge."
...Fusion-io profile,
PCIe SSDs
Editor's
comments:- Fusion-io's full press release text says this is "the
world's first networked enterprise SSD."
That's not strictly
correct because fiber-channel
SSDs have been available from many oems for over a decade. And it's not the
first "ethernet NAS SSD" either. We ran an ad here in 2002 for
the NAS-168F
from IEI.
And
it's not the first "enterprise NAS SSD". In April 2008
Nimbus Data Systems
announced an SSD acceleration option for its
Breeze Hybrid
series of multi-protocol 10GbE IP storage systems.
And it's not
the first InfiniBand SSD either. That was
Texas Memory Systems
in 2005.
What is special about Fusion-io's new product is that
it could become the first high performance native NAS SSD to cross the chasm
between PR-ware and success in the market. Although high speed NAS SSDs have
been announced before on these storage news pages by various companies in years
gone by none of them left a deep impression in the market. The reason? - the
benefits of SSD acceleration were not cost effective when channeled through
slow ethernet networks. The low cost of Fusion-io's flash array coupled with
its high speed and 10GbE interface could place this product in new
territory in the SSD roadmap. | |
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