This is the 7th annual
edition of this popular guide. Pageviews of this SSD Guide increased 61%
in June 2009 compared to the year ago period. In a fast growing market
like SSDs - how do you spot the most significant trends? In my view the 2 most
significant changes in the past 12 months have been:-
- The astonishing rise in vendors marketing
PCI Express SSDs -
concurrent with 4x growth in reader pageviews in this subject. These
factors clearly predict that PCIe SSDs will become a significant part of the
population of SSDs inside the enterprise server box. A mere 25% separates
reader pageviews between this - and the most popular SSD form factor - for
2.5" SSDs.
- The breakdown of technology barriers needed to design your own flash SSD.
More than 20 chipmakers now market
SSD controller
technology and related IP. As these companies don't market to end-users you
might be forgiven for not having been caught in the blast wave of their
marketing communications. That's not the style of this market - which likes to
keep its successes quiet. Thousands of designers in hundreds of companies
worldwide are now investigating this option. (Confirmed by our pageviews for SSD
chip IP content.) It means that if big computer oems are successful in the
SSD market they will turn their attention to designing future SSDs in-house
rather than buying commercial off the shelf products. This gives tremendous
advantages - which include the ability to tweak
performance,
reliability or
power characteristics to match your application footprint better. It also
reduces risk - because when you control the internals of the SSD - you are less
likely to get nasty
surprises from new product iterations.
StorageSearch.com is the leading
publication covering the SSD market and we have regular contact with most
vendors, including many in stealth mode. You can see abstracts and links to
100 more SSD related
articles here.
Storage
historians can still see some earlier editions of this SSD guide here (2006 SSD
Guide,
2005
SSD Guide,
2004
SSD Guide,
2003
SSD Guide). | |
|
|
| August
2008........... |
SiliconSystems
doubled the capacity of its miniature embedded USB SiliconDrives.
Following
4 straight quarters of revenue declines,
STEC reported 29%
revenue growth for its most recent fiscal quarter.
Fusion-io added
RAID protection to the
flash memory array in its Fusion-io PCIe SSD and improved R/W performance.
Indilinx unveiled its
230MB/s flash SSD controller, and said it is working with
MOSAID Technologies on a
600MB/s SATA-3 design.
Violin Memory said it had
delivered 1 million IOPS on a single interface port (a world record)
using the latest version of its Violin 1010 memory appliance. Violin also said
that its new technology would deliver 100K write IOPS on a flash SSD version of
their product (which hasn't been announced yet.)
SMART Modular
Technologies announced 6 new SSDs which will sample in Q3. These include
faster 2.5" and
1.8" models. The SMART
2.5" XceedUltra2 SATA SSD delivers sustained read/write performance of
up to 135MB/s and 105MB/s, respectively, while requiring fewer than 2 watts in
active mode. The SMART 1.8" XceedLite SATA SSD operates at 72MB/s read
and 55MB/s sustained write speeds and uses under 1 watt of power in active
mode.
Objective
Analysis published a new report (price $5,000) called - "Solid State
Drives in the Enterprise". Its author Jim Handy also contributed a
new update to the discussion article -
RAM SSDs versus
Flash SSDs - which is Best? |
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| September
2008..... |
Soliware emerged from
stealth mode.
Toshiba
sampled a 256GB 2.5" SATA MLC flash SSD with R/W speeds of 120 / 70
MB/s.
Samsung
Electronics published an
open
letter aimed at shareholders offering to buy
SanDisk. |
 |
Can You
Trust Flash SSD Specs & Benchmarks? |
| Sadly no! - Many
published benchmarks for flash SSD are about as reliable as bank
valuations of Collateralized Loan Obligations (just before the onset of the
Credit Crunch). |
There are many
intrinsic technical reasons why you can't believe most published benchmarks
for flash SSDs (whether done by magazines or vendors) and why
even the tests you carefully do yourself don't give reliable results
which correlate with how the SSD will perform in real-life
applications.
We warned you of it this problem here
on StorageSearch.com - and now other publications and vendors are starting
to take it seriously too. ...read
the article | | |
Fusion-io unveiled the
ioSAN - a 10GbE or Infiniband
attached flash SSD on PCIe form factor which will ship in 2009.
Cypress Semiconductor
introduced the industry's first device to integrate a non-volatile static random
access memory and a programmable system on chip. This may be useful in future
hybrid designs
of very fast flash SSDs
which could use nvSRAM in the controller and thereby deliver better latency for
small random reads / writes.
Solid Access
Technologies announced that SAMSUNG Securities Co., Ltd had ordered 28
of its 2U RAM SSD (model
USSD 200) systems to accelerate its financial market trading servers -
following a 6 months evaluation of alternative
RAM SSDs
SNIA announced the formation
of its Solid State Storage Initiative. Unlike the
SSD Alliance,
which was launched in 2007, founding members of SNIA's SSSI include
manufacturers of both RAM
SSDs and flash
SSDs |
Intel launched a range of
1.8" and 2.5" SATA flash SSDs with 80GB capacity, 70MB/S write
speed, 250MB/S read and 85-microseconds read latency priced at around $595.
STORAGEsearch.com
published 4 new SSD directories -
SATA SSDs,
SSD market research,
Fibre-Channel SSDs and
SSD User Groups.
The first 3 are fully populated (as you'd expect). The user group directory is
currently a blank canvas. Do big SSD buyers think they need to talk to each
other in user groups? We'll see what happens.
Samsung revealed
details of the new form factor for flash SSDs. 2 of the new Samsung SSDs fit
into the same pcb space as a single 1.8" drive, and also in half the
height. Available in densities of 8GB, 16GB and 32GB, the 32GB device reads
data (sequentially) at 90MB/s and writes (sequentially) at 70MB/s. |
| October
2008 |
Eonsil announced the
introduction of
RaySpeed,
a suite of IP for designing flash SSDs.
IMEC said it had started new
research activities on resistive RAM (RRAM)
cells - as a possible future technology to replace
flash.
Virtium Technology
entered the SSD market with its LeanSTOR - an AMC form factor SSD module for
the AdvancedTCA market. |
| .................................................................................................................................. |
|
|
Cactus Technologies
launched the SDChip - a 4GB BGA module with SD interface designed to be
soldered as a component for customers in the industrial embedded marketplace.
pureSilicon
emerged from stealth mode sampling the Renegade SSD - a rugged MIL-STD-810F
compliant 128GB SATA flash SSD with integrated encryption.
SMART Modular
Technologies started shipping the Xcel-10 SSD - a 2.5" SLC flash SSD
with upto 128GB capacity. Sustained read speed is 115MB/s, and write speed is
125MB/s. (It really is faster than the read speed). It delivers 5,580 IOPS at
100% read or 980 IOPS at 67% read, 33% write, for random I/O using 4K block
size.
SanDisk
announced it may offload $1 billion worth of fab costs to joint partner
Toshiba - after SanDisk
reported 21% revenue decline for the most recent quarter. |
... |
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Intel started shipping the
X-25E - a
fast
2.5" 32GB
SATA SLC
flash SSD. Read
latency is 75 microseconds and a 10 parallel channel architecture enables it to
sustain R/W throughputs of 250 / 170 MB/s. Random IOPS performance is
impressive with a 10 to 1 R/W ratio which is inline with the best
designed enterprise flash SSDs. Using 4kB blocks - random R/W IOPS are 35,000
and 3,300 respectively.
SiliconSystems
contributed its SiliconDrive II Blade specification to the
Small Form Factor Special Interest Group for
the purpose of creating an official governing standard.
Dataram re-entered the SSD
market with the acquisition of strategic assets from
Cenatek whose CEO has
joined Dataram to lead the company's return to solid state storage, an area they
pioneered almost
40 years ago.
Samsung said it's shipping
"faster" server oriented 2.5" SLC flash SSDs with 25GB / 50GB
capacity. Throughput is significantly below competing best in class
2.5" SSDs - but
nevertheless a big improvement on previous laggardly products from the company.
No details were disclosed about IOPS - probably because they aren't very
impressive.
Axxana
launched a flash SSD based data recovery appliance.
Trident Space & Defense
launched its 1st industrial grade compact flash and 1.8" SSDs which are
available with PATA or SATA interfaces. The CF units have R/W speeds up to
48/30MB/s. | |
|
|
| November
2008 |
Micron demonstrated
prototypes of fast PCIe
flash SSDs with 800MB/s throughput, and hinted that it might demonstrate
1GB/s SSDs soon.
A-DATA
launched the XPG - a dual interface
USB and
SATA
2.5" SSD.
Available with capacities from 32GB to 192GB - it has a read speed upto 170MB/s
and write speed upto 100MB/s.
Spansion filed a
multibillion dollar patent infringement suit with the ITC against
Samsung related to
flash memory IP.
Samsung
announced it was shipping a fast
2.5" SATA MLC SSD
with 256GB capacity in standard 9.5mm height, with 220MB/s read, and 200MB/s
sustained write speed. No IOPS data was available at launch. But on R/W specs -
this is one of the top 3
fastest 2.5"
SSDs. |
Violin Memory announced
availability of a new 1010 Memory Appliance - a fast 4TB SLC flash SSD in a
2U rackmount. Its patent pending non blocking architecture delivers the best
ratio of flash R/W IOPS in the industry - over 200K random Read IOPS and 100K
random Write IOPS (4K block). Interface options include:-
PCIe,
Fibre Channel and
Ethernet.
Austin
Semiconductor announced a new physically smaller SSD chip for
ruggedized embedded applications. Measuring 31mm sq x 7.8mm high it has an
embedded IDE, PIO/4 interface, an MTBF of more than 2 million hours and upto
16GB capacity.
Sun Microsystems
launched its 7000 family of rackmount NAS systems - which includes hybrid HDD
/ flash SSD arrays. Sun says its Solaris ZFS can optimize the SSDs
intelligently as a part of a storage pool. MSRP for a 4U system with 44TB
of 7,200 RPM hard drives, 36GB flash SSD and 64GB RAM is $117,995.
Curtiss-Wright
launched 2 new flash SSDs in XMC and PMC form factors with upto 32GB capacity.
Each card contains 2 independent SATA SSDs with upto 30MB/s throughput. For
maximum throughput (50MB/s) the 2 drives can be run in RAID 0 mode. |
|
Solid Access
Technologies launched a new range of RAM SSDs available with
Fibre Channel,
SAS or
SCSI interfaces. The USSD
300 family includes the world's fastest 1U SSD with 256GB capacity, 10
microseconds latency and 100K IOPS on a single port. The 2U model supports
4GB/s sustained bandwidth and upto 6 ports.
BiTMICRO Networks said it
had started customer shipments of 128GB models from its E-Disk Altima family
of 3.5" 4Gbps Fibre Channel SLC flash SSDs.
Network Appliance
published details of its corporate thinking re SSDs. NetApp's paper -
Flash Memory Technology
in Enterprise Storage (pdf) doesn't actually say much beyond the fact
they're qualifying some products and will launch systems offerings which
include flash SSDs sometime in 2009.
SanDisk published a new
white paper on the subject of
Virtual
RPM for flash SSDs (pdf). The unoriginal concept is apparently aimed
at people who have been trapped in a stasis field for the past several years and
who are still making
unrealistic SSD
vs HDD IOPS comparisons. SanDisk also promised faster SSDs in 2009. No oem
has yet promised to ship slower devices next year. Now that would be newsworthy! |
| December
2008 |
Toshiba
said it will sample a new family of MLC flash SSDs with 256GB capacity in 2.5"
and 128GB capacity in 1.8" form factors in Q1 2009.
A-DATA launched the XPG
- a 3.5" SSD enclosure for 2x 2.5" SATA SSDs. It can operate as
a single mirror protected unit, or as a single high capacity drive.
RunCore announced
1.8" PATA SSDs aimed
at the notebook
upgrade market. Available with capacity upto 128GB (retail price $389.99 )
an inbuilt slave
USB port enables users to
easily clone their internal hard
drive using Acronis
True Image (or similar) software. The SSD can then be installed in the notebook
typically giving a 4x speedup. RunCore also launched its Hyper Speed - a
2.5"
SATA SSD with 256GB
with RW speeds of 230MB/s and 150MB/s respectively priced under $700.
Super Talent
Technology said it will sample a new range of 2.5" SATA flash SSDs in
January 2009. The SLC unit has 128GB capacity and R/W speeds upto 230/170
MB/sec. The MLC unit has 256GB capacity and R/W speeds upto 200/160 MB/sec.
Hitachi and
Intel announced they were
jointly designing a new range of high IOPS flash SSDs with
Fibre Channel and
SAS interfaces for
the server market. The new products, which will be exclusively marketed by
Hitachi GST - are expected to ship in Q1 2010.
SiliconSystems
published a significant whitepaper -
NAND
Evolution and its Effects on SSD Useable Life (pdf). Starting with a tour
of the state of the art in the flash SSD market the paper introduces several
new concepts (including write amplification and wear leveling efficiency) to
help systems designers understand why current wear usage models don't give a
complete picture.
STEC
issued
new
guidance for the revenue outlook in Q4 2008. STEC downgraded its revenue
guidance for the 4th quarter by 20% - which is not remarkable given the
current state of the economy. Notwithstanding that - STEC's SSD business is
expected to have revenues in 2008 which are 5x the level in 2007.
Patriot Memory
announced their 256GB Warp SSD v3 a
2.5" SATA flash
SSD with R/W speeds up to 240MB/sec and 160MB/s, respectively and 256GB
capacity.
| |
| January
2009......... |
PQI launched a 32GB
ExpressCard SSD with 88MB/s read speed, and 48MB/s write. |
|
Kingston Technology
announced it will sell rebranded high speed SSDs supplied by
Intel as Kingston's
SSDNow E Series.
RunCore
infringed copyright by publishing an article from
StorageSearch.com on its website in
full without permission, and without any attribution.
Verbatim said it will
ship a 64GB ExpressCard SSD in February (price $299.99 ) with read speed upto
125MB/s, and write speed upto 30MB/s.
G-Technology launched the
G-RAID mini SSD - a desktop
RAID system for the Mac
market - with internal 2.5" SSDs and
eSATA,
FireWire and
USB interfaces. |
StorageSearch.com disclosed that
in the 1st 4 weeks of January pageviews for
PCIe (PCI Express) SSDs
had overtaken all other SSD form factors except
2.5" SSDs. The
interest in PCIe SSDs has accelerated dramatically.
Toshiba announced it will
start volume production of dual port
SAS SLC flash SSDs in
Q2 2009. The 2.5" SSDs
will have 100GB capacity, and 25,000 read IOPS, and 20,000 write IOPS. One of
the enabling factors for the high write IOPS is the use of a non-volatile cache
- which was predicted in StorageSearch.com's article -
the Flash SSD Performance
Roadmap. This brings the number of oems who have announced
SAS SSDs to 6.
Samsung announced details
of a new 100GB 2.5" SLC flash SSD that will ship this quarter. For the 1st
time Samsung disclosed IOPS data - 25k random read IOPS and 6k write IOPS. R/W
throughput is 230MB/s and 180MB/s respectively.
SanDisk unveiled a new
family of 1.8" and 2.5" MLC flash SSDs that will ship in mid 2009.
Capacities (and anticipated MSRPs) are as follows:- 60GB ($149), 120GB ($249)
and 240GB ($499). Anticipated sequential performance is quoted as:- 200MB/s
read and 140MB/s write.
pureSilicon said it is
sampling the highest density
2.5" SSD - with
1TB capacity in a 9.5mm high form factor. Sustained read / write performance is
240MB/s and 215MB/s respectively. The
SATA SSD has latency
under 100 µsec and is rated at 50,000 read IOPS, and 10,000 write IOPS.
The company emerged from stealth mode in October 2008 as a
military storage oem -
but the new products could find a much bigger market in commercial servers. I
asked if compression was involved in achieving the capacity - but was told - no.
Internally it's got 128 pieces of 64Gb MLC NAND.
Texas Memory Systems
announced that its SSD revenue in 2008 had grown 20% compared to 2007,
and that it had also achieved record revenue in Q4 (the time when the Credit
Crunch iceberg hit the Titanic world economy hard enough for even the 1st
class passengers to take pause).
Nimbus Data Systems
launched its
DH200 - a 4
port 10GbE NAS - which
supports upto 10TB of flash SSD storage. |
| the Most
Popular Storage Products? |
Editor:- June 8, 2009 - StorageSearch.com today published
a new article - the
Most Popular Products on StorageSearch.com
What can we learn about
changes in the
storage market and the
changing interests of readers by looking at how the most popular storage
products viewed by our readers have changed in recent years?
I delved
into the log files to find out. |
 |
That revealed some trends
which seem obvious now in retrospect - but which I hadn't consciously noticed
before. It's not a surprise they're all SSDs BTW. ...read the article | | | |
| ....... |
RAID Inc - launched a 1U
rackmount SSD -
the Razor SSD - a 12 bay 4
port fibre-channel system
using COTS 2.5" SAS
SSDs in a RAID array.
The
SSD market notched another kill when
Fujitsu announced it
will discontinue its HDD
business this quarter. ...Later:- in February 2009 - it emerged the new owner
will be Toshiba who
plans to marry its flash SSD technology with Fujitsu's HDD IP to spawn new
enterprise SSDs.
Apacer
launched a miniature SLC flash SSD - the
Mini
SAFD 25M - which fits into 1/2 the footprint of a
2.5" SSD. Capacity
ranges from 256MB to 16GB and R/W speed is 35MB/s and 25MB/s respectively. A
shell is available for users who want to mount this in a 2.5" hard disk
slot.
Lexar
Media aid it is working on technologies that will enable it to deliver
content enriched flash media. Collaborating with flash duplicator company
Flashrite, Lexar will focus on enabling
technology to secure content on flash media so that it cannot be inappropriately
duplicated or altered.
CoreSolidStorage
launched the world's lightest 2.5" SLC flash SSD. Weighing just 62g, the
SATA compatible Ares has 64GB capacity and R/W speed 170MB/s and 135MB/s
respectively. | |
| February
2009....... |
Steve Wozniak became
Chief Scientist at
Fusion-io.
Seagate announced it had
dismissed its patent suit against
STEC.
Hitachi GST announced it
is acquiring Fabrik,
the parent company of
G-Technology.
Astute Networks launched
a SAS compatible SSD
Storage Blade for use with Sun servers. |
|
Trident Space & Defense
launched the Triton FSE - a 2.5" flash SSD for rugged military and defense
applications - which includes Fast/Secure Erase.
SanDisk announced that it
will begin mass-production of the world's first 4-bits-per-cell (X4) flash
memory. Using 43nm process technology, this breakthrough enables 64Gb memory in
a single die - the highest capacity in the industry. |
White Electronic Designs
announced a new technology which automatically
sanitizes a
flash SSD to military standards - when the device is moved outside a specified
operating zone - to prevent data falling into enemy hands.
Linkvast Technologies
unveiled a family of 4
channel (32bit/32CE) and
8 channel
(64bit/64CE) SATA flash SSD controllers that will ship in June, 2009. The
controllers support all mainstream SLC & MLC
flash memory devices. The
external DRAM architecture enhances SSD performance and can reduce flash
wear out. Package is 279-Balls 15mm x 15mm LBGA.
SalvationDATA
announced it has developed a new technology for
flash SSD data
recovery. The company says its methodology will work with all commercial
devices (excluding military and industrial SSDs which have inbuilt secure
erase). The new tool is expected to launch in May 2009.
DTS announced availability
of the fastest 3.5" SATA SSD - the Platinum HDD 2009 model. Internally it
has a 1GB RAM SSD which operates as a non volatile RAM cache for an internal
flash SSD (320GB to 512GB). Aimed at server acceleration applications
performance is 25,000 R/W IOPS, read speed is 250MB/s, and write speed is upto
240MB/s. DTS says the huge nv cache also attenuates writes (opposite of write
amplification) - thereby reducing flash wear by x10 to x400 compared to
conventional flash SSDs.
Viking Modular Solutions
launched the ArxCis-NV - an SSD based backup for
RAID controller cache.
When the external logic power rail drops - internal Supercapacitors sustain
power inside the module long enough (typically 10 to 15 seconds) to save the
cache contents to an SLC SSD.
Network Appliance
announced 2 strands in its solid state storage acceleration strategy:-
support for the
RamSan-500 flash SSD
array (from Texas Memory
Systems' ) via NetApp's V-Series storage controller and also a new
Performance
Acceleration Module which provides a read cache (16GB to 80GB)
implemented by PCI Express DRAM cards.
Hyperstone launched a
controller chip for oems designing industrial grade CF compatible SSDs. The F4
provides safe power-fail handling, proven error detection and correction and
static wear leveling. Data transfer rate to the attached flash memory array (16
chips) is upto 80MB/s. Sustained R/W via the CF interface is upto 50MB/s and
40MB/s respectively. Alternatively oems can add a
SATA bridge, or
RAID controller for
other markets.
WhipTail
Technologies announced details
of its iSCSI compatible
2U rackmount RAID protected SSDs. Available with 1.5TB (price approx $60,000) or
3TB capacities the systems internally use COTS flash SSDs managed by
EasyCo's MFT technology
which significantly improves write IOPS and
endurance.
SMART
Modular Technologies announced new
3.5" parallel
SCSI SSDs with upto
128GB and faster secure erase for industrial, defense, and other embedded
applications that require extremely rugged storage devices and legacy
interfaces.
Coraid
added SSDs
to the drives supported in its
AoE compatible
RAID systems. |
 |
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|
SSD Bookmarks
suggested
by - Gary
Drossel, VP of Product Planning, WD Solid State Storage |
Here's an article written by or
about WD Solid State Storage
NAND
Evolution and its Effects on SSD Useable Life
Gary Drossel says he
chose this article because reliability is the main driving force for WD Solid
State Storage and its customers.
The article shows why calculations
based on models of flash SSD writes in 24/7 applications can result in wear-out
estimates which are over optimistic by an order of magnitude due to write
amplification and wear-leveling inefficiency. That's why the company recommends
using the real-time endurance data logging tool (SiSMART) built into its
SiliconDrives for a day, week or month, in a prototype / pilot system before
full-scale deployment. The data collected can be used to either confirm that
there is adequate safety margin in the application - or used to initiate
software or other system design changes to adjust the extrapolated life within
acceptable limits.
Other SSD article suggestions...
Solid State Storage Initiative -
published by SNIA
Gary
Drossel says he recommends this bookmark because - "It discusses SNIA
activities relative to bringing SSD technology into the data center. And it has
links to a couple of white papers, articles and research resources about solid
state storage."
Editor:- thanks Gary for sharing your SSD links.
see also:-
WD
Solid State Storage - editor mentions on StorageSearch.com | | | |
| . |
|
| March
2009........... |
Editor's
comment:- this was the busiest month in
SSD history
for SSD announcements.
And what appears here, below, is just my
selection from the significant top of the iceberg.
STEC announced that its
revenue
in 2008 had grown 20% year on year to $227.4 million.
EMC announced it has
qualified higher capacity
400GB flash
SSDs for use in its storage systems.
Western Digital entered
the SSD market by acquiring
SiliconSystems
for $65 million in a cash transaction.
OCZ Technology Group unveiled
a PCIe SSD at
CeBIT. The Z Drive uses
MLC flash and has
1TB capacity. |
........... |
| |
4DS announced
additional funding
as part of a multi-million dollar equity investment to port its
RRAM
technology to existing semiconductor fabs.
LSI
announced better support for
flash SSDs in the
latest update to its
MegaRAID
SAS adapters. LSI calls this new feature SSD Guard - which can anticipate
some types of flash SSD failures in
RAID 0 configurations
and starts rebuilding data on a spare unit.
Texas Memory
Systems unveiled a PCIe
SSD that will ship in Q2 2009. The
RamSan-20 has 450GB
of RAID protected SLC flash with 80 microseconds latency. R/W bandwidth is
700MB/s and 500MB/s respectively. Sustained IOPS are:- 120,000 random read, and
50,000 random write. Endurance is rated at 12 years (assuming 25% continuous
writes). List price is about $18,000.
Hagiwara Sys-Com
extended its range of
1" SSDs - with
the launch of the
CFast Storage
Card which will ship in Q2. These industrial grade SSDs are form factor
compatible with CF cards, but have a
SATA interface.
Capacities range from 2GB to 16GB. See also:-
CFast -
Evolution (pdf)
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.
StorageSearch.com launched a new
series - the SSD
Bookmarks - in which SSD thought leaders suggest articles and links which
cast light on their own patch of the SSD jungle.
Fusion-io announced an
oem deal with HP whose new
PCIe based
StorageWorks
IO Accelerator for for HP BladeSystem c-Class servers is based on
Fusion's ioMemory SSD technology. A low level formatting tool for the HP SSD
enables users to choose what level of
over-provisioning is
used - as a performance
tweaking option.
A-DATA
launched a 512GB 2.5" flash SSD at
CeBIT. The dual interface (USB and
SATA) compatible SSD
has R/W speeds upto 230MB/s and 160MB/s and is aimed at notebooks. |
| New Guide for SSD
Wannabies |
Editor:- May 1, 2009 - StorageSearch.com published a
new article this week 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. And gives real
examples.
So if you're a
hard disk maker, or
RAID controller company
or flash memory maker who
still doesn't have an SSD product line here's my advice.
Stop
giving the press interviews about how you're still - "looking" at
the SSD market from the sidelines and evaluating what you might do next year
maybe..."
Some of these storage manufacturers (and you know
who I mean) - have been
singing the same old song for years. And it just sounds pathetic. They should
shape up, shut up, and
get in the game. |
 |
I've had early feedback from
senior VPs in several SSD companies already - who think it's a very interesting
article. A shade cynical and brutal in places - but tells it how it is... | | | |
Datalight announced a
new tree-based file system for embedded flash devices which boosts sequential
and random write speeds as much as 5x faster on Microsoft Windows Mobile
than the default file system.
Pretec Electronics
is sampling a 128GB ExpressCard SSD for the
notebook market
with 38/30MB/s R/W speeds and hardware encryption. Volume shipments are
expected next month.
Solid
Access Technologies said it has broken the $10,000 price barrier
for a high performance rackmount
RAM SSD. It's offering
a 2U 16GB FC or
SAS connected USSD
200 model for just $9,900.
Sun Microsystems
launched its new Sun
Flash Analyzer - a free Java tool to help users determine how much their
(Solaris, Windows and Linux) servers could benefit from SSD acceleration. The
company also launched a try before you buy marketing promotion for its servers
which have Sun branded 2.5" SLC flash SSDs pre-integrated. The 32GB SATA
SSDs have sequential R/W upto 250MB/s and 170MB/s respectively. Random R/W IOPS
are upto 35,000 and 3,300 respectively (4k blocks). Endurance is 3 years -
assuming max write speed and 100% write duty cycle.
Dell announced
SSD
options for its iSCSI
compatible EqualLogic PS6000 storage arrays. Pricing starts at $25,000. This
brings the number of rackmount
SSD oems to 34. That number is expected to reach 300 in 2010.
SiliconSystems
announced that it has shipped over 4 million SiliconDrives integrated
with the company's
SiSMART
technology. SiliconSystems also said it will ship faster versions of its 2.5"
and 1.8" SiliconDrives in the next quarter - with R/W speeds up to 100MB/s
and 80MB/s respectively, and (SLC) capacity upto 128GB.
Apacer launched the SAFD
254 range of SATA 2.5" SLC flash SSDs. Aimed at the industrial market,
operating temperate is from -40°C to + 85°C. Capacity is from 8GB
to 128GB. R/W speeds are 150MB/s and 130MB/s respectively. Internal S.M.A.R.T
technology logs spare blocks and erase counts. ECC corrects upto 8 bit errors
per 512 bytes. Power consumption is 400mA (active), 140mA (idle). Volume
production starts in Q2 2009 - with antipicated prototype price of $900 for
the 128GB model.
Dolphin
launched the
StorExpress
a rackmount SLC
flash SSD with upto 960GB capacity. The
PCIe connected SSD has
R/W throughput upto 2,700MB/s and 50 microsecond access latency. Dolphin quotes
a figure of 270,000 IOPS but the initial datasheet doesn't break out IOPS
figures for reads and writes. The StorExpress can be located upto 10m from the
host bus using copper cable and 300m with optical fibre.
Winchester Systems
said it will launch a range of rugged
rackmount SSDs
this month at FOSE
. Among these is a 1U RAID 5 / 6 protected rugged SSD array - the
RX-1300 FlashDisk
- which houses 12x
2.5" SSDs.
Interface options for the array include
SAS,
FC and
PCIe.
Viking Modular Solutions
launched the SATA Cube - a flash SSD which provides upto 256GB capacity in a
small 30x32mm footprint. Sustained R/W speeds are 110MB/s and 79MB/s
respectively. It's available as a BGA device or with a MicroSATA connector.
Fusion-io announced an
enhanced version of its ioDrive - called the
ioDrive Duo
which will ship next month. Capacity has doubled to 640GB with 1.2TB planned
for the 2nd half of 2009. Performance has been enhanced too. The ioDrive Duo
can easily sustain 1.5 Gbytes/sec of read bandwidth. Read IOPS performance is
186,000 (4k packet size). Write IOPS reaches 167,000 (4k packet size).
Memoright said it will
ship a new industrial grade 2.5" flash SSD range in May. The rSSD
(upto 128GB capacity) is designed to operate from -40 to +85 degrees C and
the company says its product testing processes satisfy MIL-STD-810F. R/W speeds
are both upto 120MB/s.
Compellent
announced
it would demonstrate its tiered SSD technology at a user event in May 2009.
The physical layer is based on
STEC's ZeusIOPS SSDs.
The soft part, something which Compellent calls
policy
driven Data Progression apparently " minimizes the number of SSDs
required while providing the highest levels of performance for mission-critical
applications."
PhotoFast launched a
PCIe SSD for the
Windows Vista / XP market - the
G-Monster-PCIe
Turbo Speed SSD. Capacity options include:- 256GB, 512GB and 1TB. Both
MLC and SLC options
are available. The flash array includes onboard RAID protection and has R/W
speeds upto 750MB/s and 700MB/s respectively.
Pliant Technology
announced it has received
$15 million in
Series C funding. This will be used as working capital to support volume
production of its SAS
compatible flash SSDs. |
| . |
| April
2009 |
StorageSearch.com launched a new
directory of merchant market
SSD controller chip
vendors.
SandForce
unveiled its
SF-1000 family of SSD
Processors - aimed at oems building SATA flash SSDs. Its 2.5" SSD reference
design kit is the fastest 2.5" SATA flash SSD on the market - with 250MB/s
symmetric R/W throughput and 30,000 R/W IOPS.
Fusion-io was named the
#1 company in StorageSearch.com's
list of the the Top 10
SSD OEMs based on search volume in Q1 2009. This was the 1st time that the
#1 slot has been held by a company which does not make traditional
hard-disk form-factor
SSDs. Also this month, Fusion-io announced it has closed $47.5 million
in Series B funding and
named a new CEO,
David Bradford.
Super
Talent Technology pre-announced its
RAIDDrives
SSD product line. This connects via
PCIe and supports up
to 2TB of RAID5 protected MLC flash storage. R/W performance is upto 1.2GB/s
and 1.3GB/s respectively. More details are promised in June 2009.
Solidata announced
it has
appointed
Melbourne based Solid
State Central as its new exclusive distributor for the
SSD market in Australia. |
| flash SSD Jargon Explained |
typical
news flash:- dd/mm/yy -
Fast symmetric R/W IOPS high endurance, MLC SSD, with 3 levels of
wear-leveling, massive over-provisioning, write attenuation and fast garbage
collection provides competitive alternative to RAM SSDs.
Do you
understand the list of ingredients in all the solid state drive
headlines? |
 |
Understanding what goes on
inside flash SSDs - can be as important as knowing what you can do with them.
See the article
flash SSD Jargon
Explained. | | | |
Intel said it is EOLing
its
Z-P230
SSD module which was aimed at the netbook market. 25 companies now make
SSD chips, DOMs or SSD
modules designed to fit into very small footprints.
Samsung will pay Spansion $70 million as
part of a flash memory
patent
settlement.
The companies have also exchanged rights in their patent portfolios in the form
of licenses and covenants subject to a confidential settlement agreement.
Samsung claimed to be the
1st company to offer
SSDs with hardware-based
encryption in a misleading press release.
OCZ
unveiled its
1st miniPCI-Express
compatible SSDs. Aimed at
notebooks OCZ miniPCI-E options include:- 16GB or 32GB capacity, and 2
interface options.
SATA
models - have R/W speeds 110MB/s and 51MB/s respectively .
PATA
models - have R/W speeds 45MB/s and 35MB/s respectively. |
Texas Memory Systems
announced the RamSan-620
- a 2U rackmount
SLC Flash SSD with 2TB ($88,000 list price) to 5TB capacity and 2 to 8
FC or
InfiniBand ports.
Throughput is 3GB/s. R/W latency is 250µS and 80µS respectively.
Transactional performance is 250,000 random IOPS. Power consumption is 325W.
Multiple RamSan-620s can scale to higher capacities.
Solid Access
Technologies' President, Tomas Havrda - shared his
SSD Bookmarks
with readers of
StorageSearch.com.
MAGMA and
Dolphin jointly
announced
they have collaborated to develop an improved version of the latter's
previously announced 2U StorExpress
PCIe SSD product line,
which will ship next month. Capacity options include 0.5TB (under $20K), 1TB and
2TB. It achieves 270K read and write IOPs (512 bytes to 4KB blocks) and up to
2.8GB/s of sustained bandwidth. Latency is less than 50µS. The StorExpress
enclosure can be positioned 1,000 feet away from the host server using fiber.
| |
| . |
|
| May
2009.............. |
Dolphin's CEO,
Tim Miller
shared his
SSD Bookmarks
with readers of
StorageSearch.com.
Ramtron cited the auto
market crash as a significant factor in the
26%
decline in sales of its F-RAM memory in Q1 2009.
JEDEC published a new
standard for 1.8" Slim
SSDs. MO-297 defines the dimensions, layout and connector position for 54mm
x 39mm SSDs with a standard
SATA connector.
AGIGA Tech started
sampling its new AGIGARAM
non-volatile system technology which delivers densities between 4 megabytes (32
megabits) and 2 gigabytes (16 gigabits) and peak transfer rates equivalent to
DRAMs.
STEC
confirmed rumors that its Zeus-IOPS SSDs have indeed been
oemed
by IBM in several popular
servers and storage systems. And STEC said it expects sales of its
ZeusIOPS (2.5" and
3.5") flash SSDs
in the 1st half of 2009 to reach
$65
million.
DDRdrive
emerged from stealth mode and launched the
DDRdrive X1 - a
PCIe compatible
RAM SSD with onboard
flash backup. Load / restore time is 60S. Performance is over 200K IOPS (512B).
R/W throughput is 215MB/s and 155MB/s respectively. Capacity is 4GB. OS
compatibility:- Microsoft Windows (various). Price is $1,495.
Walton Chaintech launched
its APOGEE
Mars SSD for the "hardcore gamers market". Includes 512MB mobile
SDRAM buffer, capacity upto 250GB, R/W speeds upto 250MB/s and 180MB/s
respectively.
Patriot
Memory launched its
Torqx
line of SATA
compatible 2.5"
flash SSDs with 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities. The new models include 64MB
of DRAM cache and deliver upto up to 260MB/s read, 180MB/s write speeds. OS
support includes:- WindowsXP, Vista, Linux, and Mac OS X.
Super Talent
announced new
firmware
for its
UltraDrive
ME series 2.5"
SSDs. This includes what the company calls a "Performance Refresh Tool"
to fix performance degradation problems in its earlier generation of SSDs.
Although some commentators on the web have attributed such problems to
fragmentation - that's completely incorrect! Since the access time for random
reads in a well designed SSD is nearly identical for all locations - the real
problem in Super Talent's SSDs (and some models from
Intel) was due tobadly
designed products which were rushed to market too soon without adequate
testing. For a deeper look at these issues see
Can you trust flash
SSD specs & benchmarks? - published nearly a year ago - which first
alerted buyers to these problems. See also:-
SSD controllers and IP. |
| ............................................................................................ |
| OEMs Race
to Design Their Own SSDs.......... |
Editor:- May 29, 2009 - StorageSearch.com disclosed week
that search volume for
SSD SoCs (systems on a
chip and controllers) has overtaken
1" SSDs (includes
miniature SSD modules) this month for the first time.
Guess that
confirms my sneaking suspicion that a lot of oems want to design their own SSDs.
It used to be very difficult for manufacturers to do this, but it's gotten
a lot easier
recently.
Although SSD architecture is more complex than
RAID systems - what's
happening today in the SSD market is similar to the emergence of
RAID controller
companies in early days of the RAID market. (And that's one of the reasons I
chose the same icon for this subject BTW.)
Nearly 20 companies selling
SSD controller technology and IP are listed in our directory.
In 5
years' time - designing application specific SSDs for common applications will
be as easy as designing a NAS
box is today. |
|
| | |
Toshiba announced it is
offering 512GB
SSDs as an option in notebooks for the Japanese market. The new,
Toshiba-developed 512GB SSD employs a 2-bit-per-cell
MLC flash memory -
which gives 4x the capacity of SLC flash used in industrial and
enterprise SSDs for the same silicon wafer footprint. One of the
failures of the SSD
market in 2008 was the low performance of SSDs integrated in notebooks.
Toshiba's new notebook seems to address that market failure . The company says
its new SSD controller
boosts data throughput figures of 230MB/s reads and 180MB/s writes.
Skymedi
launched a SATA
SSD controller aimed at the notebook market. It supports R/W speeds up to
180MB/s and 150MB/s respectively and upto 512GB capacity. That brings the
number of companies listed on our merchant market
SSD controller and IP page
up to 17.
TDK
launched a range of 2.5"
industrial temperature SATA SSDs (SLC and MLC) with upto 64GB capacity and
R/W speeds of 95MB/s and 55MB/s respectively. Other features include
15-bit/sector ECC, 128-bit AES encryption and SMART. The new SSDs include
internal UPS and an auto-recovery function that automatically recovers data
when read disturbance errors occur. The company also launched a range of 1.8"
SSDs.
OCZ
launched its
fastest 2.5"
consumer SATA SSDs -
the
Summit Series - with 200MB/s sustained write and 250GB capacity.
Unity Semiconductor exited
stealth mode and stated its aim to have the lowest manufacturing cost per
bit in the non volatile memory industry with a new breakthrough technology
called CMOx.
The company said it will ship 64Gb devices in volume in 2011.
PhotoFast launched its
G-Monster 1.8" SATA
SSD with internal 64MB DRAM cache and upto 128GB capacity. It supports R/W
speeds upto 230MB/s and 160MB/s respectively. The company says - what's
important in this type of notebook product is not just sequential R/W throughput
for large blocks - but also write performance for small random blocks. It
claims its 12MB/s (for 4KB blocks) is best in class.
White Electronic Designs
introduced a surface mount miniature PATA SLC SSD (22mm x 27mm PBGA) with 1,
2 and 4GB densities for use in high reliability embedded defense
applications such as aircraft, communications and missiles.
MemoCom emerged on the
international scene. The company announced it would show a comprehensive
range of SSDs from
1"
upto 3.5" at Computex
2009 in June. | |
| . |
|
| June
2009.............. |
Avnet became a distributor
for
White Electronic Designs
PhotoFast showed a
faster version 2 prototype of its G-Monster
PCIe SSD at
Computex. Read performance is
claimed to be 1,500MB/s.
SMART Modular
Technologies disclosed it had used
Marvell's SSD
controller in SMART's new
XceedIOPS
PCIe SSD which offers
upto 400GB capacity and 140,000 random IOPS performance.
Numonyx announced a
technology
agreement with Samsung
Electronics to develop common specifications for
Phase
Change Memory (PCM) products.
SanDisk started shipping
its 2nd generation of miniature
PATA compatible
SSD
modules for the netbook market. Performance is 9,000 vRPM and capacities
range from 8 to 64GB. SanDisk says it has improved the non volatile cache to
prevent "stalling" or "shuddering" which was a problem in
1st generation netbook SSDs.
Fusion-io
announced it will ship a
consumer optimized
version of of its enterprise PCIe SSD family in July. Priced at $895, the
ioXtreme has 80GB MLC flash
capacity and average throughput of 520MB/s. Supported OS's include:- Windows XP,
Vista and Linux.
DTS
won a
best
of show award at Interop
Tokyo 2009 for its Platinum SSD. The company says it will ship a 2.5"
version of this product - which
delivers about 40,000 IOPS and 250MB/s R/W - later this month.
PhotoFast launched the
fastest ExpressCard
- initially for the Japanese market. R/W speeds are 180MB/s and 100MB/s
respectively.
NextIO
announced it would demonstrate a 12 slot
PCIe flash SSD system,
designed in collaboration with
Marvell later this
month. Each slot would be capable of over 200,000 IOPs and offer 400GB
capacity.
StorageSearch.com
published a new article - giving an
Overview of
the Notebook SSD Market. This is a troubled and complex segment of the SSD
market - which has earned a justifiably bad reputation. Nevertheless SSD
vendors continue to throw products at the notebook market in many shapes and
sizes - hoping that something will stick before their cash runs out.
Western Digital Solid
State Storage announced it has begun shipping its new
SiliconDrive III
SSD product family which includes 2.5" SATA and PATA and 1.8" Micro
SATA products with target read speeds up to 100MB/s and write speeds to 80MB/s
in capacities up to 120GB. SiliconDrive III has been designed and optimized for
high reliability in demanding 24x7 applications in the embedded systems, media
appliance and data streaming markets.
Tower Semiconductor,
announced
it has taken an equity position (value approx $1.25 million) in Crocus Technologies, and
announced it is porting Crocus's
MRAM
to its 200mm wafer fab.
Samsung started
sampling a SATA mini-card SSD for use in the
netbook
marketplace. The 30mm x 51mm x 3.75mm
miniature SSD weighs
8.5g and consumes 0.3W. Capacity options are - 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. R/W speeds
are 200MB/s and 100MB/s respectively.
Dataslide announced it
was close to
productizing
its revolutionary hard
drive technology. Why mention it here? If successful - the technology
(which we first reported on 7 years ago) would deliver similar IOPS and
throughput performance as a mid range PCIe SSD - but at the media cost of a
hard drive.
Foremay
announced one of the fastest
2.5" SLC flash
SSDs in the market. The SATA compatible SC199 Cheetah V-Series has sustained R/W
speeds of 260MB/s and /250MB/s respectively and 42,000 random IOPS. Capacity
options range from 32GB to 256GB. |
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| Looking Ahead to the
2009 SSD Market / more
SSD news /
30 years of
SSD market history | |
