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| top 10 SSD oems |
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| SSD myths - endurance | .. |
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| January 2010 - ioSafe launched "disaster-proof" backup SSDs | ||||||||||||||||||
IDC said that SSD shipments in 2009 exceeded 11 million units, an increase of 14% year over year. ioSafe launched the ioSafe Solo SSD - an ultra rugged USB / eSATA external flash SSD with upto 256GB capacity ($1,250) designed to provide data protection against disasters such as fire, flood, and building collapse. LSI and Seagate announced they have collaborated on designing PCIe SSDs for the enterprise accelerator market which will sample in Q2 2010. Plextor announced it would enter the notebook SSD market in Q1 2010 with a new product line based on SSD controllers from Marvell. RunCore has started shipments of the 1st SSDs aimed at the PXI Express market (a standard which brings PCIe performance and functionality into the robust modular form factor popular in automated instrumentation test systems). RunCore's 3U CPCIe\PXIe SSD card provides upto 768GB MLC or 384GB SLC capacity and has sustained R/W speeds upto 400MB/s. Available with industrial operating temperature range and MIL-STD-810F processing, the module provides a fast purge rate of 5GB/s. IP-nest published a report called - Nand Flash Controller (NFC) IP Market Forecast 2009-2014 ($1,590). SMART is sampling the XceedIOPS SATA - SLC and "enterprise grade" MLC flash SSDs in 1.8" and 2.5" form factors - based on the SF-1500 processor from SandForce. Performance is upto 30K IOPS random read/write. SMART uses a combination of write attenuation technologies to attain a 5-year projected lifetime for its 400GB MLC XceedIOPS SATA model ($2,900 oem qty price) in an environment that demands 250MB/s sustained write and a 40% duty cycle. Storage related news coming out of CES was a disappointment to me - because nearly all the major news about SSD products had already been preannounced (and covered on these pages) in the months leading up to the show. If it's not new - and we've already talked about it - it's not news. That's why editorial arising from this event has been sparser than expected. SSD marketers in many companies have got into the habit of preannouncing products anything upto a year ahead - as part of the SSD Bubble. In that way they hope to get multiple shots at web visibility. It doesn't work that way here on StorageSearch.com. My purpose is to save you time - not to waste it. White Electronic Designs has introduced a 4GB secure PATA SLC SSD in a 22mm x 27mm PBGA for embedded military applications. This product is designed for applications in aircraft, communications and missiles. A hardware and software triggered fast purge can eliminate all data in less than 10 seconds and device options include sanitization compliant with various government agency specifications. Texas Memory Systems announced it is delivering open source drivers on Linux and Solaris for its RamSan-20 PCIe SSD accelerator. Viking Modular Solutions announced it is sampling a range of SAS and SATA compatible SSDs using controllers from SandForce. Form factors will include:- 1.8", 2.5" and innovative "non-HDD-like" solutions for space constrained and/or rugged applications. |
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| Toshiba
announced
it is sampling 128GB mSATA MLC SSD modules (30mm x 50.95mm x 4.75mm ) aimed
at the netbook
PC market. Sequential R/W speeds are 180MB/s and 70MB/s respectively. Weight
is 9g. Avere Systems announced it is shipping new SLC flash SSD options in its FXT Series 10GbE NAS compatible SSD ASAPs. The 2U FXT 2700 appliance features 64GB of DRAM, 1GB of NVRAM, and 512GB of SLC flash SSD. FXT clusters can scale to 25 appliances and support millions of operations/sec and tens of GB/sec throughput. Pricing starting at $82,500. SanDisk announced results for the quarter ended January 3, 2010 - revenue of $1.24 billion increased 44% on a year-over-year basis and increased 33% sequentially. SanDisk's Chairman and CEO, Eli Harari, said the company had achieved unit sales growth of 55% and gigabyte growth of 100% compared to the year prior quarter. Austin Semiconductor announced it plans to change its name and (along with some other companies) it will be merged into a new entity and brand to be called Micross Components. Cactus Technologies launched a rugged 32GByte industrial grade CF SLC flash SSD in an extended height (6.4mm) form factor. The 303 Series offers high endurance (>2M write cycles per block), wear leveling, defect management and 4M hours MTBF .. | ||||||||||||||||||
| February 2010 - 25nm geometry NAND flash sampled by Intel and Micron | ||||||||||||||||||
| StorageSearch.com published a new
directory on the subject of -
SSD Backup. ioSafe's CEO, Robb Moore - shared his SSD Bookmarks with readers of StorageSearch.com. Denali Software published an article - the Evolving Enterprise SSD - which comments on detailed SSD market size predictions from Gartner related to SSD form factors and interfaces. Micron Technology announced an agreement to acquire privately held Numonyx in an all-stock transaction worth approximately $1.3 billion. STEC reported that its revenue for full-year 2009 grew 55% to $354 million. Intel and Micron announced they are sampling the world's 1st 25nm NAND flash memory. This gives 8GB MLC (classic 2 bit) flash memory in a stackable TSOP. The new chips will enable higher density SSDs to ship in volume in Q2. Silicon Motion announced that its SSD controller shipments increased over 50% year-on-year - in the most recent quarter and now account for almost 10% of its ($87 million annual) corporate revenue. The company said - that the vast majority of controllers that are shipping are for 40nm and 30nm NAND flash and they are on track to deliver controllers for 20nm NAND flash that is expected to be available in the 2nd half 2010. In the 4th quarter 2009 the company also began shipping 3-bits per cell MLC controllers. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, launched this month, uses an SSD error correction architecture designed by ECC Technologies. Phil White, inventor of this scheme said - "You can think of the SDO spacecraft as containing a parallel-transfer, fault-tolerant SSD that uses DRAM chips instead of NAND Flash chips... Multiple DRAM chips can fail with no loss of data or performance." Compellent published a case study (pdf) - which shows the benefits of automated tiering SAN storage - applied to the online marketing of real estate. Foremay started sampling its EC188 D-series 2nd generation fast PCIe SSDs with capacity upto 4TB (MLC) and 1TB (SLC). Sequential R/W speeds are up to 1.6 GB/s and 1.5 GB/s respectively, and R/W IOPS up to 200K/180K. Aitech launched a new model in its family of PMC/XMC SSDs. The M224 has 128GB capacity, and hardware RAID options which support the onboard flash array. Sustained sequential R/W speeds are 170MB/s and 120MB/s respectively. The M224 is available in air-cooled and conduction-cooled versions as well as in 3 levels of ruggedization depending on shock, vibration and humidity requirements. OS support includes VxWorks, Windows and Linux. SanDisk said it was shipping its G3 range of SSDs which had been preannounced in January 2009 - and originally expected to ship "in mid 2009." Calypso Systems launched an SSD performance testing and characterization service for SSD manufacturers ($3,500 for standard tests, $5,000 for custom). This simplifies the process of sourcing independently verfied performance data to populate brochures and press releases. . |
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| March 2010 - 300% annual revenue growth - reported by PCIe SSD evangelist Fusion-io | ||||||||||||||||||
| StorageSearch.com published a new
directory -
SSD videos.
Infortrend joined the ASAPs market with its EonNAS 5100 . OCZ disclosed it has closed $15 million in funding to support its growing SSD business. iSuppli published a report called - Data Flash Q2 2010 Market Tracker. It addresses issues such as:- how do SSDs impact the flash market and what are new emerging markets and their trends. Viking Modular Solutions announced that its SATA Cube3 128GB DOM (launched in March 2009) has successfully completed tests pursuant to the MIL-STD-810F specification. RunCore showed an Express Card flash SSD designed for notebooks this month at CeBIT 2010. As well as providing upto 64GB capacity (R/W speeds 120MB/s and 90MB/s) - the Express 34 module also provides 2x USB 3.0 ports with connectors for linking the notebook to external devices. STEC has started sampling a new family of Slim SATA and SATA-CF 32GB/64GB flash SSDs for use in embedded markets. Performance is 15,000 / 6,000 R/W IOPS and R/W transfer rates are up to 135MB/s and 130MB/s respectively. Fusion-io disclosed it has experienced more than 80% quarter-over-quarter sales growth and more than 300% sales growth year-over-year. This emerged in an announcement that Silicon Valley veteran Dennis Wolf has joined the company as senior VP and CFO to help it manage its rapid growth as it continues to expand into new markets around the globe. Wolf has led several public and private companies as CFO, COO and CEO. Most recently, he served as executive VP and CFO at MySQL where he was integral in MySQL's growth strategy and its ultimate sale to Sun Microsystems in a transaction valued at $1 billion. FalconStor announced technical and VAR channel support for Violin Memory's 2U rackmount FC flash SSD - the Violin 1010 . Although the headline specs of this very fast flash SSD are substantially the same as when it was launched in November 2008 the 2 important things which changed were:- the price point - $32,000 for the 500GB version, and the availability of SSD ASAP-like features implemented by FalconStor's SafeCache and HotZone software. WD Solid State Storage began shipping a new range of 2.5" 128GB SATA SLC SSDs - for high reliability 24/7 embedded markets - called the WD SiliconDrive N1x. R/W speeds are upto 240MB/s and 140MB/s respectively. Write endurance is quoted as 701GB/Day - compatible with 5 year limited warranty. And data integrity (non-recoverable error rate) is better than 1 in 10exp15 bits read. WD also announced its entry into the SSD notebook market. WD's SiliconEdge Blue 2.5" MLC SSDs offer capacity upto 256GB (MSRP $999), R/W speeds of 250MB/s and 170MB/s. Super Talent Technology announced imminent availability of a new encrypted USB 3 flash SSD - with upto 256GB capacity. The USB 3.0 SuperCrypt is a true SSD (with wear-leveling). Internally the module (95 x 34 x 15.4 mm) is a SATA SSD with a USB bridge chip. WhipTail Technologies announced a Europe wide distribution and support agreement with Consolidate IT. GreenBytes unveiled the GB-1000 (under $10,000) a 1U 4TB SSD accelerated dedupe appliance which supports simultaneous SAN and NAS deployments. Ingest and restore performance is stated as 0.54TB/hr. OCZ announced it's shipping a 32GB 2.5" MLC SSD for under $100. R/W speeds are unremarkable - at a mere 125MB/s and 70MB/s respectively - but the main point of this launch - according to OCZ's CEO, Ryan Petersen - was to publicize the price point and show what the company is doing "to make SSDs more affordable to end-users." Pliant Technology published benchmark results to illustrate the capability of its 3.5" SAS SSDs when used in arrays. The measurements performed and validated by OakGate Technology were performed on an array of 16 SSDs and are summarized in a video. hyperI/O announced that its hIOmon software supports the collection of Microsoft "TRIM" related SSD metrics - which can be captured during normal, everyday application use and without any OS, file system, file, or application changes required. In yet another simulated benchmark published today related to Adaptec's SSD ASAP caching technology - which they leverage in their MaxIQ SSD product - I learned that the underlying technology was originally developed by (surprise! surprise!) - Microsoft. Forward Insights announced imminent availability of a new report - SSD Innovations ($4,499) - which explores key innovations to improve the performance and lifetime of SSDs. ...read contents pages (pdf), SSD Market Analysts TDK launched the SHG2A series of half slim, encrypted industrial SATA SLC SSD modules with upto 32GB capacity and R/W speeds of 95MB/s and of 55MB/s respectively. ECC is 8 bit/sector (512 byte) correction (15 bit/sector correction). Endurance is 100,000 write cycles per block address (6.3 billion writes for a 16GB model). TDK has a life span assessment tool which enables customers to monitor the life span of these SSDs in their systems. . |
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| April 2010 - Texas Memory Systems packed 10TB fast SLC SSD in 3U | ||||||||||||||||||
Violin Memory announced it has received a significant investment from Toshiba. Fusion-io announced another $45 million in series C funding led by new investor, Meritech Capital Partners. StorageSearch.com published the 12th quarterly edition of the top 10 SSD oems - which included rankings for the period January 1 to March 31, 2010. 5 out of the top 10 companies sold PCIe SSDs - compared to just 1 - in the year ago edition of this list. XLC Disk announced details of a paper called - "Paramagnetic Effects on Trapped Charge Diffusion with Applications for x4 Data Integrity." The company said its findings could have applications in the enterprise storage market by solving data integrity problems in x4 MLC SSDs within a new class of hybrid storage drives. OCZ launched the Z-Drive R2 - a bootable PCIe MLC SSD with upto 2TB capacity and upto 950MB/s sustained write throughput. R/W IOPS are 29,000 and 7,200 respectively - an order of magnitude slower than the fastest PCIe SSDs today - but nevertheless useful for many applications. SSD companies Avere Systems and Pliant Technologywere 2 of 5 companies named in an 8 page report published by Gartner - Cool Vendors in Storage Technologies, 2010 ($495). Texas Memory Systems announced the availability of the RamSan-630 an FC / InfiniBand compatible 3U SLC SSD with 4 to 10TB capacity, 500,000 IOPS, 8GB/s bandwidth, and R/W latency of 250 / 80 microseconds in a 450W power budget. Micron Technology and PhotoFast made their 1st appearances in the 12th quarterly edition of the Top 10 SSD Companies - covering the 1st quarter of 2010. Strontium announced the availability of a new 2.5" SATA flash SSD family - called Swift - with upto 256GB capacity and R/W speeds of 236MB/s and 160MB/s respectively. Everspin Technologies announced it is sampling a 16Mb MRAM. Access time is 35ns with unlimited read/write cycles. Data is always non-volatile after each write for more than 20 years. In addition, MRAM is immune to soft error rates associated with cosmic rays that impact other memories. Pliant Technology announced the appointment of Frank Kull as VP of operations. He brings more than 15 years of experience in operations management for Google, Cisco Systems and other leading technology companies. NextIO announced availability of its vSTOR S100 - a 3U PCIe connected SSD with upto 7TB modular capacity and 1.7 million IOPS (4TB model). The best way to think about it is "Fusion-io in a box". Nimbus Data Systems launched its S-class storage system - a 2U 10GbE rackmount SSD with 24 hot swappable internal 6Gbps SAS flash SSD blades in an 80W power footprint offering 5TB protected capacity for $39,995. Powered by Nimbus' HALO storage OS the systems support iSCSI, NFS, and CIFS protocols and provide inline deduplication (typically 10 to 1), continuous local and remote replication capability in-the-box at no additional cost. Data protection inside the box ensures that no data is lost even with 2 simultaneous blade faults. Objective Analysis published a new 104 page market report - Data Centers Drive Major SSD Growth ( $5,000) which concludes that "the stunning growth of SSDs in enterprise servers and storage systems is only going to get stronger." The company says that the enterprise SSD market is likely to approach $4 billion in revenues by 2015, nearly 17x times that of 2009, while unit shipments will increase by 50x during that period to over 4 million units. Foremay started sampling SAS SSDs in its EC188 product line. The new models (available in 2.5" or 3.5" form factors, and available in commercial and industrial temperature grades) have R/W speeds of 250MB/s and 200MB/s respectively, random read/write IOPS up to 30,000/25,000 and upto 400GB capacity. That brings the number of SAS SSD companies listed on StorageSearch.com to 13. . |
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| May 2010 -branding comes to the SSD chip market with "SandForce Driven SSDs" | ||||||||||||||||||
Fusion-io announced that it had validated its PCIe SSDs with Oracle Enterprise Linux. SandForce announced that its SSD SoC technology had been used in a TPC-C benchmark recently published by IBM. The system used 10.5TB of MLC flash SSD capacity - implemented by 56 SSDs that use SandForce SF-1500 SSD processors. SandForce also officially announced a branding program called - SandForce Driven SSDs. This effectively confirmed StorageSearch.com's analysis of the company's marketing efforts which we had described in the past year as "SandForce inside" SSDs. StorSimple exited stealth mode - announcing a bunch of collaborative customer supply agreements - and disclosing info about its Armada storage appliance - which can be regarded as an application specific SSD ASAP which includes "missing link" features to make cloud storage more managable and economic within datacenter environments. StorageSearch.com published a new article - What's the best / cheapest PC / MAC SSD? This apparently simple question resulted in a very complicated answer. RunCore started sampling 2.5" and 3.5" SAS flash SSDs for the enterprise server market. The Kylin II product line, available with MLC, EMLC or SLC flash, has R/W speeds upto 270MB/s and 260MB/s respectively, R/W IOPS of 30,000 and 25,000, upto 400GB capacity and 3 years warranty. STEC confirmed that its revenue for the 1st calendar quarter of 2010 decreased 39% (to $38.8 million) compared to the year ago period. Poor results had been anticipated and flagged in guidance due to the company's over strong dependence on a single oem customer - EMC. Later an article in TheRegister.co.uk suggested that STEC may soon launch a PCIe flash SSD accelerator and a low capacity RAM SSD. PMC-Sierra announced a definitive agreement to acquire Adaptec's channel storage business for approximately $34 million in cash. This deal includes Adaptec's RAID storage product line, its global VAR customer base, board logistics capabilities, and SSD cache performance solutions. Mushkin joined the throng of SSD companies marketing SandForce-inside 2.5" SSDs. Mushkin's new Callisto range includes a 240GB model with R/W speeds upto 285MB/s and 275MB/s respectively, and shopping cart price of $666.49. OWC launched the Mercury Pro SSD family - which are 2.5" SSDs with SandForce designed SSD controllers inside. R/W speeds are upto 285MB/s . At the time of launch prices and capacities were as follows:- 60GB - $219.99, 120GB - $379.99, 240GB $699.99 and 480GB $1,579.99. Solid Access Technologies launched the UNAS 100 a very fast 2U rackmount NAS SLC fat flash SSD - with 2.4TB capacity, 96GB DRAM Cache, 2x 10GbE ports, 300,000 IOPS, 1,000MB/s bandwidth and under 10 microseconds access time. Nexenta Systems announced that its products (which include SSD ASAP features) are being used by the Dutch Public Broadcasting Agency NPO for storing and delivering online tv in a configuration which includes 192TB of hard disk drives and a 1.9TB SSD read cache. The broadcaster's website has approximately 80TB of video available to online users who want to watch previously broadcasted television programs. During an average evening, between 10 and | ||||||||||||||||||
| Microsemi
announced
it had completed the acquisition of
White Electronic Designs.
James J. Peterson, CEO of Microsemi said - "This acquisition extends our
offering into high-growth sectors in our core Aerospace & Defense markets
and adds an extraordinary anti-tamper functionality to our existing product
suite."
Memoright's President, Alex Kuo gave many interesting insights about his company in an interview with DIGITIMES. Among other things - he explained that's why his company is focusing on rugged SSDs - "The market for military- and industrial-use SSDs is relative small in terms of shipments compared to the market for consumer ones, but it is where suppliers can make huge profits. There is a limited number of suppliers capable of making ruggedized products for industrial and military applications." Semico Research published a report Flash SSDs Making Inroads into Computing . . | ||||||||||||||||||
| June 2010 - Anobit samples 1st Memory Signal Processing flash SSDs | ||||||||||||||||||
Violin Memory announced it has acquired the technology assets of of Gear6. Samsung announced imminent volume production of a 512GB SATA SSD for the notebook SSD market - the 1st to use toggle-mode DDR NAND which enables sequential R/W speeds upto 250MB/s and 220MB/s respectively while using about half the power of a regular flash SSD of the same capacity. Memoright entered the PCIe SSD market. Apacer started sampling its 1st SSDs which comply with JEDEC's spec MO-300 for mSATA SSD - which is about 75% smaller than a typical 2.5" SSD. Apacer's miniature SATA Disk Module II M1 SLC SSD has R/W speeds upto 100MB/sec and capacities options from 4GB - 32GB - whereas the MLC version R/W speeds are upto 95MB/s and 50MB/s and MLC capacities are 2x greater. Both new SSD families include global wear leveling, S.M.A.R.T technology, 8-bit/15-bit ECC function and intelligent power failure recovery, and are processed compliant with MIL-STD-810F. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has deployed over 100TB of Fusion-io's dual 320GB enterprise MLC ioMemory modules deployed in ioSAN carrier cards that connect over Infiniband in a testbed project to develop high-performance simulation computing capabilities needed to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the nation's aging nuclear deterrent without underground testing. With the addition of Fusion-Powered I/O, the Hyperion testbed will deliver over 40 million IOPS and 320GB/s of bandwidth from just 80 1U appliances (2 racks) compared to 43 racks and more power if implemented in an HDD based system. SanDisk started sampling netbook SSD modules with upto 128GB capacity in the "mSATA mini" form factor. SanDisk also started sampling 256GB models in its G4 notebook SSD range. Macronix announced research results related to its patented BE SONOS (barrier engineering) charge-trapping technology which could make terabit NAND flash feasible without relying on advances in lithography technology. OCZ unveiled the RevoDrive a bootable PCIe SSD with R/W speeds up to 540MB/s and 530MB/s respectively and 75,000 IOPS. Stealth.Com launched a family of 2.5" SATA flash SSDs with SLC and MLC variants, 64MB RAM cache, and R/W speeds upto 260MB/s and 210MB/s respectively. Indilinx announced it was supplying SSD controllers for use in a hybrid storage module - called the HyDrive - designed by Hitachi-LG Data Storage - which includes a 32GB flash SSD integrated with a Blu-ray optical drive. Denali Software was named as a possible savior of the hybrid drive concept in a white paper by Objective Analysis - Flash Cache is Back (pdf) - which predicts that all computing platforms will soon employ a cache layer between the HDD and the DRAM. Author Jim Handy said projections cited by notebook SSD makers that SSDs would already have replaced tens of millions of HDDs were over optimistic and may "never happen". Intel announced that its SSDs are now available in 800 Best Buy stores across the country and on BestBuy.com. Axxana published findings from a survey it funded to understand the role that cost plays in inhibiting user adoption of zero data loss disaster recovery solutions such as its SSD based solutions. Kaminario launched its 1st product - an FC SAN connected acceleration appliance in which a grid of blade servers access upto terabytes of shared memory. Pricing starts at $200,000. Virident Systems announced the immediate availability of its tachIOn - a fast PCIe SSD using SLC flash - with 800MB/s sustained R/W throughput, 200K sustained random IOPS (320K peak) and capacity options of 200 / 300 / 400GB. Aimed at the enterprise acceleration market - the tachIOn's data intergity features include end to end error correction. Endurance is quoted as 24 years at 5TB writes / day. Anobit announced it is sampling SSDs based on its patented Memory Signal Processing technology which provide 20x improvement in operational life for MLC SSDs in high IOPS server environments. Based on proprietary algorithms that compensate for the physical limitations of NAND flash, Anobit's MSP technology extends standard MLC endurance from approximately 3K read/write cycles to over 50K cycles - to make MLC technology suitable for high-duty cycle applications. This guarantees drive write endurance of 10 full disk writes per day, for 5 years, or 7,300TBs for a 400GB drive, with fully random data (worst-case conditions). First-generation Anobit Genesis SSDs deliver 20,000 IOPS random write and 30,000 IOPS random read, with 180MB/s sustained write and 220MB/s sustained read. Super Talent Technology announced availability of a new range of 2.5" SATA MLC SSDs which use SandForce controllers. Capacities and street prices are as follows:- 60GB $199 , 120GB $349, 240GB $669, 480GB (contact vendor). And the company entered the 2.5" SAS SSD market by announcing imminent shipments of its ShuttleCraft brand - which includes SLC and MLC models with capacities upto 240GB. Lexar Media offered consumers a 64GB version of their 2.5" 6Gb/s SATA SSD for $149.99 - with R/W speeds upto 355MB/s and 75MB/s respectively. . |
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| July 2010 - 6 out of the top 10 SSD companies in Q2 2010 - already make or plan to make PCIe SSDs | ||||||||||||||||||
StorageSearch.com published the 13th quarterly edition of the Top 10 SSD OEMs - with new commentaries and analysis - and a 1st time appearance in the top 10 list by OCZ. Kingston's SSD marketers launched a competition to learn how users might really benefit from using their SSDs. SNIA announced the availability of its Solid State Storage Performance Test Specification (version 0.9) for public review. 2 years earlier StorageSearch.com published an article called - Can you trust flash SSD specs & benchmarks? - because it had been obvious to me for some time that many oems and magazines which did benchmark testing of SSDs didn't know about the "halo effect" which could make some SSDs look better than they really were. A new set of the SSD Bookmarks - suggested by Michael Raam, CEO SandForce was published on StorageSearch.com. Memoright announced a new authorized distributor for their SSDs in the US - First Commercial Technologies based in Beverly Hills, CA. StorageSearch.com published a new article and directory on the subject of - SSD training and education. Nimbus Data Systems- announced higher density in its 10 GbE rackmount SSD systems - 10TB (enterprise MLC) in 2U - implemented as 24 x 400GB hot-swappable SAS flash blades. The company also announced improved connectivity - upto 120Gbps - from its internal 12 port FlexConnect 'virtual switch' which makes all storage available to all ports without the need to create and assign volumes to specific ports. Pricing for a 10TB system with FlexConnect is just under $110k. Infortrend announced it will use STEC's ZeusIOPS (SAS SSDs) in its ESVA F60 product line (FC RAID systems). Foremay announced it is shipping 2TB 3.5" and 1TB 2.5" SATA flash SSDs in its EC188 M-series model V product range. R/W speeds are up to 200MB/s. ECC is 24-bit. The SSDs are bootable and support all major operating systems. StorageSearch.com published a new article - the cultivation and nurturing of "reliability" in a 2.5" SSD brand. Dataram reported that its annual revenue for the year ended April 30 grew 70% to $44 million incurring a net loss of $1.6 million. Dataram's president and CEO - John H. Freeman said the company is increasing resources into evolving its XcelaSAN (ASAP) product line and plans to launch HA versions later in the year. |
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| August 2010 - NVELO auto tunes notebook storage pool | ||||||||||||||||||
StorageSearch.com revealed that SSD searches in August 2010 were 33% higher than a year ago. Dr. Andrew Viterbi joined Link_A_Media Devices' board of directors. Virident Systems announced the signing of a reseller agreement with Appro for Virident's tachIOn drive (PCIe SSD). Fusion-io announced the availability of a new high density PCIe SSD - which supplies 1.28TB of MLC capacity on a single card. STEC reported $61 million for the 2nd quarter ended June 30 - a decrease of 29% year on year but significantly up on the previous quarter. The company indicated that inventory issues at EMC (whose worse than expected SSD sales in 2009 had created a glut of STEC shelfware) had finally been resolved. At the Flash Memory Summit later this month OCZ demonstrated a new 3.5" SSD with what it calls a High Speed Data Link interface - which is PCIe physically connected via a SAS connector. Pliant Technology announced the appointment of Mark Delsman as VP of engineering. Prior to joining Pliant, Delsman was VP of software engineering for Dot Hill. StorageSearch.com published a new article - animal brands in the SSD market. Examples discussed in the article range from cute and cuddly animals through a menagerie of fast rugged and best friend rugged SSDs, a regional curio and some real monsters. Hynix Semiconductor announced it has selected Anobit's SSD controller technology to operate with its own 20nm class NAND Flash chips for use in a new SSD design. Samsung and Seagate announced they will jointly develop SSD controller technologies to operate with Samsung's 30nm-class MLC NAND. The jointly developed controller will be used in Seagate's enterprise-class SSDs. SandForce announced what their technology can do for Slim SATA SSDs. One of the advantages of skinny flash SSDs is the SSD controller fits into a smaller physical space - because it doesn't need external RAM chips. STEC announced details of 2 technologies the company is using to improve data integrity and reliability in its enterprise market MLC flash SSDs. These are called CellCare and S.A.F.E. Micron Technology announced it is sampling the RealSSD P300 - a 200GB 2.5" SATA 3 SLC flash SSD with R/W IOPS of 44,000 and 16,000 respectively. Viking Modular Solutions is sampling its Slim SATA SSD - which provides upto 120GB capacity and 260MB/s R/W speeds in less than half the size of a 2.5" SSD. StorageSearch.com published SSD Bookmarks - suggested by Jason Caulkins, Chief Technologist Dataram. NVELO launched Dataplex - a software product aimed at PC oems - which provides SSD ASAP functionality inside a notebook. Dataplex will begin shipping from select Tier 1 PC OEMs in 2011. NVELO is in discussions with leading HDD and SSD vendors to enable aftermarket sales and bundling options for Dataplex, and has begun development of an enterprise version of Dataplex for server systems. Objective Analysis predicted that in 2015 nearly 40 million SSDs will ship accounting for over $7 billion in revenues. Micross Components indicated that a future version of its microSSD (the world's smallest PATA SSD - which has a footprint of 14 x 24 x 1.3mm and weighs only 0.8 grams) may be offered with extended operation upto 105 degrees C. Foremay's CTO, Jack Winters presented a paper - Secure Erase Options for SSDs (pdf) - at the recent Flash Memory Summit. The paper describes the need for SSD data purge and the 3 techniques which the company supports in its Avalanche Secure Erase Suite. WhipTail Technologies announced a new name for its NAS SSDs - Datacenter XLR8r instead of Racerunner - and also unveiled HA options which involve dual failover systems. SMART Modular Technologies entered the SAS SSD market with the announcement that it is sampling the XceedIOPS SAS SSD - a 400GB eMLC SSD with 26,000 / 20,000 R/W IOPS and 250/230 MB/s sustained throughput. OCZ announced plans to wind down its commodity DRAM business and focus more resources on SSDs. Microsemi now offers a 16GB SLC NAND version of its PBGA SSDs - which are designed specifically for use in the rugged and demanding environments of defense and aerospace applications. The surface-mountable PATA SSD has an integrated 32-bit RISC flash controller which manages wear leveling, error correction and power interruption protection. |
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| September 2010 |
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StorageSearch.com announced it is a media sponsor for the 10th annual Storage Visions conference taking place January 4 - 5, 2011 at the Riviera Hotel, Las Vegas, NV. The event theme is - New Dimensions Drive Digital Storage. | ||||||||||||||||||
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