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March 2009
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. |
| Surviving SSD
sudden power loss |
Why should you care
what happens in an SSD when the power goes down?
This important design
feature - which barely rates a mention in most SSD datasheets and press releases
- has a strong impact on
SSD data integrity
and operational
reliability.
This article will help you understand why some
SSDs which (work perfectly well in one type of application) might fail in
others... even when the changes in the operational environment appear to be
negligible. |
|
| | |
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.
Mark Barrenechea,
President & CEO of SGI, cited the parent article (to this one) -
SSD
market history in his blog -
A
Solid State of the Union. In which he said - among other things - "...given
that we are now in the world of solid state (SSDs), you can run your data center
at a higher temperature reducing the power consumption of Computer Room Air
Conditioning units. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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.
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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 to badly
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. |
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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.
Swissbit
launched
an industrial
2.5"
PATA/SATA SLC flash SSD product line with 45MB/s R/W performance and 2GB to
32GB capacity.
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.
Silicon
Power
launched
a key ring form factor dual interface eSATA/USB
MLC flash SSD.
Capacity is 64GB, R/W speeds are:- 90MB/s and 50MB/s for eSATA, dropping down
to 30MB/s and 20MB/s for USB.
ASMedia Technology became
an executive member of the
SSD Alliance . |
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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.
Numonyx announced a
technology
agreement with Samsung
Electronics to develop common specifications for
Phase
Change Memory (PCM) products.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Corsair announced
128GB and
64GB versions of its 220MB/s R/W
2.5" SATA MLC
flash SSD family with 128MB of cache memory. Online price for the 128GB
model is approx $355.
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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July 2009
WhipTail Technologies
announced a 6TB
MLC version of its 2U flash SSD appliance.
Ramtron announced that its
FRAM has been selected to store the virtual block-to-sector map in a new
flash SSD design by SBS Science and
Technology. The use of hybridizing memory technologies - for example
using faster RAM-like non volatile memory in some parts of the SSD device and
slower flash-like memory in the bulk storage arrays to accelerate performance
inside SSD caches was predicted by StorageSearch.com
several years ago in various articles including
the Flash SSD Performance
Roadmap.
StorageSearch.com
published the 9th quarterly edition of
the Top 10 SSD OEMs
- based on comparing search volume in Q2 2009 for 155 SSD oems. For the 1st
time - the top 10 list included a company whose primary business is designing
SSD controllers -
SandForce - which
was ranked #2. The #1 company, for the 2nd consecutive quarter
was Fusion-io.
OCZ
announced
faster versions of its
2.5"
SATA flash SSDs. By increasing the internal cache speed by 8% the Vertex
Turbo now delivers read and write speeds clocking in at up to 270MB/s read and
210MB/s write. These are fast for consumer SSDs - but see the
fastest SSDs list
for much faster devices.
Foremay has recently
announced the fastest
1.8" SLC flash SSD.
The SATA compatible
SC 199 Cheetah
has sustained R/W speeds of 250MB/s and 220MB/s respectively. R/W IOPS are
6,000 and 5,200 respectively. Capacity options range from 16GB to 64GB.
Endurance
for the 16GB device is rated at 87 years assuming 50GB sequential writes per
day.
Active
Media launched its
SaberTooth
brand of SATA Mini PCIe MLC flash SSD cards as upgrades for Asus Eee PCs. R/W
speeds are upto 155MB/s and 100MB/s respectively. The 64GB model costs
$219.95.
STEC
announced it had received
$120
million order for its
ZeusIOPS SSDs from
a single enterprise storage customer for delivery in the 2nd 1/2 of 2009. This
followed an earlier announcement that the company has partnered with a leading
defense systems contractor to supply its
MACH8 industrial SSDs
for integration into a platform designed on behalf of the U.S. Military as part
of a 12 month,
$28
million supply contract.
Curtiss-Wright
launched the VPX3-FSM
a rugged 256GB encrypted SLC flash SSD in a 3U
VPX form factor
module. Aimed at integrators in the aerospace and
defense markets, the
conduction-cooled SSD can be configured to appear to the host as 4 separate
64GB SATA drives or
as a single drive with hardware RAID0 support. It's rated at 160MB/s memory
R/W when configured as RAID0, and 75MB/s per port in a
JBOD configuration.
Fusion-io announced
the results of TPC-H benchmark tests sponsored by, and running on, Dell
servers, and audited by
Performance Metrics, Inc. The tested
system
achieved
28,772 QphH on a 100GB database, at a cost of $1.47 per database
transaction. (The typical 3 year cost of ownership for the whole system
including software is quoted as $41,998.)
Intel announced a
process
shrink for its
X25-M -
SATA 2.5" MLC flash SSD. The new 34nm devices deliver upto 8,800
(4KB) write IOPS and up to 35,000 read IOPS. R/W speeds are 250MB/s and 70MB/s
respectively. R/W latenciy is 65µS and 85µS. The 160GB model is
priced at $440 (1,000 unit price point).
IDT
announced
it was working with Micron
to develop a commercial PCIe flash SSD for the server market. Micron had
previously tested market reaction by unveiling a prototype PCIe SSD (with
800MB/s R/W speeds) in
November 2008 |
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August 2009
STEC
said
it will ship 6Gb/s SAS
flash SSDs in both 2.5"
and 3.5" form
factors in Q4. STEC's new ZeusIOPS SSDs will deliver 80,000 IOPS random read,
40,000 IOPS random write with transfer speeds of 550MB/s read and 300MB/s write.
STEC also said it's
sampling
a faster version of its 3.5"
FC compatible SSDs. STEC
also announced a new policy of offering
MLC flash
in so called "enterprise class SSDs".
Texas Memory Systems launched the
RamSan-6200 a 40U
rackmount SSD
with 100TB of SLC
flash storage, 5 million IOPS performance and upto 60GB/s throughput - which
uses approximately 6kW of power. It's a scaled up system that combines 20x
RamSan-620s in a single
datacenter rack and uses TMS' TeraWatch software to provide unified management
and monitoring from a single GUI console.
PhotoFast disclosed
details of its
G-Monster
Quad Drive SSD which includes 4x RAIDed
CFast SSDs in a SATA
compatible 100mm x 70mm x 9.5mm module.
Capacities are 8, 16 and
32GB. R/W speeds are 100MB/s and 50MB/s respectively.
Intel and Micron Technology today
announced
the development of a new 3-bit-per-cell MLC NAND technology, leveraging their
34nm geometry process. The new 32Gb chips, expected to ship in the 4th
quarter, will typically be used in consumer storage devices such as
flash cards and
USB drives rather than
SSDs until the
reliability of the
new technology can be proven.
SandForce announced the
availability of the SF-1000
family Evaluation 2.5" SSD featuring 34nm flash from
Micron.
Samsung Electronics
announced it is
targeting
the PC gaming industry with its 256GB SSD. This seems to confirm the
consumer-led focus of the company's business strategy. Earlier StorageSearch.com
had said it doesn't think Samsung's SSD product marketing is good enough
to achieve success in the enterprise server market.
SMART Modular
Technologies announced a new range of
rugged
2.5" 256GB SSDs for
defense applications
that will ship next month.
Data
declassification compliance is implemented by the company's EraSure
technology. The models comply with MIL-STD-810F environmental specifications for
operating shock, vibration, humidity and altitude, and each drive passes a
demanding 8 hour, full-temperature range
burn-in test prior to
shipment.
KingFast
announced its ZIF
range of MLC SSDs available in 1.8", 2.5" and 3.5" sizes with
access times of 0.1mS.
Skymedi wants to
concentrate efforts on its
flash controller
business and spin off its multimedia processor division according to a report
in DIGITIMES
.
Dataram
said it will launch an SSD
accelerator
at SNW in October. The product is
currently being evaluated by key customers. |
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September 2009
StorageSearch.com revealed that in
August 2008 reader pageviews for
PCIe SSDs were
approximately 6x the level of a year ago.
Violin Memory announced
that Donald Basile has been named CEO. Dr. Basile (with over 20 years of
leadership experience) had recently served as the CEO of
Fusion-io.
Texas Memory Systems expanded its IP base
with the acquisition
of data management patents and source code from
Incipient. TMS also
published a new
video explaining subtle operational features of its RamSan-20 PCIe SSD.
Tom's Hardware published a
performance
review of a dozen disk form factor (1.8" & 2.5") flash SSDs.
Most exceeded 200MB/s R/W throughput.
Intel said it will
deploy up to 10,000 SSD notebooks this year to its own employees following an
internal
review of the benefits.
2 new company profiles have been added to
our our classic
SSD manufacturers directory.
These are:- China based
KingFast, and
California based MagicRAM.
Also 2 new companies have been added to the
SSD SoC directory
bringing the total up to 21.
Adaptec announced a new
platform for integrators building
hybrid storage
pools using SSDs. Its
MaxIQ
SSD Cache Performance Kit (which operates with upto 4x customized 32GB
Intel SSDs) includes
software that identifies frequently (hot) read data blocks and optimizes
subsequent "reads" by moving "hot" data directly into the
SSD cache for lower latencies and higher system performance.
Pliant Technology
started sampling its
Lightning
family of 2.5"
(150GB) and 3.5"
(300GB) skinny
flash SAS SSDs.
The SLC drives deliver R/W rates upto 525/340MB/s and 160,000 IOPS (for a 90%
R, 10% W mix). Pricing for a single EFD is expected to fall between $15/GB and
$30/GB.
NextIO
named DaWane Wanek as VP of world wide sales. Prior to joining NextIO,
Wanek served at
Dell, where he was a
director of the Advanced Systems Group.
Avere Systems announced
it has secured
$15 million in Series A
funding from Menlo
Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners. Avere founders were members of the
team that created Spinnaker
Networks, an innovator in scalable grid storage solutions,
acquired by
NetApp in 2004 for
$300 million.
More
who oems whom -
SSD news stories.
- Samsung announced
that HP was offering its
SSDs as an option in ProLiant servers.
StorageSearch.com
published a new directory of
Fast Purge flash SSDs
to help designers in defense applications.
Foremay announced the
SC199 Hi-Rel Series SLC flash SSDs in 1.8", 2.5" and 3.5" form
factors which meet military standards MIL-STD-810G and MIL-STD-833G.
Operational temperature options include -40°C to approx 100°C.
Dataram launched the
XcelaSAN
- a fast 2U
rackmount flash SSD with 450,000 random IOPS performance (assuming 50/50
R/W and 4k blocks), and upto 8x 4Gbps FC ports - aimed at the
SAN application
acceleration market. Pricing starts at $65,000 for a unit with approx 360GB
internal flash, of which 128GB is effectively used as a cache. Dataram's
product includes proprietary software - which does away with the need for an
SSD expert engineer to identify hotspots and relocate critical data. The company
says the XcelaSAN will automatically learn and self optimize during the 1st few
hours of operation.
Samsung
announced
it has begun producing 512Mb PRAM memory. PRAM combines the speed of RAM for
processing functions with the non-volatile characteristics of flash memory for
storage. This has been a Problematic (rather than a Perfect) RAM technology.
Samsung originally announced a working
prototype of the
512Mb PRAM 3 years earlier - in September 2006. |
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October 2009
Seagate
disclosed
it has started sampling its 1st SSD product to major oems.
Ampex announced first
shipments of the TuffServ 480 SSD - a rugged
iSCSI SSD for airborne
applications. The TuffServ
480 provides 2TB of RAID protected hot swappable flash storage in a
conduction cooled MIL-STD-810F certified compact package measuring 5.25"
H x 7.25" W x 10" D.
Emulex expanded its
InSpeed
chip bridging technology to simplify the job of designing fast native
SAS and
Fibre-channel compatible
flash SSDs.
StorageSearch.com disclosed that
search volumes for
PCIe form factor SSDs
in September 2009 had surpassed that for
2.5" SSDs for
the 1st time.
Dane-Elec
Memory announced it will start shipping a range of USB 3 compatible
external SSDs with 250MB/s throughput in December. They use
Intel's flash SSDs.
Avere Systems unveiled
its
FXT Series of
clusterable 2U rackmount
hybrid
NAS appliances. Each
module contains upto 8x 3.5"
SAS
hard drives, 64GB
DRAM and 1GB of
nv RAM. The embedded
Avere OS
provides storage acceleration by dynamically tiering between the internal
rotating and solid state storage. List pricing starts at $52,500.
Active Media
Products launched its
Aviator
312 line of bus powered fast
USB 3.0 external
SSDs with R/W speeds upto
240MB/s and 160MB/s respectively. Measuring less than 3" long and only 0.2"
thin, the A312 is smaller than a credit card and is designed to fit in a pocket.
Capacity options include:- 16GB ($89), 32GB ($119) and 64GB ($209).
Some of the technical folks at
Texas Memory Systems
have contributed to a new book called -
Oracle
Performance Tuning with SSDs - written by Oracle expert, Mike Ault.
This is part of an august collection of Oracle tuning books published by
Rampant
Press.
Foremay
entered the PCIe SSD
market with its
EC188
Dragon series - which is now sampling. Supporting both x8 and x16 slots -
R/W performance is upto 1.5 GB/s and 1.3 GB/s respectively. Both MLC and SLC
models are available. Capacities range from 128GB to 4TB. Sequential R/W IOPS
is up to 90,000/80,000. Random R/W IOPS is up to 27,000/12,000. Features
include power outage protection, dual PCIe configuration through a built-in PCIe
RAID controller, and active garbage collection. OS support includes Windows,
Mac OS X, Solaris, Linux, and UNIX.
Storspeed emerged from
stealth mode and unveiled the
SP5000
Application-Aware cache. This is a NAS compatible SSD accelerator (base
price $65,000 ) which uses a
fat flash SSD
environment integrated within a
hybrid storage
pool.
Foremay
launched its
EC188 Jaguar
Series flash SSDs optimized for the Mac market. Form factors include
1.8",
2.5" and
3.5", interface
types include SATA, micro SATA, SATA LIF, IDE and IDE ZIF/LIF. Capacties range
from 64GB to 1TB and R/W speeds are upto 260/230MB/s.
WhipTail Technologies
became the 1st SSD appliance company to market integrated in-line
deduplication.
WhipTail announced
it will ship its newly renamed Racerunner (6TB) NAS SSDs with
Exar's Hifn
BitWackr
deduplication and compression solution in Q4 2009. Racerunner has demonstrated
deduplication performance in excess of 1Gbps.
Fusion-io published a
case
study showing how their ioDrive
SSDs helped MySpace reduce server
count, claim back 50% rack space while increasing application performance
(compared to its legacy SAS RAID system) and massively decreasing electrical
power. As a result of this initial project - MySpace plans to replace all
remaining 1,770 2U servers with Fusion-io enabled servers as they reach their
end-of-life.
Solidata
unveiled its
SS 2.5"
SATA line of enterprise flash SSDs which use
SSD controllers from
SandForce. That
contributes to its high R/W performance (280/270MB/s) and high R/W IOPS
(50,000/35,000).
Intel
joined the growing roster of SSD
companies who have
announced
support for Trim functions. These benefit flash SSDs which don't have
internal fast active garbage collection. The company recommends users install
the firmware update and toolbox, and run the Trim function daily to ensure best
performance.
Sun
Microsystems
launched
2 new SSD product lines. The
F5100 Flash Array
($45,995 upwards) is a new 1U
rackmount SSD -
which has 16 SAS ports
and provides upto 1.92TB capacity. R/W IOPS are upto 1.6M and 1.2M respectively
(for a system populated with 80 SSD modules). The
FlashFire
F20 is a 96GB SLC flash
PCIe SSD with 100k
read and 84k write IOPS. R/W rates are upto 1092MB/s and 501MB/s respectively.
The card also includes a
SAS controller.
Samsung announced
it has invested in
Fusion-io.
Quarter-over-quarter sales for Fusion-io products have nearly doubled since the
company announced its first product, the ioDrive, in late 2007.
pureSilicon starts
shipping its Renegade R2 Series 2.5" SATA SLC flash SSDs this month.
Sequential R/W speeds are 255MB/s and 180MB/s respectively. IOPS performance
is:- 18,000 IOPS random read: (4K) and 1,200 IOPS random write. Capacities upto
128GB in a low profile (9.5mm height)
2.5" form factor
and -40°C to +85°C operating temperature.
Numonyx published an
article in EDN -
Phase-Change
Technology Enters The Memory Market - which compares the cost, latency and
endurance of PCM to SLC flash. Whereas the cost of PCM - based on silicon
real-estate per GB is currently 20% more than SLC - the write latency is
1,000x lower. This may justify its use in some SSD designs.
Texas Memory Systems
announced
that its RamSan-620 - (2U
5TB SLC flash SSD, price $220,000 approx) - has achieved a
record
setting SPC-1 result. It produced 254,994.21 SPC-1 IOPS with average
response time of 0.72mS and at a cost of only $1.13 per SPC-1 IOPS - which is
better than any competing RAID or Flash solution.
SMART
announced that it has been
selected
by Harris Corp to provide SSDs for use in its Mass Storage Unit
program. The new MSU, which is part of a larger F/A-18 program, is the first of
a new family of avionics file servers. Harris selected SMART's
XceedSecure
2.5" SATA SLC flash SSD for the in-flight file server application.
XceedSecure SSDs include EraSure technology, which provides
secure erase
features.
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November 2009
Link_A_Media Devices
secured $18 million series C funding.
SandForce
announced
that it has closed $21 million in Series C funding.
SanDisk
announced
that its 64GB
(9,000
vRPM) pSSD module has been selected as a standard SSD option in
Sony's
VAIO X ultra-thin laptop.
Foremay announced
that secure erase and fast
purge options are now available for most models in its
SC199
SSD product family.
Forward Insights
published a new market report this month -
SSDs: Enabling MLC
Technology in the Enterprise (price is $6,499).
Unigen announced it will
manufacture a new range of
flash SSDs using
SSD processors from SandForce.
The 2.5" SSDs will be available with
SATA or
SAS interfaces.
Foremay announced it is
shipping the world's
fastest 2.5" SATA flash SSDs.
The
SC199 Cheetah Y-Series has R/W speeds up to 290/280 MB/s in
2.5" and
3.5" SATA form
factors - which approaches the theoretical speed limit of the SATA-II protocol.
It also delivers impressive R/W IOPS of up to 50,000/45,000 respectively.
Global
Unichip announced mass-production of its
ARM7-based
GP5080
series PATA / SATA compatible
SSD SoC platform for
use in portable consumer products. There are 2 different models. GP5080 is
optimized for cost sensitive applications by removing the need for external DRAM
cache (skinny SSDs),
while GP5086 supports DRAM cache for (regular SSD)
applications needing extra extended lifetime (write attenuation).
Adaptec
released
the results of 3rd party performance testing of its new MaxIQ SSD Cache
Performance Solution in MySQL environments.
STEC disclosed that its
biggest customer, EMC,
hasn't sold as many of its SSDs as expected - and
will
carry inventory into 2010. If this was a surprise to anyone it's only
because they didn't read my analysis (published April 1, 2009) which appeared
in the 8th quarterly
edition of the top 10 SSD oems and was repeated in my comments in
STEC's profile page in
which I explicitly warned about STEC's over reliance on partners like EMC who
were adding very little added value to their SSD offerings - and
underperforming in the rackmount SSD market.
A legal company called
Brower Piven said it was considering
a class action lawsuit against
STEC regarding what it
called "misleading statement(s) to investors" (earlier this year)
regarding the state of design wins and oem potential business related to STEC's
ZeusIOPS.
OCZ
announced
it will launch a new SAS
SSD family based on SSD
SoCs from SandForce
which will probably be previewed at CES
in January 2010.
NextIO
entered the multi-million IOPS
rackmount SSD
market via an oem agreement which leverages multiple
225GB / 450GB PCIe SLC
SSDs made by Texas
Memory Systems. Available immediately, the
14 slot NextIO
application acceleration appliance can be configured and reconfigured with
any mix of servers and TMS SSD cards depending on system demands. Pricing for a
basic configuration starts at $19,500, which includes implementation, training
and onsite application or database tuning assistance.
PhotoFast unveiled a
new range of 1.8" native PATA MLC
regular flash
SSDs with internal garbage
collection -the
G-monster-1.8"
IDE V4. Capacity options include:- 32/64/128/256G. Internal cache is 64MB,
R/W speeds are upto 128MB/s and 90MB/s respectively. PhotoFast says that its
internal hardware garbage collection makes the SSD especially suited to
traditional OS's which don't have TRIM such as XP. The drive rearranges itself
when the laptop is in idle time. The benefits might not shine through in
server style benchmarks
(which assume 100% duty cycles) but for real life notebook usage it should
work adequately.
Google
opened its doors to developers who want to work with
Chrome OS - a new operating
system for web notebook products. In the opening video of the
Chrome
OS blog we learned that the architects of the new OS are "obsessed
with speed". Therefore the new netbook OS is designed from the ground up
to support only flash
SSDs as the default mass storage.
Axxana announced it has
secured $9 million Series B
investment led by Carmel Ventures.
The funds will be used to accelerate the adoption of
The Phoenix System
- a lossless data recovery system which sits on the
SAN and records data into a
rugged flash
SSD-enabled, locally situated, data survival box.
StorageSearch.com published a new
directory of companies making
PATA SSDs.
Fusion-io
unveiled
details of a very fast PCIe form factor,
InfiniBand
compatible, flash SSD designed for 2 undisclosed government customers. Each
ioDrive Octal card, occupies 2 slots and delivers 800,000 IOPS (4k packet
size), 6GB/s bandwidth and has upto 5TB maximum capacity (implemented by 8x
ioMemory modules).
Symwave
announced
that its USB 3.0
controller has been designed into a new
flash SSD by
OCZ - which will be shown
at CES in January 2010.
RunCore announced
availability of its Pro IV Light mini-SATA 50mm PCI-e SSD - a
regular flash SSD
design and small form factor - which is designed to accelerate netbooks.
Capacity options include:- 16GB (32MB cache), 32GB and 64GB (64MB cache) with
smaller capacity drives for oems available on request. Sustained R/W speeds
are 125MB/s and 80MB/s. Random R/W speeds (4K blocks) are 18MB/s read and 5
MB/s respectively. RunCore says it's compatible with all major OSes and
installs easily via its USB
slave port. |
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December 2009
Fusion-io
announced
that its ioMemory PCIe
SSD technology has been adapted by IBM who will remarket these
solutions (initially with upto 320GB capacity) as its
High
IOPS SSD PCIe Adapters for use in System x servers.
Symantec announced an
upgrade to its Storage Foundation management software which enables it to
automatically
discover SSDs from leading vendors and optimize data placement on SSD
devices transparently.
Micron
announced it is sampling
6Gbps
SATA MLC SSDs in 1.8"
and 2.5" form
factors. Micron's C300 SSD can achieve a read throughput speed of up to 355MB/s
and a write throughput up to 215MB/s.
A-DATA announced volume
shipments of its 2.5" XPG range SATA MLC SSDs optimized for use with
Windows 7 TRIM. Models include:-
SX95
(R/W = 230MB/s and 178MB/s) and
S592
(R/W = 230MB/s and 170MB/s).
Seagate
announced details
of its Pulsar
SSD - a 2.5" SATA SLC SSD with 200GB capacity. Sequential R/W rate is
upto 240MB/s and 220MB/s respectively, R/W IOPS are 30,000 and 25,000
respectively. Aimed at the server market the BER is quoted as 1 sector per
10E16. Seagate says it has been sampling the new drive - its 1st SSD - since
September 2009.
EMC
published a report on its new
fully
automated storage tiering concept which the company says will simplify user
operations needed to optimize storage allocation between
hard drives and
SSDs within the company's
arrays. EMC says some of this functionality is
now
available on some models.
A-DATA announced it
has joined the growing roster of
SSD makers using
SSD SoCs from
SandForce. Products
are now in the final testing stage and will be previewed at
CES next month.
An academic group at Stanford University - the
RAMCloud
project - published a whitepaper
Introducing
the concept of RAMClouds (pdf) - which "argued for a new approach to
datacenter storage called RAMCloud, where information is kept entirely in DRAM
and large-scale systems are created by aggregating the main memories of
thousands of commodity servers." |
| other SSD
articles worth seeing |
The
Top 100 SSD
Articles is based on reader popularity.
But if I had to suggest
just 3 SSD articles - depending on who you are - it would be these.
for
experienced enterprise SSD readers
- where are we
now with SSD software? - and how did we ever get into this mess? In the next
few years the software for SSDs will have as much impact as hardware
architecture did earlier. Don't expect this to be an orderly top-down process.
if you're new to the SSD market
- the SSD Buyers Guide - will take you to groups of
articles and directories which are organized by technology and market theme.
- the Top 20 SSD
Companies - whatever your interest in SSDs - these are the companies which
are attracting the most interest amongst your peers.
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| what happened next? -
See -
2010 Q1 SSD
market milestones to follow this narrative, or
SSD news archive
for archived news before and after this year. |
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