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| ... |
by Zsolt Kerekes,
editor StorageSearch.com
2010
was the first year in which SSD market revenue reached
billions of dollars. |
| . |
| 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.
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.
. |
| 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
unveiled a new security feature for a consumer notebook SSD at
CeBIT 2010. If your notebook is stolen
you send a (cell-phone) text message to it - and it destroys the data.
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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| what happened next? - see
SSD Market
Milestones - 2010 2nd quarter |
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