| rackmount SSD news |
A new way of looking at the
Enterprise SSD market
Editor:- September 6, 2010 - in a new
article published today on the home page of StorageSearch.com I suggest a new
way of looking at all "enterprise SSDs" to help you cut more
quickly through the tangle of new SSD web content which grows bigger than the
hours in the day you've got to think about it.
law firm says WhipTail's SSD capacity 4x better than HDD
Editor:-
August 31, 2010 - WhipTail
Technologies today announced that a law firm customer - Finkelstein & Partners (350
attorneys and staff distributed across 17 locations) had achieved a 4x
capacity reduction when using their SSD instead of HDDs in virtualized server
apps - due to
dedupe and faster
IOPS.
Dataram's revenue up 70% - increases investment in SSD ASAP
Editor:-
July 29, 2010 - today
Dataram today
reported
that its annual revenue for the year ended April 30 grew 70% to $44
million incurring a net loss of $1.6 million.
Among other things,
Dataram's president and CEO - John H. Freeman commented on the company's
SSD ASAP.
"The development of our
XcelaSAN product line
continues to progress... In August, we plan to release enhanced features and
functionality which are currently in development to support sales initiatives.
These changes increase the products ease of use, ease of installation and
interoperability.
"High Availability systems are expected to be
available for sale in December. We anticipate that our enhancements and the
shipment of high availability systems will accelerate product sales and broaden
market adoption. We have made and are continuing to make significant
investments in research and development in XcelaSAN. In part, this
investment is being used to develop and implement client recommendations based
on their actual test."
ASIC vs FPGA for use in enterprise SSDs
Editor:- July
21, 2010 - a reader's email this morning asked me to comment on the
business and technical pros and cons of FPGAs vs ASICs when it comes to
enterprise SSD design.
He named a bunch of enterprise SSD makers in
both camps - and said he hadn't seen me write anything about this issue on
StorageSearch.com. As you know - I'm never shy about commenting. Click here if you're
interested to see what I said.
DCIG article about PCIe SSDs
Editor:- July 20, 2010 -
DCIG has published
an article -
Identifying
the Right SSD Architecture which describes the thinking behind some
PCIe SSDs - and in
particular those designed by the article's sponsor Fusion-io.
One
of the disadvantages of the Fusion-io architecture (in my view) is that if you
install it into a slow legacy server - it will not give you the same speedup
as some other designs which offload more of their internal housekeeping
functions to an onboard SSD
controller. That difference magnifies if you fit multiple SSDs into the same
PCIe bus.
At the other end of the scale, however, the Fusion-io design
includes future-proofing for the server oems who design it in - because to some
extent the performance will scale upwards automatically when they deploy
the same SSDs into newer faster multi-core CPUs in new models of their
servers.
These very big differences are part of what I call the Legacy
versus New Dynasty segmentation model - which has been happening in the
rackmount SSD market
for several years. Superficially similar looking products actually address
very different markets - and if you know which side of the divide you're on
(and it can be different sides for different projects in the same enterprise)
that can shortcut your vendor qualification processes.
You can read
more about fundamental disagreement within the SSD industry in an article
here on StorageSearch.com called
the
the SSD Heresies.
new article - SSD training and education
Editor:-
July 19, 2010 -
StorageSearch.com today
published a new article and directory on the subject of -
SSD training and
education.
There are many people out there on the web who say
they can help you. But choosing an SSD training supplier could be as tricky as
finding a new SSD.
Nimbus improves features in NAS SSD
Editor:- July 19,
2010 - Nimbus Data
Systems today 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. Every
port can run all supported protocols –
iSCSI, CIFS and NFS –
simultaneously, enabling unified block and file storage and converged
networking. Pricing for a 10TB system with FlexConnect is just under $110k.
the Top 10 SSD oems in the 2nd quarter of 2010
Editor:-
July 6, 2010 - StorageSearch.com
today 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.
Tracking the search volume of millions of SSD readers - the series is designed
to alert you to emerging market trends and simplify your process of
shortlisting potential partners and suppliers. ...read the article
Kaminario launches RAM SSD ASAP
Editor:- June 14,
2010 - 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
Editor's comments:- the applications
speedups quoted by Kaminario are similar to the best figures achieved by high
end rackmount SSDs from NextIO,
Texas Memory Systems
and Violin Memory.
Kaminario
doesn't call its product an SSD - but it integrates
techniques which
have been used by SSD customers for many years - to place data hot spots into
memory.
Unlike a vanilla
RAM SSD - the company
says the data deployment is done automatically and transparently by its
proprietary OS. Kaminario's product isn't an
SSD - but conceptually the
best way to understand what it does is to think of it as a
RAM SSD ASAP. The
exact speedup and cost effectiveness achieved by this type of product is
highly application sensitive. Another similar product (which bundles servers
with massive memory) is the Oracle-focused
OPERA from Texas Memory
Systems.
Solid Access launches very fast NAS SLC SSD
Editor:-
May 20, 2010 -Solid
Access Technologies today
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.
Editor's
comments:- this is the 1st
flash SSD system
from Solid Access - which has been in the
RAM SSD market for 8
years and has often appeared in our directory of
the fastest SSDs.
As you'd expect - the new system includes enterprise
SSD reliability
features - and the flash modules are hot swappable and can be mirrored.
Nimbus nixes STEC SAS SSD costs in new iSCSI rackmount
Editor:-
April 26, 2010 - Nimbus
Data Systems today
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.
Editor's
comments:- there has been a lack of market leadership in the
NAS compatible
rackmount SSD
market. This new product from Nimbus shows what can be achieved with a true
bottom up enterprise design - in the same way that for
FC SAN connected
applications you'd look at systems from
Texas Memory Systems
and in the PCIe
connected rackmount SSD market you'd look at
NextIO or at
Violin Memory.
I spoke at length to Nimbus's CEO, Thomas Isakovich - about the new
systems. He's been a network storage OS pioneer for 10 years (prior to Nimbus
he founded
TrueSAN)
so I joked that - unlike many new SSD companies - at least this product wouldn't
be surprised by applications doing the wrong type of R/W IOPS (different to those
encountered in benchmark suites).
The 1st question I asked was
about the storage blades. I had already guessed (and he confirmed) the interface
was SAS. But the
surprise came when I asked whose
SSDs was he using?
Isakovich
said Nimbus makes its own SSDs - and that while the company was talking to many
SSD controller
suppliers - it planned from the outset to change these suppliers for other best
of breed alternatives as the market evolved. In this respect - Nimbus is
different to most others in the NAS SSD space - because the company supplies the
whole software stack from the choice of silicon up through the OS and into the
network. (Editor's note:- in contrast competitor
WhipTail Technologies'
product is a complex integrated bundle which uses 3rd party COTS
2.5" SSDs,
licenses the flash write attenuation software from
EasyCo and licenses
dedupe technology from Exar.)
I asked Isakovich does Nimbus use SLC or MLC? - he said the internal
flash is Micron's
"enterprise
grade MLC" - which has 6x the
endurance of
standard MLC.
He explained that Nimbus is aiming to offer a
competitively priced product (2.5TB model costs $24,995) but unlike other
vendors they decided not to offer separate
MLC or SLC
versions. The argument being that once you sold a system to a customer - let's
say a low cost MLC SSD for video streaming - you couldn't be sure that the
customer might not redeploy that same system into a different application
accelerating their database (which needs higher endurance). His thinking seems
to be that once the SSD rack is out in the wild of the enterprise environment -
it has to be tough enough to handle ALL enterprise applications.
The
flash systems include 28%
over-provisioning
and write attenuation.
I asked about the size of the RAM cache -
Isakovich said it's 48GB which puts it in the
fat flash SSD
class. Users do have options on how they can deploy this to tweak performance.
Unlike SSD ASAPs -
which are designed to accelerate
hard disk arrays - the
name of the game with the new Nimbus product line is to make it attractive for
users to place all their critical
IOPS
intensive data into SSD.
And with this new product Nimbus is saying -
they like the flexibility and features of
SAS SSDs - but that
doesn't mean to say the market has to pay
STEC or
Pliant prices.
NextIO launches "Fusion-io in a box"
Editor:-
April 13, 2010 -
NextIO announced
availability of its
vSTOR S100
- a 3U
PCIe connected SSD
with upto 7TB modular capacity and 1.7 million
IOPS (4TB
model).
When I spoke to NextIO's Product Marketing Director, Mike
Lance, last month he mentioned that
Fusion-io was one of
their partners so I've been expecting this product announcement.
The
best way to think about it is "Fusion-io in a box"- for applications
where you need ultimate rackmount performance - but don't want to be locked in
to proprietary SSD
rackmounts.
NextIO launched a conceptually similar product using
Texas Memory Systems
PCIe SSDs in November
2009. But unlike the TMS based solution - which is SLC only - the
Fusion-io based vSTOR also includes optional (lower cost) MLC which is
reliable enough
and more economic for applications like
video.
Because
the integration's already done for you using best of breed technologies - and
because the systems are already parameterized - they offer convenient and
affordable building blocks for serious users of datacenter SSDs.
TMS ships 10TB 500K IOPS 3U SLC SSD
Editor:- April
8, 2010 - Texas
Memory Systems today
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.
Levi Norman, Director of Marketing and OEM for Texas Memory
Systems explained the rationale behind the new product - "We developed
it in response to observing how customers were struggling to boost performance
without adding to their data center footprint. The explosive growth in IT and
storage over the years is resulting in many data centers reaching their limits
for space and power draw."
reaching for the petabyte SSD
Editor:- March 16,
2010 - previewing the final chapters in the long running
SSD vs HDD wars -
StorageSearch.com today
published an industry changing new article -
SSDs - reaching for
the Petabyte.
FalconStor tunes Violin's SSD
Editor:- March 2,
2010 - FalconStor
today 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 have changed are:-
- the price point
- $32,000 for the 500GB (lite capacity) version, and
- the availability of SSD
ASAP-like features implemented by FalconStor's SafeCache and HotZone
software.
Avere Adds SLC SSD Options to 2U ASAPs
Editor:-
January 26, 2010 - Avere
Systems today
announced
it's shipping new
SLC
flash SSD options in its
FXT Series
10GbE NAS compatible
SSD ASAPs.
The
2U Avere FXT 2700 appliance (from $82,500) 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.
"One of the main assumptions of Demand-Driven Storage is that
data access requirements are different across applications," said Ron
Bianchini, President and CEO of Avere Systems. "Applications that produce
heavy random read workloads are best addressed by SSDs and the FXT 2700 is
Avere's answer for those users who have a high-end NAS infrastructure that under
delivers when it comes to these types of applications." |
| click to read
article:- SSD Market History | |
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