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"Greasing the dataflow through
legacy hard disk arrays" - Zsolt Kerekes, editor StorageSearch.com |
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This directory includes rackmount
solid state disk arrays
based on both flash
SSDs and RAM SSDs.
It includes SSD oems who actively market proprietary SSD rackmount products and
integrators such as EMC who
sell RAID arrays populated
with COTS SSD modules.
The number of vendors in this category will
rise to hundreds in the next 3 years as enterprise users become more
familiar with the benefits of this type of storage.
Market entry costs are low...
It's easy for
RAID systems oems to
requalify their products to use SSDs. But unlike the transition to
NAS which we chronicled in
the late 1990s (where low performance products found valid application niches if
they were cheap enough) the role of the SSD array today is primarily server
acceleration. That means not all
hard disk boxes will be
optimal for use with SSDs. Slow bus interface adapters and slow
RAID controllers will
eat into the latency budget and squander potential SSD performance. I have no
doubt that in addition to many worthy products - some abysmal SSD arrays
will also come to market (populated by no / low performance SSDs) as floods
of lemming like companies leap into the enterprise SSD surf.
Looking
at future trends - the rackmount SSD market can be grouped in 4 main segments
I
think that all 4 product types will survive in the market for several years.
The
advantage of proprietary SSD rackmounts is they offer superior
performance compared to COTS arrays of flash / RAM SSDs.
Apart from
applications which need the ultimate performance - which can only be met by
proprietary architecture SSDs - there can also be applications in which the
proprietary products offer superior price / performance or reliability compared
to "open SSDs".
For example - some proprietary SSD
rackmounts use significantly less memory chips and electrical power to deliver
a usable SSD capacity and resilience (compared to open systems) - due to the
fact that they have been optimally designed as a rackmount solution. (In many
open SSD arrays there is duplication of effort and wastage of performance due
to optimization at the module level followed by another level on optimization
at the array of modules level.)
The advantage of open SSD
rackmounts is they appeal to users who want to reduce the risks of buying
from new vendors - and who don't want to get locked into proprietary systems
from long established SSD vendors.
The argument goes something like
this..
Even if the original supplier of the proprietary
2.5" SSDs (used in
the open array) exits the market - there are another 30 or so manufacturers of
similar SSDs who can fill the unused / future disk slots at similar cost.
This
argument is likely to appeal to conservative buyers - and may carry more
weight than arguments about superior performance. Many customers will get "adequate"
performance from these "safe, dull and open" SSD architectures.
And even if they cost more today (than the proprietary SSD systems) - there's a
realistic expectation that in future they will cost less (or get faster) due to
competition in the SSD component / module market.
As you can see - the
rackmount SSD market is far from simple. And there will be no such thing as a
clear and present leader or winner which will satisfy all customers,
applications or budgets until another 2-3 SSD product generations have been
tested in the market. So it could remain a confusing picture till 2013. | |
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| rackmount SSD news |
91% of Compellent's
Customers Want to Evaluate SSDs
Editor:- June 17 , 2009 Compellent today
announced results generated through attendee polling conducted at its annual
customer conference.
91%
of business partners and 78% of customers responded important, very
important or critical when asked, “What is your level of interest in
evaluating SSDs in your
environment?”
Sun Responds to User Needs for More SSD Capacity
Editor:-
May 27, 2009 - Sun
Microsystems announced today it has
improved
its hybrid rackmount storage systems to support an additional 600GB of
flash SSD cache (compared to the current 64GB internal limit) for enhanced
application performance.
The Sun Storage
7310
is available today and starts at a price of $40,165.
Editor's
comments:- terabyte SSDs become commercially available in
2002 - so
Sun's initial product offering last November - which supported a mere 36GB per
4U rack - was a sure sign that the company either didn't know what it was doing
- or was being overly cautious.
There are plenty of
rackmount SSD
vendors in the market - and soon there will be hundreds more. There's wide
diversity in product architectures (open versus proprietary) and applications
experience in this part of the SSD market (ranging from months in the case of
Sun - to more than a decade for companies like
Solid Data Systems and
Texas Memory Systems).
If
you are thinking of buying an SSD from Sun - timing the purchase is a something
to think about. In recent years Sun used to steeply discount towards the end of
its quarter. I'm not sure how being part of
Oracle will
affect that. See also:-
Hybrid Storage
Drives
Dolphin's New StorExpress SSD Ships in May
Editor:-
April 21, 2009 - MAGMA
and Dolphin
jointly
announced
they have collaborated to develop an improved version of the latter's
previously announced
StorExpress
(2U rackmount PCIe
connected 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.
"PCI Express, with its
tight linkages to microprocessors is the natural technology for creating high
performance systems" said Tim Miller, CEO Dolphin. "By partnering
with Magma we have created an exceptional solution - simple, elegant, cost
effective yet capable of delivering world class performance and flexibility."
New Module Aims at "must-have 100 terabytes SSD"
Users
Editor:- April 21, 2009 - Texas Memory Systems
announced the RamSan-620
- a 2U rackmount SLC Flash SSD with 2TB 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. Upto 100TB can fit in a
single 40U rack.
"The IT community is looking for ways to increase
storage efficiency while boosting productivity," said Greg Schulz, founding
analyst at StorageIO
and author of "The Green and
Virtual Data Center".. "It is time to stop moving around I/O or
other bottlenecks and start enabling storage efficiency via performance
optimised storage that does more work, in a smaller footprint (power, cooling,
floor-space, economic) while boosting productivity. Anyone can attach
flash SSD to a
computer or storage system; however the real trick and business benefit is when
a storage system or applications server can fully utilise the technology without
introduction of, or moving I/O and performance bottlenecks elsewhere. The
RamSan-620 is an example of a new breed of storage solutions that have been
optimised to leverage the capabilities of flash SSD while preserving application
QoS and service level objectives."
Editor's comments:-
there has been a lot of debate in the
fastest lanes of
the SSD accelerator market about whether it's better for users to deploy this
technology inside the server box (as
PCIe cards) - or
outside the box (on the SAN).
This is reminiscent of the old
CISC
vs RISC processor debates of the mid 1980s.
Entertaining as it is
to analyze these polarized approaches I explained in my
2009 - Year of SSD
Market Confusion and
rackmount SSD
articles why I believe that users will, in fact, do both.
Texas Memory
Systems has in the past told me, that whenever they launch a new rackmount SSD
they have some customers who just fill up a complete cabinet with the new model
and use that as their basic unit of solid state storage until the next new
model comes around. They'll only need 6.5kW for the 100TB SSD enabled by
this model - and they'll get the transactional performance of 10,000
hard drives.
C-Drive Registrations Up 30%
Editor:- April 14, 2009
- Compellent
announced today that registration for its annual channel partner and customer
conference - C-Drive 2009
- is up 30% over the same time last year.
"While other
industry conferences are
being cancelled or scaled back, C-Drive 2009 is growing rapidly, because we
offer our channel partners and customers valuable training sessions, demos and
educational sessions in an open environment, making our event truly unique,"
explained Phil Soran, president and CEO, Compellent. "We're relentlessly
striving to provide the most efficient storage available, and are excited to
share the latest advancements and Compellent's outlook on the future of storage
at this year's event."
Among other things attendees at the event next month - in
Bloomington, MN - will get a preview of Compellent's enterprise SSDs.
Editor's comments:- I only mentioned this one because I
thought "C-Drive" was a clever sounding name for a storage event.
Winchester Systems Unveils Rugged Rackmount SSD RAID
Editor:-
March 5, 2009 - Winchester
Systems says its will launch a range of rugged rackmount SSDs next week
at FOSE
.
Among the new products 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.
"Customers
find that they need field deployable storage and servers that exceed standard
commercial capabilities but not full military rugged specifications or prices,"
explained Mr. Joel Leider, the company's CEO. "Our rugged storage and
servers provide extra security and protection against dust, rain, shock and
vibration at COTS prices which are about half of full military standard costs."
The US Army has approved these units for field use. They are deployed
in harsh environments worldwide in HUMVEEs and stationary shelters. FlashDisk
RX disk arrays feature RAID 6 dual parity so even if 2 disk drives fail or
become unreadable, the data will remain intact. See also:-
Military & Rugged
Storage.
Nimbus Offers Drive Agnostic NAS
San Francisco, CA -
February 9, 2009 - Nimbus Data Systems today announced the H-class
RH100 quad port 10GbE unified storage system.
It offers up to 60x
hot-swappable SATA (terabyte HDDs supported), SAS (450GB HDDs), or SSD drives
(7.7TB capacity if populated by supported 128GB SSDs). Drives can be mixed
within the same enclosure. The RH100 includes no-additional-charge snapshot,
cloning, and replication software, built-in
iSCSI SAN and
NAS capabilities. The
RH100 has a 4GB cache and 60Gbps internal bandwidth. Nimbus says it can be up
and running in just 20 minutes. ...Nimbus profile
NetApp Starts Walking the SSD Talk
Sunnyvale,
Calif. - February 3, 2009 - NetApp unveiled 2 strands in its solid
state storage acceleration strategy today - support for Texas Memory
Systems' RamSan-500 flash SSD array and also a new Performance
Acceleration Module.
Support for the 100K IOPS
RamSan-500 SSD is
supplied by NetApp's V-Series storage controller and Data ONTAP software. The
RamSan-500 can be utilized as a large, fast networked cache, or otherwise
partitioned to maximize storage efficiency.
Meanwhile - the new
PAM
provides a read cache (16GB to 80GB) implemented by PCI Express DRAM cards.
These enables NetApp customers to significantly increase application
performance in FC disk arrays by 35% using 1/2 the number of hard disks
typically used in over-provisioned HDD arrays. Alternatively customers can
deploy lower cost, higher density SATA HDDs instead of FC disks while still
maintaining performance and making substantial savings in costs. ...Network Appliance
profile, ...Texas
Memory Systems profile
Editor's comments:- better late than
never - NetApp's announcements today make it easier and less risky for their
customers to feel comfortable in following a long established trend to
accelerate network applications performance with SSDs while reducing overall
systems costs
Although NetApp's PAM is a PCIe RAM card and not
a PCIe flash SSD -
it's just a short walk from one to the other. I have little doubt the company
has already been evaluating options in this market space..
RAID Inc Launches 1U Rackmount SSD
Methuen, MA - January 27, 2009 -
RAID Inc. announced the availability of its new 1U SSD RAID.
The Razor SSD
is a 12 bay 4 port fibre-channel
system using COTS 2.5"
SAS SSDs in a
RAID protected array. The
Razor comes with RAID's patent pending
StorageWatch service -
which proactively monitors storage conditions in real-time. ...RAID Inc profile,
rackmount SSDs
HDS Joins the SSD Waggon Train
SANTA
CLARA, Calif. - December 15, 2008 - Hitachi Data Systems today
announced general availability of flash-based SSDs for its Universal Storage
Platform V and VM.
HDS plans to offer flash-based SSDs in 73GB and
146GB capacities for the Hitachi USP V and USP VM storage systems in Q1 2009.
...Hitachi Data Systems
profile, rackmount
SSDs
Solid Access Launches World's Fastest 1U Rackmount SSD
Austin, TX - November 17, 2008 - At
SC08 today Solid Access Technologies announced the immediate
availability of its new generation of DRAM SSD products, the USSD Series 300.
Solid Access says the 4 new models are aimed at organizations
requiring the highest capacity, "no compromises" IOPS and data
bandwidth performance in the smallest possible footprint. Interface options
within the family include 8Gbps
Fibre Channel, 6Gbps
SAS and
320MB/s LVD SCSI
interfaces. R/W latency is under 10 microseconds and the models support upto
100K IOPS on a single port.
- Model 310 is a 256GB, 1U rackmount offering for high IOPS needs
- Model 310T is a 1TB, 4U tower, targeted at high performance databases
- Model 315 is a combined server and 128GB RAM SSD, 1U device, for custom
projects
- Model 320, a 256GB, 2U product which supports upto 6 ports and 4GB/s
sustained aggregated data bandwidth.
Solid Access says it guarantees equivalent or better application I/O
acceleration as well as the lowest price of any comparable SSD, and has launched
a "test before you buy" program.
"Five years ago when
we introduced the first open architecture, ultra-fast DRAM SSD, our goal was to
offer the best performance, most flexible interfacing, highest density and best
price of any offering in the segment" said Tomas Havrda, Solid Access
Managing Director. "The new USSD 300 Series is the capstone to our efforts
in a year in which we have enjoyed 500% growth. The
recent 28 unit
USSD sale to Samsung Securities is further proof that customers of all sizes are
taking notice." ...Solid Access
Technologies profile
Editor's comments:- for several years
there has been a gap in the market for a really high performance 1U
rackmount SSD. My
gut feeling is it could become a very popular form factor in Google style
(democratic) server architectures - which contain large numbers of identical
servers..
As the cost of
RAM SSDs easily makes
them the most expensive box per rackmount unit in the datacenter - the
availability of 1U models reduces the incremental deployment costs for customers
who are continuously upgrading their systems. It also lowers the cost of holding
immediately deployable spares.
Violin Advances flash SSD Architecture for Enterprise
Acceleration
Iselin,
New Jersey - November 10, 2008 - Violin Memory, Inc. today reached out
to markets beyond those accessible to its RAM based storage appliance line
by announcing the availability of a fast 2U 4TB SLC flash SSD.
Designed
for enterprise server acceleration - Violin's flash technology enables over 100K
sustained random Write IOPS (4K block) and write throughput is upto 400MB/s.
Latency is 70-300 microseconds and the internal architecture eliminates the
multi-millisecond variability seen in most current SSD arrays.
Endurance
can be an issue with some fast flash SSDs. But you don't have to do the
calculations because the Violin 1010 with 4TB SLC Flash can sustain its top
speed 100K Write IOPS for a 100% duty cycle over its projected 10 year life.
Price is competitive - at a system cost less than $50 per GByte.
System capacities range from 320GB to 4 TBytes within a single appliance.
Fibre Channel and
Ethernet network
attachments are supported via a network head and direct attachment through a low
latency PCIe
connection. Supported OS's include:- major Linux releases, Windows and
OpenSolaris. Violin Memory will be demonstrating the new product next week at
SC08. ...Violin Memory profile | |
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| click to read
article:- SSD Market History |
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| rackmount SSDs |
If he had his way... Sir
Squeaks-a-Bit
would stretch all 15K RPM disk pretenders
on the
rack and then remove their wobbly heads. | |
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