| RAM SSD news |
| Clarifying
SSD Pricing - where does all the money go? |
Editor:- January 27, 2010 -
StorageSearch.com today
published a new article -
Clarifying SSD Pricing.
SSDs are among the most
expensive items of computer hardware many of you will ever buy - with high end
models costing more than high end servers.
Understanding the factors
which determine SSD costs is often a confusing and irritating process - not
made any easier when market prices for identical capacity SSDs can vary more
than 100x to 1! This new guide suggests simple tactics to help
you. ...read the
article
New edition - the Top 10 SSD Companies
Editor:-
January 7, 2010 - StorageSearch.com
today published the 11 quarterly edition of the
top 10 SSD oems -
ranked by search volume in the 4th quarter of 2009.
This is always
one of the most popular articles on our site. I know that many SSD companies
themselves are nervous and eager to see how they've fared in this important list
which predicts future winners in the market based on the world's leading SSD
focus group. I've tried to be more direct with my own analytical comments too -
even if it means repeating some things I've already said in other places -
because I know that most of you don't have the time to read hundreds of SSD
articles. ...read the
article
the Problem with Write IOPS - in flash SSDs
Editor:-
December 16, 2009 - StorageSearch.com
today published a new article -
the Problem with
Write IOPS - in flash SSDs.
Flash SSD "random write IOPS"
are now similar to "read IOPS" in many of the
fastest SSDs. So
why are they such a poor predictor of application performance?
And
why are users still buying
RAM SSDs which cost
9x more than SLC? - even when the IOPS specs look similar. This tells
you why the specs got faster - but the applications didn't. And why competing
SSDs with apparently identical benchmark results can perform completely
differently. ...read
the article
Storage
Market Outlook 2010 to 2015
Editor:- November 9, 2009 - this
is a time of year when many readers are thinking about their storage marketing
plans for 2010.
This planning process takes place against a background
of long range assumptions which are more confusing than at any time
since September 11, 2001.
I've collected together a few ideas which
you might find helpful. If you know what's going to happen in the next 5 years -
it's so much easier to prioritize your plans for 2010. ...read the article
Flash Hype Leads to SSD Myopia - Says Solid Data
Editor:-
September 29, 2009 - Steve Topper, CEO of Solid Data Systems
today commented on market perceptions about
RAM SSD versus
flash SSD positioning in a press release about the company's updated range
of FC compatible terabyte class
RAM SSDs.
"There
is a market perception that only NAND flash is solid-state storage and that DRAM
is too expensive and too volatile," said Steve Topper. ""The
market is being told that flash drives are the way to go as they are cheaper and
can best deliver enterprise-class performance and reliability. This simply is
not true. While flash is somewhat less expensive than DRAM, they cannot beat us
on latency and performance, and large numbers of customers have told us that the
endurance of these products simply is not there. In many cases, these drives
wear out after only days of use."
Editor's comments:-
while I wouldn't agree exactly with all the details in these comments. I do
agree with some of it. It's important to realize that the most competitive RAM
SSDs are best regarded as part of a product continuum which starts with flash
and extends up to RAM. If a flash SSD can do the job - it generally will be
chosen because of the lower cost.
But in some applications access-time
replaces random-IOPS as the key determinant of application performance.
Let's say for example that a critical bottleneck in your application
looks like a small table resident on the SAN which involves 5 consecutive R/W
modify cycles to the same block of memory. At the system level - a
RAM SSD can be 10x
to 20x faster than a flash SSD - even if it has the same nominal
random IOPS* and data throughput. It's an undeniable fact that RAM SSDs do a
better job at application speedup for a small group of applications -
regardless of the 9x higher typical cost for the same capacity. That's
why customers still buy them.
* There are rare exceptions.
Violin Memory has
patented a non blocking write in their flash SSD array - which enables a read
operation to immediately follow a write on the same block (without waiting for
the erase write to complete). But I don't know how many consecutive operations
would be speeded up in that architecture - maybe just the next one in the
sequence - but not the whole set.
Dataram Eliminates Waits for the SSD Hot Shot / Hot Spot Engineer
Editor:-
September 28, 2009 - 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.
"It
is now well understood that the benefit of a solid state infrastructure for
compute-intensive environments is higher application performance with less
equipment and lower operational costs," said Jason Caulkins, Dataram Chief
Technologist. "The question is no longer 'How can I benefit from solid
state storage?' but 'How do I best implement solid state in my existing
infrastructure?' With XcelaSAN, we enable organizations with performance
intensive applications to seamlessly add a dynamic, intelligent solid state
storage tier to their existing SAN environment."
Editor's
comments:- At 1st glance this product looks like many others which have
aimed at the traditional market of SAN users. But its revolutionary design opens
a new market which has been inaccessible to traditional
FC SSD vendors.
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 - and it will maintain application speedups even
when applications and loads change - which is not possible with human tuned
systems.
The search for a self tuning agnostic SSD software layer
which sits between a SAN server and conventional rotating disk bulk storage has
been the Holy Grail of SSD oems for over a decade. None have actually achieved
it - till now. Although many vendors have developed semi-automated tuning kits
and strategies for common applications - they require considerable expertise on
the part of the applications engineer to make them work well. That has slowed
down the adoption rate of SSDs in many midsized organizations which don't have a
big enough installed base to attract the start SSD talent to look at their
problems. And it's also why SSD accelerators, have not been viable as a
reseller product.
When I spoke to Dataram's CTO, Jason Caulkins, I was
impressed by the depth of marketing thinking behind the new product launch.
Dataram realized that simply launching a me-too SSD box would have an
uncertain outcome in a market that's already so crowded. And Dataram's corporate
memory goes back over 30 years to pioneering SSDs for minicomputers which
they launched in
1976. But
all memory companies know that in the future SSDs will use more memory than
traditional markets - such as server or pc motherboards. So it's important to
stake out ground in the SSD market.
I asked - where did the technology
come from? Jason said some of it came from Dataram's acquisition of
Cenatek - where he had
already been thinking about the SSD business model problem for many years. With
much bigger resources available after Dataram's acquisition - he's had teams of
software engineers working on the XcelaSAN concepts and licensed essential glue
where needed.
Will it work? Dataram says the XcelaSAN has been tested
and working in customer sites. Product shipments in the US start in the next
quarter. And the product is storage agnostic - meaning the customer can replace
their SAN arrays at a future date and retain the acceleration speedup. XcelaSAN
seems to offer a viable route for mid-budget user enterprises - who have
been neglected by SSD vendors for economic reasons - to join the march of the
SSD Revolution.
Is it competitive? - If you use my quick and dirty
magic number for SSD sever accelerators - (write IOPS divided by cost per TB) -
it's in the same order of magnitude as leading PCIe SLC flash SSD cards - so
it's definitely worth a look.
3D Memory Market Reality Check
Editor:- September 13,
2009 - How is the 3D memory chip market stacking up? - An article in Semiconductor
International reviews the market's progress.
Author Philip
Garrou says - "3D memory surely will happen, just not that quickly"
- and reminds readers that a few years ago
analysts were
predicting it would be an established market by 2010. ...read
the article
TMS Acquires SAN IP from Incipient
Editor:- September
8, 2009 - Texas Memory Systems
has expanded its IP base with the
acquisition of data
management patents and source code from Incipient.
"The
patents and software provide Texas Memory Systems with a new set of tools for
virtualisation and storage management that complement our solid state storage
systems," said Woody
Hutsell, President at Texas Memory Systems. "The newly-acquired
technology will accelerate our development of new high-performance storage that
meets the demanding and complex needs of our enterprise customers."
Texas Memory Systems has not acquired any interest in Incipient, Inc. Both
companies remain independent.
Introducing - Fat, Regular, Skinny SSDs
Editor:-
July 28, 2009 - StorageSearch.com
today proposed new terms to describe -
RAM Cache Ratios
in flash SSDs.
It is hoped that the new classification jargon
will be useful to users who have to evaluate lots of products, and useful to
vendors as a shorthand when communicating about different segments
within their flash SSD product lines. ...read the article
Top 10 SSD OEMs
Editor:- July 7, 2009 -
StorageSearch.com today
published the 9th quarterly edition of
the Top 10 SSD OEMs
- based on search volume in Q 2009.
Who are the top 10 most
important SSD manufacturers - the companies which you absolutely have to look at
if you've got got any new projects involving SSDs?
With over 155
oems now in the SSD market - this article with its commentary and analysis is
a must read. ...read
the article
DDRdrive Launches Low Cost PCIe RAM SSD
Editor:- May
4, 2009 - DDRdrive
emerged from stealth mode and launched the
DDRdrive X1 - a
PCIe compatible
RAM SSD with onboard
flash backup.
Load / restore time is 60S. I/O performance is over
200K IOPS (for 512B blocks). For 4kB blocks IOPS is:- 50k (reads) and 35K
(writes). R/W throughput is 215MB/s and 155MB/s respectively. Capacity is
4GB. OS compatibility:- Microsoft Windows (various). Price is $1,495.
Using
Microsoft Windows built-in RAID
support, DDRdrive X1's can be spanned (capacity), striped (performance),
mirrored (redundancy), and RAID-5 configured.
Editor's comments:-
the DDRdrive X1 looks competitively priced for accelerating database
applications in which the hot files can be squeezed into a capacity range from
about 4GB to 12GB. Above that - you get into the region of entry level
rackmount SSDs
and high performance PCIe
flash SSD cards
from companies like Fusion-io
and Texas Memory Systems.
There's definitely a gap in the market for this scale of product (low
entry price, low capacity - high IOPS). For the past year or so DDRdrive
shipped an earlier generation of its SSD accelerators exclusively to a large
enterprise for secret internal projects.
New Guide for SSD Wannabies
Editor:- April 28, 2009
- StorageSearch.com
published a new article today called -
"3 Easy Ways to
Enter the SSD Market."
Nowadays it seems like everyone wants
to get into the SSD market. This tells you how to do it. ...read the article
After SSDs? - Predicting the Storage Market's Next Obsession
Editor:-
March 12, 2009 -StorageSearch.com
has published a new article -
After SSDs... What
Next?
It looks beyond the next 3 years of hoopla in the
SSD market and predicts
what will be the next "big thing" in storage after that. ...read the article,
SSD market research &
analysts |
|
DTS Launches Fastest 3.5"
SATA SSD
San Jose, CA -
February 17, 2009 - DTS, Inc today announced availability of the
fastest 3.5" SATA SSD - the Platinum HDD 2009 model.
Internally it has a 1GB
RAM SSD which operates
as a non volatile RAM cache for an internal
flash SSD (320GB
to 512GB). Aimed at server acceleration applications performance is 25,000 R/W
IOPS, read speed is 250MB/s, and write speed is upto 240MB/s. DTS says the huge
nv cache also attenuates writes (the opposite of write amplification) - thereby
reducing flash wear by x10 to x400 compared to conventional flash SSDs. ...DTS profile
Editor's
comments:- in my article
Predicting Future Flash
SSD Performance I noted how having a non volatile RAM cache is a key
architectural factor in flash SSD tune ups.
In the
rackmount SSD
segment the RamSan-500
from Texas Memory Systems
(launched September 2007) and in the
2.5" form factor
the ESSD from
Memoright are other
examples of this type of implementation.
DTS's original Platinum drive
(launched a year ago) was a hard
disk / RAM SSD hybrid. The new 2009 model benefits from the faster IOPS
performance which stems from embedding a flash SSD instead of HDD. It also
builds on the experience of refining the internal cache which
accelerates many types of server app - without any modification to the
application software. You just install it like a hard drive. DTS says it's
particularly good for VMware and similar multiple client environments. Their
website includes comparative benchmarks. |
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| SSD Market
History - charts the 30 year rise of the
Solid State Disk Market | |
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| There
are
hundreds
of articles about SSDs on StorageSearch.com |
Here, below, are some
examples.
- RAM Cache
Ratios in flash SSDs - it's important to know the underlying RAM cache
architecture - even if you're happy with the R/W and IOPS performance.
- 2010 - 1st Fizz
in the SSD Bubble? - even the dogs in the street know this is going to be a
multibillion dollar market. Greed will play as big a part as technology in
shaping the
SSD year ahead.
- the pros and cons of
using SSD ASAPs - auto tuning SSD appliances are a new category of SSD
which entered the market in the 2nd half of 2009 to accelerate servers without
needing human tune-ups. How can you tell if they are right for you? And how
well do they work?
- the Problem
with Write IOPS - in flash SSDs - long established as a useful performance
modeling metric - this article explains why some specs are exaggerated when
applied to flash SSDs - or predict the wrong results for many common
applications.
| | |
| . | |
When flash SSDs aren't
fast enough!
RAM
based SSDs are the original type of
solid state disk and have
been around for
decades.
They rely on batteries to retain data when power is lost. Most
models also include internal
hard disk drives to
which data is saved under battery power, so that data is not lost when the
battery runs down. This hybrid technology means that RAM based SSDs are more
bulky than
flash counterparts
and RAM SSDs are unable to operate in the same range of
hostile environments.
RAM based SSDs are mostly used in enterprise server speedup
applications. The fastest RAM SSDs are faster than the fastest
flash SSDs. But
for many server speedup applications F-SSDs are fast enough.
Unlike
flash SSDs, RAM based SSDs never had restrictions on the number of write
cycles. That made them more popular in enterprise acceleration applications in
the past. But write
endurance problems may be a thing of the past for flash.
Like hard
disks - RAM SSDs have symmetric read/write IOPS. That's another big
difference between
RAM and flash SSDs.
The fastest flash SSDs available in 2009 had
achieved parity between random read and write IOPS.
But that's not how
transaction based applications work. The important differentiator here isrepeat again write
IOPS. If you compare that between RAM and flash based SSDs - the RAM
SSDs are upto 100x faster - even when the datasheets suggest they look
the same.
On the other hand - in some enterprise applications - like
IPTV servers - the random write IOPS rarely repeats in the same memory space
during milli-second timeframes - and in these video server apps - flash really
does perform as well as RAM - and is much cheaper.
Latency figures
quoted by many flash SSD products can also look very similar to those for RAM
SSDs. But low random write latency doesn't mean that the data has actually hit
the flash media yet - as you'll find if you try to read back the data and
rewrite to the same block.
There are also some non volatile memory
products such as
PRAM,
FRAM and RRAM which are replacing flash in industrial applications - and
which already offer 1 to 1 read/write performance. But their capacity is 2
orders of magnitude too low to be of use in server applications.
RAM
SSDs cost about 9x as much as SLC flash SSDs (based on rackmount
pricing data Q4 2009.)
The ideal choice of SSD depends on the specific
server and application environment and cost / benefit analysis.
For
example - a
fibre-channel SSD that
doubles the performance of a 100 server network may be overkill if your
application runs on a single server box which could be speeded up by directly
attached SSD storage. |
| RAM based SSD OEMs |
ACARD Technology
Attorn
Avere Systems
Curtis
Curtiss-Wright
Dataram
Density Dynamics
DTS
DDRdrive
Dynamic Solutions International
Gear6
GIGA-BYTE Technology
Real Ram Disk
Solid Access
Technologies
Solid Data Systems
Texas Memory Systems
Third I/O
TiGi
Violin Memory
ViON |
| still can't find it? check the
acquired, dead &
renamed list or SSDs All |
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