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| 2012 - Year of the
Enterprise SSD Goldrush |
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| SAS SSD news |
STEC prospecting for more
enterprise SSD business
Editor:- January 17, 2012 - STEC announced that
industry veteran Vaughn Miller has joined the company's Systems and
Software Group as VP of Business Development.
Mr. Miller is
responsible for developing business opportunities with OEMs and ISVs that
focus on enterprise
applications.
During the past 16 years, Mr. Miller held various key
management positions in business development for
Cisco Systems,
NeoPath Networks,
Acopia
Networks (acquired by F5 Networks, Inc.),
NetApp and
Auspex Systems. Prior to
his roles in business development, Mr. Miller served as an engineer for
Landmark
Graphics (a Halliburton company) and
Modcomp. |
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| OCZ samples
terabyte dual port 6Gbps 2.5" SAS SSDs |
Editor:- November 29, 2011 -
OCZ has started
sampling
dual port 6Gbps
SAS SSDs in a smaller
form factor - the
Talos
2 SAS SSD provides upto 70,000 4K
IOPS
(75R/25W) and upto 1TB capacity in
2.5" (previously
only available from the company in the larger
3.5" size).
To
cater for different applications and markets OCZ is offering
MLC, eMLC, and
SLC NAND flash versions. The new SSDs include protection against
sudden power
loss and have the option to enable
T10-DIF (Data
Integrity Field) in addition to the native
SandForce SSD data
integrity to ensure end to end data integrity.
Editor's comments:- which of these 2 new SAS SSDs will be
better for you? - The ZeusIOPS XE (from STEC) or the Talos 2 (from OCZ).
One
thing's for sure - you can't just decide from looking at the press releases.
Price is
a very important factor too - particularly if your app involves heavy duty
caching - you may decide that to get the same
reliability you
end up comparing an MLC SSD managed by CellCare (the STEC offer) to an eMLC
(or even SLC) SSD managed by DuraClass (the OCZ offer).
Or based on
your past experience with these suppliers you may apply your own
adjustment factor to their price projections and reliability projections.
Or based on who you are - you may not score highly enough to
get your hands on early evaluation samples at all.
And that's before
you even start looking at what
SanDisk might do with
their Lightning or what
WD might do with
the Ultrastar when they get it from Hitachi GST.
One consolation may
be that there are less controllers
to choose from in the SAS market than when you look at
PCIe SSDs.
STEC samples Extreme Endurance SAS MLC SSDs for caching
Editor:-
November 29, 2011 - STEC
has started sampling a new
high endurance
MLC SSD - based on its proprietary
CellCare technology
- the new ZeusIOPS
XE (Extreme Endurance) is a 6Gbps SAS SSD family, available in
1.8",
2.5" and
3.5" sizes (300GB
or 600GB) and supports at least 30 full capacity writes per day, every day,
for 5 years.
Latency is upto 50 microseconds. Sustained R/W throughput
is upto 500MB/s and 275MB/s respectively and random IOPS is upto 38,000 8K
(70R/30W). STEC says the new SSDs (based on 32nm MLC) are suited for
write-intensive applications with the high endurance necessary to support
server-side caching,
auto-tiering, metadata management and logging, and analytics.
SSD protection technology wins best of show award for SMART
Editor:-
August 15, 2011 - SMART
today
announced
that its Guardian
technology - which provides enterprise grade data integrity in MLC SSDs -
has been chosen by the Flash Memory
Summit as a Best of Show award winner for 2011 in the category of Most
Innovative Flash Memory Enterprise Business Application.
Editor's
comments:- SMART recently
launched
a new range of 2.5" SAS
SSDs which provide upto 1.6TB usable capacity, 100K/50K random IOPS and
500/500MB/s sustained transfer rates - which incoporate the above technologies.
SanDisk samples new SAS SSDs
Editor:- June 20,
2011 - SanDisk
has expanded its
Lightning
range (2.5"
and 3.5"
SAS
skinny flash
SSDs) which now offer upto 800GB MLC capacity are being delivered for OEM
qualification, and will be available via authorized channel partners in Q3,
2011.
The new Lightning SSDs (recently acquired from
Pliant) feature
Write Through Logging (WTL) technology which delivers high performance at low
queue depths to avoid volatility that would otherwise require battery back-up or
supercapacitors for protection. WTL operation is completely transparent to the
host and maintains a predictable performance profile across different workloads.
This write cache-less design
eliminating
data loss on power interruptions, delivering consistent performance across a
wide range of workloads.
See also:-
Power, Speed and
Strength Metaphors in SSD brands,
Pliant Technology -
SSD Bookmarks.
OCZ samples new SAS SSD
Editor:- May 15, 2011 -
OCZ is sampling a
new 3.5"
SAS SSD in its
Talos
family.
The new product has upto 960GB MLC capacity and upto 60K
IOPS.
Seagate's new 2.5" SAS SSDs
Editor:- March 15,
2011 - Seagate
announced details of new
2.5"
SAS SSDs -
marketed under its Pulsar
brand - which
will ship in the 2nd quarter.
Available capacities are
400GB
(SLC) and
800GB
(MLC). R/W speeds are upto 360MB/s and 300MB/s respectively. Sustainable
random R/W IOPS
are 48K and 22K respectively.
Endurance is
quoted as 35 / 10 full drive writes per day SLC / MLC. Unrecoverable read
errors (data
integrity) for the SLC model are 1 in 1016 . Seagate also
quotes a permissive rate of ambient temperature change for its MLC SSD - which
is something else we may be hearing more about in future.
Editor's
comments:- one of the problems Seagate has in being a latecomer to the SSD
market is that it hasn't yet racked up enough "million customer operating
years" to support reliability messages tagged to the new SSD launch. So
instead it's using cross over references from its HDD business - as in this
statement - "Over 200 man-years of development went into the
2nd-generation Pulsar SSD products, with enterprise reliability verified by a
team with over 1,500 collective years of experience in the storage industry."
SSD market
history in recent years teaches us that experience in other markets
(even within the semiconductor industry) doesn't always guarantee that new
SSD designs will be as reliable,
trouble free or as
fast as their
creators anticipate. That's because many new design features in flash SSD
architectures get their first reality checks in the market. I expect that if
all goes well - next year Seagate's new SSD announcements will start referring
back to their SSD market track record. And if all doesn't go well - we're hear
about it on these news pages.
IBM uses SAS SSDs from SMART in supercomputer
Editor:-
November 22, 2010 - SMART
announced that
its
XceedIOPS SAS 2.5" solid state drive (SSD) will be used in new models
of IBM POWER7
supercomputers instead of hard drives.
John Scaramuzzo, General
Manager for SMART's Storage Business Unit said - "The selection criteria
for SSDs has moved beyond HDD replacement, as innovative designers such as those
at IBM use the qualities of enterprise-grade SSDs to significantly enhance their
products' performance, data integrity, and reliability."
Hitachi samples STEC / Pliant class enterprise SSDs
Editor:-
November 16, 2010 - Hitachi
announced
it was
sampling 3.5"
FC SSDs and
2.5"
SAS SSDs with upto
400GB SLC capacity and 535MB/s read and 500MB/s write throughput (6Gb/s SAS)
46,000 / 13,000 R/W
IOPS.
SandForce shows SSD controller for 6Gbps SAS
Editor:-
October 7, 2010 - SandForce
today
announced
availability of its next generation
SF-2000
family SSD processors - for oems designing
SAS 3 class (6Gbps)
enterprise
acceleration SSDs.
The SF-2000 supports 500MB/s sequential R/W,
60,000 sustained random IOPS, wire speed encryption, end to end
data integrity checks
and industrial temperature operation in a
skinny flash
SSD architecture.
Also new in this controller generation is support
for sector sizes additional to 512-bytes e.g., 520, 524, 528, 4K, etc., with
Data Integrity Field (DIF) for true enterprise-class SAS drive behavior and
performance.
Editor's comments:- one simple way of looking at
the SF-2000 would be as an incremental x2 version of what SandForce has
done before - which also demonstrates that the glass ceiling for their
architecture is much higher than some people might have thought.
In a
briefing yesterday I learned a lot more about the new chip and got answers from
SandForce to a bunch of technology and marketing questions. I'll post these in
more detail in a special article on the
SSD controllers page
tomorrow.
STEC samples 3.5" RAM SSD
Editor:- September 20,
2010 - STEC
today
announced
it is sampling a new 3.5"
dual port SAS
compatible RAM SSD - the
ZeusRAM SSD - with
8GB capacity and under 23 microseconds average latency and internal flash
backup.
Editor's comments:-
RAM SSDs don't have the
"play it
again Sam... as time goes by" syndrome inherent in
flash SSDs -
because they have genuinely low repeat write latency and can be 10x to 20x
faster. In some applications that's a difference
worth paying for.
The
1st 3.5" RAM SSD featured on these pages - was the
MegaRam-35 (in
June 2002) which was a parallel
SCSI SSD from Imperial
Technology. A year later in 2003 -
Curtis marketed a 3.5"
fibre-channel RAM SSD - the
HyperXCLR - which
for many years held the speed records in that form factor. The Curtis unit is
still available as too is a similar product from
Density Dynamics.
Pliant does U turn in $A$ SSDs
Editor:- September
8, 2010 - Pliant
Technology
announced it
is sampling MLC
versions of its 2.5" SAS SSD family with upto 400GB capacity and >10K
sustained IOPS.
Editor's
comments:- new dynasty SSD
maker Fusion-io has
successfully demonstrated that there is a healthy market appetite for MLC SSDs
in some "enterprise
apps". How many is "some"? Enough to make a
VC wake up in your
powerpoint presentation!
Most new
2.5" SSD makers
are taking the opposite route to Pliant in that the majority started with
consumer grade (MLC) SSD products with
SATA interfaces and
are busily reworking their products to add
SAS (spelt $A$) so
they can charge higher prices.
Pliant - on the other hand - made a
conservative choice by launching only SLC SSDs when it started sampling its 1st
SSDs 12 months ago. Will Pliant add
SATA SSDs to its line
up too? - Unlikely it could survive in that fiercely competitive market. But
if the company is still around in another 12 months - I wouldn't be surprised
to see them extend their range with a
PCIe SSD. Because you
have to give enterprise customers what they want. Even if the market appears
inconsistent about
what it wants. If the money is there you have to pay attention.
SMART samples 400GB 2.5" SAS eMLC SSD
Editor:-
August 17, 2010 - SMART
entered the crowding SAS
SSD market with the announcement that it is sampling the
XceedIOPS
SAS SSD - a 2.5" 400GB eMLC SSD with 26,000 / 20,000 R/W
IOPS and
250/230 MB/s sustained throughput.
The new XceedIOPS SAS SSD offers
high reliability and data integrity due to extensive error-correction and
detection capabilities, multi-level data-path and code protection, data-fail
recovery, and data-integrity monitoring. Designed to minimize power surges in
SSD arrays the the XceedIOPS SAS SSD supports staggered power-on.
Infortrend joins the STEC inside club
Editor:- July
22, 2010 - Infortrend
today
announced
it will use STEC's
ZeusIOPS (SAS SSDs) in
its ESVA F60 product line (FC
RAID systems).
and Super Talent... brings SAS SSD headcount to 14
Editor:-
June 21, 2010 - Super Talent
Technology entered the
2.5"
SAS SSD market by
announcing
imminent shipments of its ShuttleCraft brand - which includes SLC and MLC
models with capacities upto 240GB .
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Megabyte had already mastered
serial SCSI
for
rotating storage - so SAS SSDs were easy | |
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