3.5" Terabyte SSDs with Gigabyte / Sec Performance article in STORAGE search .com

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3.5" Terabyte Solid State Disks with Gigabyte / Sec Performance

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	Michelangelo found David inside a rock. Megabyte was looking for a solid state disk.

StorageSPIRE
1 terabyte solid state disk
from Solid Data Systems

by Zsolt Kerekes editor of STORAGEsearch - June 17, 2007

2.5" SSD Guide
3.5" SSD Guide
the Fastest SSDs
the Solid State Disks Buyers Guide
the Top 10 Solid State Disk Companies
Predicting Future Flash SSD Performance
Despatches from the Magneto / Flash Wars
SSD Myths and Legends - "write endurance"

Editor's intro

You can't buy 3.5" terabyte SSDs with 1,024 megabytes per second sustained throughput yet. But they'll be available a lot sooner than you might think. This article discusses the genesis and future technology route of Terabyte ultra fast SSDs

...Later:- as predicted

November 13, 2007 - BiTMICRO Networks announced plans to sample a terabyte class 3.5" flash SSD in Q108.

With 1.6TB capacity and a 4Gbps Fibre Channel interface - it will deliver sustained throughput more than 230MBps and upwards of 55,000 IOPS.

Terabyte class solid state disks with multi gigabyte per second sustained throughput have been around since February 2003 as datacenter acceleration rackmounts. The best known example being the Tera-RamSan from Texas Memory Systems.

Despite the high price tag of such systems ($1 million in 2003 and still somewhat North of $100K) many enterprises have been delighted to discover that these products have offered enterprise wide application speedups across hundreds of servers - at a much lower cost than traditional disk based storage arrays - as published in numerous case studies.

It has been nice for the rest of us mere mortals (and that includes mouse mortals not just the human variety) to learn about such products, but just as most of us don't have our own personal jet, the ultra fast Terabyte SSD has not been a technology that has affected our everyday lives.

But that will change, a lot sooner than you may think.

2 recent news stories suggest that it won't be too many years we see such a product appearing as a single 3.5" flash SSD. It will initially cost over $10,000 - but will be on a steeply declining semiconductor cost curve - and may drop to as little as $1,000 by 2012.

This prediction is solidly based on extrapolating 2 separate announcements from STEC and MOSAID. In case you missed them, here's a summary.

In April 2007 - STEC, Inc announced a 512GB solid state drive aimed at video-on-demand services.

"STEC believes that solid-state Flash drives with high-IOPS performance will address the growing needs of the enterprise-class drive market. With NAND Flash prices declining on a continued rapid pace, prices for FC, SAS and SATA based SSDs are expected to drop below $2 per GB by 2012 which implies 512GB of high-performance storage for less than $1,000. Based upon these capacity and pricing dynamics, STEC expects that the high-IOPS SSD will make up a significant percentage of the $5 billion high-performance hard-drive market. This will make the comparative performance gains of SSD over HDD even more compelling."

In May 2007 - MOSAID Technologies Inc. unveiled its HyperLink NAND Flash memory architecture which delivers sustained read and write bandwidth up to 800MB/s (10x higher than conventional flash) using existing technology.

SSDs using Flash memory are becoming a viable alternative to rotating magnetic hard disk drives. However, the performance requirements of next-generation SSDs cannot be met by the existing NAND Flash architecture and interface.

"Our technical staff analyzed the features and specifications of MOSAID's HLNAND and we believe this innovative approach will help Flash semiconductor manufacturers and mass-storage oems meet the challenge of designing more robust SSDs and other consumer-driven mass storage applications," said Mr. K.S. Pua, President of Phison Electronics Corp.

Squeak! - the Fastest Solid State Disks

Speed isn't everything, and it comes at a price.

But if you do need the speediest SSD then wading through the web sites of over 70 current SSD oems to find a suitable candidate slows you down.

And the SSD search problem will get even worse.

I predict there will be over 100 SSD oems in 2008.

I've done the research for you to save you time. And this page is updated daily from storage news and direct inputs from oems. ...read the article,

The fastest 3.5" SSD available today sustains 190MB/S and has a Fibre-channel interface. Although this device (made by Curtis) is a RAM based SSD it points to the fact that even in the current state of the market the conventional hard disk interfaces such as SATA (which are not stretched by rotating magnetic film technology) will have to get a move on if they are to keep up with the bandwidth demands of high end SSDs.

Now's the time to start planning what you will do with the future generation of ultrafast flash SSDs. It's going to change what species live in the server farm.

Intel and Micron Unveil Fastest Flash Memory

SANTA CLARA, Calif - February 1, 2008 - Intel Corp and Micron Technology Inc. today unveiled a jointly developed new NAND flash technology that is 5x faster than before.

It can sustain speeds up to 200MB/s for reads and 100MB/s for writes.

"The computing market is embracing NAND-based solutions to accelerate system performance through the use of caching and solid-state drives" said Pete Hazen, director of marketing, Intel NAND Group. "At up to 5 times the performance over conventional NAND, the high speed NAND from Intel and Micron, based on the ONFi 2.0 industry standard, will enable new embedded solutions and removable solutions that take advantage of high–performance system interfaces, including PCIe and upcoming standards such as USB 3.0." ...Intel profile, ...Micron profile

Editor's comments:- although you can already buy flash SSDs from STEC which deliver the same R/W throughput that Intel and Micron are claiming is the "fastest" flash throughput - it's a mistake to confuse chip performance with system performance.

A flash SSD is a complex sub-system which can deliver many times the intrinsic flash memory speed through its host interface using parallel architecture. What Intel and Micron are saying here is that you can soon expect a new generation of faster dumb flash storage using their new technology. It follows that SSD products which amplify raw flash chip performance will faster (and cheaper).

For more information about SSDs take a look at these resources

Solid State Disks - is our directory of SSD manufacturers, and includes current news stories related to the SSD market

Squeak! - the Solid State Disks Buyers Guide - lists SSDs from all oems by interface, form factor and technology.

article:- Charting the Rise of the Solid State Disk Market - includes a 20 year history of the SSD market with market milestones

Squeak! - Why are Most Analysts Wrong About Solid State Disks? - describes the main applications which account for nearly all the SSDs used, and gives the user value propositions explaining why SSDs are taking over in these applications. It includes strategic predictions about the market for the next several years.

articles- 70 More Articles FAQs & Case Studies about Solid State Disks - includes summaries of the most important online articles on the web about using SSDs and the SSD market

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