Foremay samples 200K IOPS
class PCIe SSD Cards
Editor:- February 8, 2010
Foremay is
sampling
its EC188 D-series 2nd generation
fast
PCIe SSDs with
capacity upto 4TB (MLC)
and 1TB (SLC).
The new SSDs deliver sequential speeds up to 1.6
GB/s for reading and 1.5 GB/s for writing, and R/W IOPS up to 200K/180K.
"IOPS is one of
the major pain points to be addressed in the deployment of today's high-end and
mission-critical servers and workstations," said Dr. Jack Winters,
Foremay's CTO and cofounder. "We hope that our new EC188 D-series PCIe
SSDs, with greater than 100K IOPS and more than 1GB/s bandwidth, can help solve
problems in the majority of those computing applications where IOPS or speed is
the bottleneck."
Editor's comments:- Foremay's new PCIe
SSDs aim at the same kind of customers who currently buy from
Fusion-io and
Texas Memory Systems
both of whom have been shipping this type of product for over a year
already. Customer qualification by OS and application type is a prerequisite
to sales in this part of the market. Foremay will have to be aggressive
on price to get volume customers interested enough to test its products.
Solaris, SSDs and Sun-Oracle - past failures - future
challenges
Editor:- February 3, 2010 - in a new article today I
look ahead to the
next 5 years of Oracle,
Solaris and SSDs.
I also look back and give you my
list of Sun's biggest market successes and failures in the past 20 years. ...read the article
Silicon Motion SSD SoCs - Ready for 20nm
Editor:-
February 1, 2010 - Silicon
Motion announced that its
SSD controller
shipments increased
over
50% year-on-year - in the most recent quarter and now account for
almost 10% of its ($87 million annual) corporate revenue.
The company said - that the vast majority of controllers that are shipping are
for 40nm and 30nm NAND flash and they are on track to deliver controllers for
20nm NAND flash that is expected to be available in the 2nd half 2010. In the
4th quarter 2009 the company also began shipping 3-bits per cell MLC
controllers.
25nm Flash will Double SSD Capacities in Q2
Editor:-
February 1, 2010 - Intel
and Micron
today announced they are sampling the
world's
1st 25nm NAND flash memory.
This gives 8GB MLC (classic 2 bit)
flash memory in a
stackable TSOP. The new chips will enable higher density
SSDs to ship in volume in
Q2.
The SSD Backup Roadmap - new article coming soon
Editor:-
February 1, 2010 - in the next 7 days StorageSearch.com will publish a
new article which describes the roadmap for the barely nascent
SSD Backup Market to replace the enterprise
hard disk backup market by
the close of this decade.
There will be many technology and
marketing challenges along the way. It will require entirely new types
of SSD products and new ways of thinking about what the purpose of
backup really is. You
may be thinking - "SSD backup... This can't be serious! Is it April 1st
already? " You too will be serious - and may add it to your own roadmap -
after you read the new article.
SanDisk's Revenue Grew 44%
Editor:- January 28, 2010
- SanDisk
today
announced
results for the quarter ended January 3, 2010 - revenue of $1.24 billion
increased 44% on a year-over-year basis and increased 33% sequentially.
SanDisk's Chairman and CEO, Eli Harari, said the company had
achieved unit sales growth of 55% and gigabyte growth of 100% compared to the
year prior quarter.
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
LSI will Compete with Fusion-io
Editor:- January 26,
2010 - LSI and
Seagate today
announced
they have collaborated on designing
PCIe SSDs for the
enterprise accelerator market which will sample in Q2 2010.
Editor's
comments:- LSI is approximately the 163rd company to enter the
SSD market (not counting
SSD SoC makers - which
would push the score to about 185).
Partly this is due to a strong
suction effect from the SSD
market bubble - and partly an inevitable step given that the high end of the
RAID controller market
is going to disappear.
There's little point in spending money aggregating
IOPS in an
array of hard disks -
if the result costs more, is slower and is less
reliable to
operate.
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.
Rudderless Solaris Market Gets Open Source Drivers for PCIe SSDs
Editor:-
January 26, 2010 -
Texas Memory Systems
today announced
it is delivering open source drivers on
Linux and
Solaris for its
RamSan-20
PCIe SSD accelerator.
This thin driver offers a simple control paradigm and is easy to port
and manipulate as open source. It offers little burden to the host system and
creates a neat division of labor between the host and the device allowing the
host system to operate to its maximum potential.
Editor's comments:-
IBM and
HP long ago had their own
engineers tweak and customize
Fusion-io's PCIe SSDs
- for remarketing to their own respective server customers.
Despite
several quarters (some might say years) of uncertainty over the Solaris server
market - customers still have to make decisions about what to do to keep their
installed base in good shape. Perhaps the availability of open source code for
these SSD accelerator products will encourage some systems integrators or users
to take architectural tweaking matters into their own hands.
Viking Enters 2.5" 6Gbps SAS SSD Market
Editor:-
January 21, 2010 - Viking
Modular Solutions today
announced
it is sampling a range of SAS
and SATA compatible
SSDs using
controllers from SandForce.
Form
factors will include:- 1.8",
2.5" and
innovative "non-HDD-like"
solutions for space constrained and/or rugged applications.
IDC Tallies SSD Shipments
Editor:- January 20, 2010 - IDC
says that
SSD shipments in
2009 exceeded
11 million units, an increase of 14% year over year.
Looking forward, IDC says it expects SSD adoption will continue to experience
tangible growth in 2010 and beyond, with shipments expected to achieve a
compound annual growth rate of 54% over the 2008-2013 forecast period.
Solid State
Drives - market research & analysts
WEDC Launches Secure PATA SSD in PBGA
Editor:-
January 18, 2010 - White
Electronic Designs has
introduced a
4GB secure PATA SLC
SSD in a 22mm x 27mm
PBGA for embedded military applications.
This product is designed for
applications in aircraft, communications and missiles. A hardware and software
triggered fast purge
can eliminate all data in less than 10 seconds and device options include
sanitization
compliant with various government agency specifications.
New Error Technologies Required to Scale MLC SSDs
Editor:-
January 18, 2010 - Forward Insights
publishes a new market report this month -
ECC and Signal
Processing Technology for SSDs and Multi-bit per cell NAND Flash Memories.
Bit
errors are becoming more severe as NAND flash memory scales below 40nm process
technology and transitions to 3-bit and 4-bit per cell architectures.
Increased ECC
requirements will be required, however, traditional error correction codes
such as BCH, RS and Hamming code suffer from increased overhead in terms of
coding redundancy and read latency as the number of errors corrected increases.
In addition, the number of electrons stored in the memory cell is decreasing
with each generation of flash memory resulting in reduced signal/noise requiring
enhanced sensing techniques.
This research report examines the current state of ECC methods and
explores the technology, roadmap, market, cost and competitive landscape in the
flash signal processing space.
2010 - 1st Fizz in the SSD Market Bubble
Editor:-
January 12, 2010 - StorageSearch.com
today published a new article -
2010 - 1st Fizz in the
SSD Bubble.
I think
SSD analysts will
look back on 2010 as - "Year 1 of the SSD Market Bubble." Greed
will play as big a part as technology in shaping the
SSD year ahead. Wonder
why? ...read the
article
CES SSDs Mostly Preannounced Before
Editor:- January
8, 2010 - storage related news coming out of CES was a disappointment to me - because
nearly all the major news about SSD
products had already been preannounced (and covered on these pages) in the
months leading
up to the show.
If it's not new - and we've already talked about it -
it's not news. That's why editorial arising from this event has been sparser
than expected. SSD marketers in many companies have got into the habit of
preannouncing products anything upto a year ahead - as part of the SSD Bubble.
In that way they hope to get multiple shots at web visibility. It
doesn't work that way
here on StorageSearch.com. My purpose is to save you time - not to waste it.
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
TweakTown Tests RunCore's "SandForce inside" SSD
Editor:-
January 7, 2010 - a benchmark
review
article in TweakTown.com concludes that RunCore's upcoming Pro
V 2.5" SSD - which
uses SandForce's
SF-1500
SoC is the fastest SATA
2 SSD they have tested.
ioSafe Launches Disaster Proof Backup SSD
Editor:-
January 5, 2010 - ioSafe
launched the ioSafe Solo SSD - an
ultra rugged USB /
eSATA
external
flash SSD with
upto 256GB capacity ($1,250) designed to provide data protection against
disasters such as fire, flood, and building collapse.
ioSafe offers
a "no questions asked"
Data Recovery policy
to help customers recover from any data disaster including accidental deletion,
virus or physical disaster.
SMART Samples "SandForce inside" SSDs
Editor:-
January 5, 2010 - SMART
is sampling the
XceedIOPS
SATA - SLC and "enterprise grade" MLC flash SSDs in
1.8" and
2.5" form factors
- based on the SF-1500 processor from SandForce.
Performance
is upto 30K IOPS
random read/write. SMART uses a combination of
write attenuation
technologies to attain a 5-year projected lifetime for its 400GB MLC
XceedIOPS SATA model ($2,900 oem qty price) in an environment that demands
250MB/s sustained write and a 40% duty cycle.
"The enterprise SSD market appears to be entering a period of
impressive growth. Well-positioned to satisfy the requirements of enterprise
deployments, we expect our XceedIOPS SATA SSDs will provide low cost, superior
performance, low power, and high capacity flexibility," said Alan
Gulachenski, SMART's VP and General Manager, Enterprise Solid State Storage.
A-DATA Brightens Up its Website with a Bird
Editor:-
January 5, 2010 - A-DATA
has decided it will be more successful in the SSD market by adopting a
hummingbird in its corporate communications.
It calls this rebranding
theme - "Fly, Catch, Go!" (I didn't make this up.) Presumably 99% of
the marketing budget went into drawing the pictures - which didn't leave much
for the text.
Editor's comments:- someone who has mice all over
his website does have a view on this. This is just the way to stand out from
the crowd - but is not a substitute for real content or ideas. See also:-
Animal Brands
and Metaphors in the Storage Market and the (not entirely accurate but
amusing) showing the bird.
RunCore Ships 1st PXI Express SSDs
Editor:- January
5, 2010 - RunCore
has started shipments of the 1st SSDs aimed at the
PXI Express market (a standard
which brings PCIe performance and functionality into the robust modular form
factor popular in automated instrumentation
test systems).
RunCore's
3U CPCIe\PXIe SSD card provides upto 768GB
MLC or 384GB SLC
capacity and has sustained R/W speeds upto 400MB/s. Available with industrial
operating temperature range and MIL-STD-810F processing, the module provides a
fast purge rate of
5GB/s.
2.5" SSD Market Fights Back
Editor:- January 4,
2010 - StorageSearch.com
disclosed today that the gap in search volume between
PCIe SSDs (most
popular form factor) and 2.5"
SSDs (#2 form factor) narrowed in December 2009 - rather than widened.
The
imminent availability of consumer priced 6Gbps SATA SSDs coupled with growing
competition in the 2.5" SAS SSD market has boosted the acceleration ceiling
in traditional disk form factors. That provides more reasons for customers to
look again at the 2.5" form factor. Reader pageviews for PCIe SSDs were
nearly 4x higher than a year ago.
Solid State Drives -
market research & analysts
InnoDisk Enters PCIe SSD Market
Editor:- December 22,
2009 - InnoDisk
entered the PCIe SSD
market with a new model called the Matador with upto
800MB/s read and
550MB/s write speeds and upto 1TB capacity (MLC).
SLC versions are
also available - but are slower - R/W upto 700MB/s and 500MB/s respectively.
Retail pricing for 256GB is $999.
It has an internal
RAID allocation function
enabling users to trade between capacity between data protection and
performance (over-provisioning).
Its Power Guard protection ensures data will be written into flash when
power is interrupted unexpectedly.
Editor's comments:-
Although it sounds remarkably similar to the type of products that
Fusion-io was
shipping a year ago - InnoDisk says it's an original design based on their own
firmware and IP.
Need SSD Acceleration ASAP? - new article on SSD ASAPs
Editor:-
December 18, 2009 - StorageSearch.com
today published a new article which discusses
the pros and cons of
using SSD ASAPs - Auto-tuning SSD Accelerated Pools of storage.
How
can server users easily decide if they should ignore these products - or spend
more time looking at them? It's going to be a huge market. ...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
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