Business News Holding

Category: storage

  • Corsair Launches new 'Extreme' Series High-Performance SSDs


    Corsair has added another "s" to solid state storage with its latest offering – Speed.

    The Extreme Series X32, X64 and X128 high-performance SSDs, in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB densities respectively, offer read speeds of up to 240MB/s and write speeds of up to 170MB/s.

    Built using the renowned Indilinx Barefoot controller and Samsung MLC NAND flash memory, the Extreme Series can justifiably claim to have the highest performance currently available on the market.

    Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing at Corsair, said the combination of the Indilinx Barefoot controller, Samsung flash memory, and 64MB of on-board cache delivers "blistering, stutter-free performance".

    He said the SSDs eliminateg the bottleneck imposed by traditional mechanical hard disks.

    "The new Extreme Series SSDs are ideal for use as primary drives in desktop and notebooks systems, and also for RAID 0 configurations in high-performance desktops for enthusiasts who want extreme performance," he said.

    All Extreme Series SSDs feature end-user upgradable firmware to allow for new features to be added, such as the upcoming TRIM command for Windows 7 and other operating systems, which maintains optimal performance over time.

    Firmware upgrades and support for the Extreme Series SSDs will be available via Corsair’s website, and drives can be updated without the need to wipe data from the SSD, ensuring seamless upgrades.

    The Corsair Extreme Series X32, X64 and X128 solid-state drives are available immediately.

    No information is available yet on pricing.

  • STEC Signs $120 Million Deal for ZeusIOPS SSDs


    STEC has signed an agreement with one of its largest enterprise storage customers for sales of USD $120 million of ZeusIOPS SSDs in the second half of 2009.

    With this agreement signed, the company is now forecasting revenue from the sale of its ZeusIOPS drives will exceed USD $220 million in 2009.

    Manouch Moshayedi, chairman and chief executive officer of STEC, said the agreement reflects the enterprise storage manufacturer’s continued commitment to integrate STEC’s SSD technology into the manufacturer’s systems.

    He said it validates significant storage system performance improvements enabled by STEC’s ZeusIOPS SSDs in these enterprise systems.

    "We are pleased to see that sales of our customer’s enterprise storage systems utilizing our ZeusIOPS drives have grown significantly over the past few years," he said.

    "Our customers have helped evangelize this technology and we are glad to be partnered with them as we expect that they will help drive further innovation in SSD usage in the highest-end of the enterprise storage markets."

    The STEC ZeusIOPS SSD product family offers an array of options for enterprise system architects. ZeusIOPS SSD provides a wide range of interface options, spanning Fibre Channel to SAS to SATA, as well as the widest range of capacity options, spanning 73GB to 1TB.

    Fundamental to the ZeusIOPS product family is the proprietary SSD architecture which renders an enterprise-optimized storage device with an unprecedented combination of performance and energy efficiency.

  • Verbatim Boosts Portable Hard Drives with SureFire FW800/USB2 HDD Line


    Verbatim has launched a new line of portable combo FW800/USB2 HDDs available in capacities of 250GB, 320GB and 500GB.

    The company says the rugged palm-sized FireWire drives combine power, convenience and reliability with a compact, sleek design that can be plugged into almost any computer.

    The bus-powered drives are equipped with one USB 2.0 port, and one FireWire 800 port to deliver high-speed transfer rates of up to 800MB/sec. for FireWire 800 connections and 480MB/sec. when connected with USB 2.0 – without requiring an AC power adapter.

    Ready to use right out of the box, all cables are included.

    Housed in a durable black aluminum-extruded case with a fingerprint-resistant matte finish, the 2.5" drive features a 5400rpm spindle speed and 8MB of cache memory to optimize performance.

    A black protective carrying case designed to match the sleek lines of the SureFire HD is also included.

    Verbatim’s new SureFire portable HDDs weigh 0.41 lbs. (186g), and measure 3.13" x 5.0" 0.66" (81mm x 128mm x 15mm), making them easy to transport from system to system and place to place.

    The suggested retail pricing is USD $109.99 for the 250GB version, USD $139.99 for the 320GB version and USD $179.99 for the 500GB drive.

    The complete package includes a SureFire hard drive, FireWire 800-800, FireWire 800-400, USB 2.0 and USB power cable for systems limiting power over the USB port, a carrying case and a user guide.

  • Virident Appoints DeMartino to Focus on Web 2.0 Data Center Presence


    Virident Systems has appointed industry veteran Bob DeMartino to drive the growth of its GreenCloud server platforms in Web 2.0 data centers.

    DeMartino joins Virident from Sun Microsystems bringing over twenty years of sales and market development experience with both large, established enterprise and start-up technology firms.

    In the mid-‘90s, DeMartino managed Sun’s enterprise business in the Central US region to well over half-a-billion dollars in revenue, and helped develop Sun’s channel strategy including reseller incentive programs and coverage models.

    DeMartino left Sun for several successful startups, yet returned to Sun in 2008 to lead their Web 2.0 effort, including managing the Web 2.0 Customer Executive Advisory Council, composed of 30 leading web companies.

    He was responsible for USD $280 million in worldwide revenues within the Web 2.0 infrastructure, working with companies such as EBay, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Mixi.
    The GreenCloud server platform is based on Storage Class Memory and is a pioneer in SmartScaling.

    Virident VP of sales and dervices Michael Hunt said: "Bob’s experience with major accounts and system selling to the enterprise data centers together with his in-depth understanding of the major challenges facing customers in the SaaS and Web 2.0 industry are key assets that will help drive early customer adoption for us.

    "As Virident grows, we are building a world-class team to support the needs of our customers and we are proud to add Bob to the team."

  • EMC Completes Acquisition of Data Domain


    EMC Corporation has finally overcome rival NetApp and succeeded with its bid to buy data deduplication leader Data Domain at a price of USD $2.1 billion.

    The acceptance of the final offer comes after a six-week bidding war and will raise questions about whether EMC overpaid for Data Domain – and what NetApp will do now.

    EMC’s final offer of USD $33.50 per share for Data Domain is a lofty figure compared to the $18 its stock was trading for before NetApp’s first bid May 20.

    NetApp went on to offer of USD $25 per share before increasing that to USD $30 after EMC joined the fray.

    While EMC could be accused of overpaying, deduplication is viewed as a growing segment of the storage market and Data Domain offers some very good technology.

    For NetApp there do appear to be other potential acquisition targets to bring it into the data deduplication/backup space, including CommVault, FalconStor, Quantum and Sepaton.

    The challenge facing EMC now is to decide how to bring Data Domain to market.

    With businesses storing 50 per cent more data each year, according to some market research estimates, EMC is betting the acquisition will pay off.

    Joe Tucci, EMC chairman, president and CEO, said: "This is a compelling acquisition from both a strategic and financial standpoint.

    "We look forward to bringing Data Domain together with EMC to form a powerful force in next-generation disk-based backup and archive."

  • BlueArc Unleashes High-end Network Storage Solution


    BlueArc has launched its Mercury series network storage platform in a bid to address the storage challenges faced by many midsize companies.

    Michael Gustafson, president and CEO of BlueArc, said that as the volume of unstructured, file-based data continues to explode, and retention and archiving demands increase, companies of all sizes are struggling to keep pace.

    He said that while traditional network storage solutions have offered some relief, they have resulted in the unintended creation of storage silos, filer sprawl, poor utilization rates and lagging performance.

    BlueArc Mercury has been designed to address these storage inefficiencies with a powerful file system and hardware platform that allows companies to consolidate users, applications and storage systems in order to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) of their storage infrastructure, all without giving up performance.

    "Many midsize companies face enterprise-sized storage challenges and until now, traditional solutions have created unintended downstream challenges and costs," said Gustafson.

    "The Mercury Series brings the power of five generations of proven BlueArc technology to the customer who’s unwilling to compromise on price, scalability or performance."

    The Mercury platform is the first to deliver the company’s advanced file system performance and crucial data management functionality at a midmarket price point.

    Mercury’s performance and scalability support greater utilization of storage infrastructure to increase storage efficiency and promote consolidation.

    At the heart of Mercury is SiliconFS, BlueArc’s field-proven and award-winning file system. SiliconFS is the central engine that manages all data movement within Mercury, delivering sustained, predictable performance across the storage infrastructure.

    It includes a comprehensive virtualization tool set which simplifies administration of the file system, as well as enabling BlueArc Intelligent Tiered Storage.

    Intelligent Tiered Storage comprises BlueArc Data Migration and Dynamic Read Caching capabilities, which are supported by policy-based management functionality.

    These advanced features allow administrators to set policies based on common file attributes or access patterns to ensure that data is automatically and transparently migrated to the appropriate tier of storage—optimizing cost and performance.

    Bridget Warwick, vice president of marketing at BlueArc, said more and more, customers have created tiers of storage within their infrastructures in order to match the value of the content being stored to the right-value storage tier.

    "However, what they have found is that it is tremendously difficult, if not impossible, to actually move the data from one tier and system to another," she said.

    "With BlueArc’s built-in intelligent tiering, customers can employ policies to quickly and transparently move data from one tier to another without affecting system performance or requiring administrative time."

    When delivered through the BlueArc Mercury platform, SiliconFS helps customers consolidate their unwieldy legacy storage environments, improve their storage utilization ratios, and simplify the administration of their infrastructure, all of which result in cost savings and reduced complexity.

  • Texas Announces Microsoft Certification of RamSan-500 SSD


    Texas Memory Systems has announced that its RamSan-500 solid state disk system has been certified as interoperable with Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008.

    The RamSan-500 is an enterprise-class cached Flash storage system that delivers high performance, large capacity storage more economically than adding a similar capacity high-end hard disk-based RAID system.

    The SSD system can deliver more than sixteen times the performance while using 50 per cent less power.

    Woody Hutsell, president of Texas Memory Systems, said maintaining interoperability with all major platforms is vital as its customers’ IT environments continue to evolve rapidly.

    He said more demanding applications are being built on the powerful Windows Server 2008 platform.

    "The RamSan’s ability to solve most I/O bottlenecks and improve transaction rate increases customers’ overall IT return on investment by enabling more responsive applications and a richer experience for more concurrent users," he said.

    Hutsell said the RamSan-500 delivers 100,000 I/Os per second (IOPS) sustained random read, 25,000 IOPS sustained random writes, and two gigabytes per second of sustained random read or write bandwidth, yet only consumes 250 watts of power.

    The system can be SAN-attached with up to eight 4-gigabits per second Fibre Channel ports.

    Multiple RamSan-500s can be combined to deliver additional high-performance capacity.

  • Freecom Adds RFID to HDD


    Freecom has launched an external HDD that requires the use of a keycard to get access to its data.

    Admission to the Hard Drive Secure is controlled by an RFID card which has to be swiped over the HDD to lock it – and again to unlock it.

    Freecom said that entry is possible "within seconds". The company provides two RFID cards with the drive.

    Freecom’s Hard Drive Secure is available now in four capacities, ranging from 500GB to 2TB.

    Prices start at USD $120.

  • WhipTail Introduces 6TB SSD Tier 0 Storage Appliance


    WhipTail Technologies has launched a 6TB SSD appliance which it claims provides mid- to large-sized enterprises with the highest-capacity SSD tier 0 appliance with the smallest footprint.

    Manufactured as a 2 rack unit (2U), WhipTail is now available in 1.5, 3.0 and 6.0 TB and varying levels of redundancies.

    It is best suited for enterprises with poorly performing databases, over-taxed virtualization storage pools and underperforming email systems.

    The company said that, when compared with traditional storage, the WhipTail SSD appliance:

    • Accelerates the delivery of data by a factor of 10
    • Reduces report run time by a factor of 10
    • Provides up to a 90 percent energy savings
    • Reduces the data center footprint by 60 percent
    • Reduces database report generation and load time by 90 percent

    WhipTail pricing starts at USD $46,000 for a 1.5 TB system.

    Ed Rebholz, CEO of WhipTail Technologies, said one of Tier 0 storage’s downfalls to date has been the perception within the industry that it’s too expensive.

    "Since WhipTail’s introduction earlier this year, we’ve already made significant strides in helping our industry peers to gain a new perspective," he said.

    "And in introducing the 6TB capacity, not only is WhipTail setting the bar for performance, footprint and affordability, but now we’re the SSD capacity leader."

  • Notebook Vendors Not Hopeful Windows 7 Will Boost SSD Sales


    Windows 7’s support for SSDs will not do much to boost sales because the price gap with HDDs is still too high.

    That’s according to a report in Digitimes, which spoke to sources at notebook vendors.

    Since current SSDs are priced around USD $4-5 per GB, while HDDs cost less than USD $0.50 per GB, the sources don’t expect SSDs to become the mainstream specification for at least three years.

    This is despite Windows 7 including several optimizations specifically targeted at SSD-equipped systems.

    The sources estimated the penetration rate of SSDs in notebooks in 2009 will only be around 1 per cent, equivalent to a volume of 1.5 million units.