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Tag: slc

  • Seagate Introduces Its First Enterprise SSD: Pulsar

    Seagate introduced the Seagate Pulsar drive, the first product in its new enterprise SSD family.

    Designed for enterprise blade and general server applications, the Pulsar uses SLC (single-level cell) technology, delivers up to 200GB capacity, and is built in a 2.5-inch form factor with a SATA interface. It leverages non-volatile flash memory rather than spinning magnetic media to store data.

    According to Seagate, its new SSD achieves a peak performance of up to 30,000 read IOPS and 25,000 write IOPS, 240MB/s sequential read and 200 MB/s sequential write.

    “Its SLC-based design optimizes reliability and endurance and helps provide a .44% AFR rating with a 5-year limited warranty. As an additional safeguard, the Pulsar drive leverages Seagate’s enterprise storage expertise to protect against data loss in the event of power failure,” the company says.

    The drives are available in 50GB, 100GB and 200GB capacities.

    “Our strategy is to provide our customers with the exact storage device they need for any application, regardless of the component technology used. We are delivering on that strategy with the Pulsar drive, and you can expect additional products in the future from Seagate using a variety of solid state and rotating media components,” said Dave Mosley, Seagate executive vice president.

    Joseph Unsworth, research director at Gartner said, “The enterprise SSD market is now primed and well-positioned for growth from both a revenue and unit perspective, with Gartner estimating unit growth to double and sales to reach $1 billion for calendar year 2010.”

    “Superior enterprise SSDs provide transformational capabilities when optimized in storage and server environments,” he added.

  • Intel Advances Roadmap to Double SSD Capacity


    Intel is to implement the projected doubling of its SSD capacities earlier than expected – possibly as soon as next month.

    The current X18-M and X25-M solid-state drives (SSDs) use a 50nm process and have 80GB and 160GB capacities with 2-bit multi-level cell (MLC) technology.

    A single level cell (SLC) X25-E has faster I/O rates and comes in 32GB and 64GB capacities.

    In January, it was reported that Intel wanted to move to a smaller 34nm process and double the capacities with the 1.8-inch form factor X18-M and 2.5-inch form factor X25-M (M meaning Mainstream) moving to 160GB and 320GB capacities.

    This is now expected to take place, with the X25-E growing to 64GB and 128GB capacities.

    No information is available yet on pricing.

  • Texas Memory Systems Introduces Highest Capacity PCI-Express Solid State Disk


    Texas Memory Systems has announced its latest PCI-Express Solid State Disk aimed at mainstream businesses and applications.

    The RamSan-20 offers 450GB of usable grade Flash – which the company claims makes it the highest capacity enterprise class PCIe Flash card on the market.

    Described as a complete storage system on a PCIe card, the SSD accelerates server-resident applications that require large, fast buffer areas and those that are random access intensive.

    Texas lists databases, video editing, financial modeling, data acquisition, scientific computing, and web content as examples of applications likely to benefit from the RamSan-20.

    Woody Hutsell, president at Texas Memory SystemsAs a PCIe Flash card, said the RamSan-20 minimizes latency between the server’s processor and storage and is easily installed in minutes.

    He said users are increasingly looking to SSD as they demand greater application performance.

    "Beyond the Enterprise data center, the technology and cost improvements in Flash are stimulating demand," he said.

    "These factors, coupled with a growing desire to reduce space and power requirements with greener storage, led us to develop the RamSan-20."

    He said that to maximise performance and reliability, the RamSan-20 utilizes Single Level Cell (SLC) Flash.

    It delivers 120,000 I/Os per second (IOPS) for random read operations – and Texas claims it transfers data faster than other Flash drives and "hundreds of times" faster than traditional mechanical hard drives.

    A comprehensive on-board management suite ensures the RamSan-20 does not impact host resources, yet Hutsell said it delivers extreme reliability and durability, ensuring data preservation even in the event of a server crash or power outage.

    The RamSan-20 is scheduled for general availability in early Q2 2009. No pricing information was available.

  • Hyperstone Launches New F4 Flash Memory Controller


    Hyperstone has introduced a new F4 Flash Memory Controller for high performance CompactFlash Cards(CFC) and Solid State Disks(SSD), writes Vanitha Vaidialingam for storage-biz.news.

    The memory controllers are intended for embedding into firmware to provide high reliability, endurance and rigorous fail safe features for Single Level Cell(SLC) and Multi Level Cell(MLC) based Flash Memory Solutions.

    The design is based on Hyperstone 32 bit RISC core including instruction set extensions optimized for Flash handling.

    Hyperstone’s core architecture provides both fast RISC processors for data and control functions along with powerful DSP unit for efficient algorithm execution.

    The designs use less silicon and are more power efficient with minimum software complexity.

    The Flash Memory controllers are fully compliant with CompactFlash 3.0 and compatible to 4.1 specifications.

    The controllers also offer Fast ATA supporting PIO mode 6, MDMA mode 4, UDMA mode 4 in True-IDE mode and UDMA 5 possible in fixed board implementations.

    They are designed to sustained read up to 50 MB/s and random read up to 40 MB/s; sustained write exceeding 40 MB/s with interleaving and random write up to 9 MB/s.

    The controllers have two Direct Flash Access(DFA) channels including Sector Buffers and interleaving capabilities. They support connections of up to 16 flash memory chip enables at the rate of eight per channel.

    The Error Correcting code is capable of correcting 4 symbols in a 512 bytes sector with additional CRC.

    The rate of data transfer is up to 80 MB sector.

    Host data transfer rate in UDMA mode 4 is 66 MB sector; in PIO mode 6, it is 512 bytes sector with additional CRC. Data transfer in the MDMA mode 4 is 25 MB sector.