Solid-state storage hits 2TB - conwaypubjer

Flash storage vendor STEC is super-size the rather flash storage used in smartphones and portable music players, climax out on Monday with 2TB SSDs in configurations for equipment vendors.

The SSDs (solid drives) existence announced Monday can catch many spinning hard disks for capacitance, while their flash technology excels at hotfoot and efficiency. Manufacturers will be able to build the drives into storage arrays or put out them right into servers, depending on which type of interface they choose.

Flash is moving nearer to the mainstream of enterprise storage, with IT shops adopting it where they need fast access to information. The capacities of flash components are steady growing, while whatever shortcomings that held the technology back are being overcome. STEC's new SSDs are made using MLC (multilevel cell) heartbeat, the type secondhand in consumer products, which is less expensive than earlier endeavour flash technologies.

STEC says its 2TB s840 SAS SSD and its 2TB s1120 PCIe Atom smasher SSD make up the first family of 2TB news bulletin parts with products for some types of interfaces. SAS is the typical interface for squeaking-capacity hard drives in storage arrays, while PCIe is used in a growing number of flash components that attach directly to servers for fast access to heavily used information. STEC's new drives give birth roughly twice the capacity of its previous generation. They are being evaluated by system makers and will comprise available in February, the party said.

A version of each of those products will Be available with unlimited compose capacity for five years, a typical useful life-time for storage gearing. SSDs are unerect to degrading and losing capacity over time, which puts them at a disadvantage against hard drives, only STEC aforementioned it has overcome that tendency with its CellCare hardware and firmware used in its New York minute controllers.

Controller technologies so much as CellCare have eliminated concerns about the "write life sentence" of most new-generation SSDs, IDC analyst Jeff Janukowicz said. Larger SSDs, look-alike STEC's new 2TB products, make it easier to ensure a long lifespan because there is more space to carry out "wear-tearing down," which distributes the level of use around a repel, he same.

"Now it really comes depressed to organism able to save the execution and the cost points that many of the enterprise customers are looking for," Janukowicz said. Typically, trashy is faster simply more expensive per scra than woody drives.

MLC flash has overtaken the more expensive SLC (single-level cellphone) applied science that endeavor storage utilized to ask, according to Janukowicz. Just last year, it surpassed the older technology in shipments, he said. Despite its roots in less sophisticated consumer-level storage, MLC photoflash can run into endeavor standards for durability with some added features, he said. It's less dearly-won than SLC because it can store Sir Thomas More data on the Lapplander size SSD, and because it's produced in monumental volumes for consumer products.

Meanwhile, flash as a whole is also making gains in enterprise power train, with respective startups making all-flashing storage arrays, he same. Some birth been acquired by large vendors, including IBM and EMC. However, most enterprises that have adopted flash likewise continue to use hard disc drives, atomic number 2 said.

Server software program announced

Also happening Monday, STEC is releasing an update to its EnhanceIO SSD Cache Software, which uses algorithms to identify the most-needed data for an application and caches information technology on flare. STEC has extended EnhanceIO's support for Windows host OSes to Windows 2022 and has added a "compose-posterior" caching mode in which few data is in writing only to the SSD. The company has also successful EnhanceIO work with the Hyper-V and Xen hypervisors additionally to VMware.

EnhanceIO works with hardware from multiple vendors and comes with management software package to help IT managers effectuate unexampled flash caches. The software can be integrated into the platforms that system manufacturers build with STEC flash.

The s840 SAS SSD and s1120 PCIe Accelerator SSD will price U.S.$7,995 and $9,425, respectively. The EnhanceIO SSD Stash Package is sold on an annual permit for each physical operating room virtual server. It costs $295 for Linux servers and $495 for Windows servers. The update announced Monday will exist available immediately, free to current license holders.

Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG Tidings Service. Follow Sir Leslie Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's electronic mail plow is stephen_lawson@idg.com