Micron just announced a new SSD drive based on their 34nm SLC NAND technology with some pretty impressive performance numbers.  They used an independent organization, Calypso SSD testing, to supply the performance numbers: Random Read 44,000 IO/sec Random Writes 16,000 IO/sec Sequential Read 360MB/sec Sequential Write 255MB/sec Even more impressive considering this performance was generated using [...]

The above chart on SPECsfs(R) 2008 results was discussed in our latest performance dispatch that went out to SCI’s newsletter subscribers last month.  We have described Apple’s great CIFS ORT performance in previous newsletters but here I would like to talk about NetApp’s CIFS ORT results. NetApp had three new CIFS submissions published this past [...]

Well maybe that overstates the case but there is no denying that both fatter (higher capacity) drives and flash memory (used as cache or in SSDs) saves energy in today’s data center.  The interesting thing is that the trend to higher capacity drives has been going on for decades now (see chart) but only within [...]

Western Digital (WD) announced their first SSD drive for the desktop/laptop market space today.  Their drive offers the typical256, 128, and 64GB capacity points over a SATA interface.  Performance looks ok at 5K random read or write IO/s with sustained transfers at 250 and 140MB/s for read and write respectively.  But what caught my eye [...]

Intel-Micron Flash Technologies just issued another increase in NAND density. This one’s manages to put 8GB on a single chip with MLC(2) technology in a 167mm square package or roughly a half inch per side. You may recall that Intel-Micron Flash Technologies (IMFT) is a joint venture between Intel and Micron to develop NAND technology [...]

I saw a recent IEEE Spectrum article on engineering’s grand challenges for the next century and thought something similar should be done for data storage. So this is a start: Replace magnetic storage – most predictions show that magnetic disk storage has another 25 years and magnetic tape another decade after that before they run [...]

SSD and/or SSS (solid state storage) performance is a mystery to most end-users. The technology is inherently asymmetrical, i.e., it reads much faster than it writes. I have written on some of these topics before (STEC’s new MLC drive, Toshiba’s MLC flash, Tape V Disk V SSD V RAM) but the issue is much more [...]

At the recent Flash Memory Summit there were a few announcements that show continued development of MRAM technology which can substitute for NAND or DRAM, has unlimited write cycles and is magnetism based. My interest in MRAM stems from its potential use as a substitute storage technology for today’s SSDs that use SLC and MLC [...]