Video: Micron's Washington PCIe prototype SSD card is wicked quick

Up until now, Fusion-io's ioDrive has pretty much put every other SSD-on-a-PCIe-card to shame in terms of sheer performance, but it just might be looking at its first formidable competitor in the Micron Washington. The prototype device was recently showcased on video (posted after the break), and while we're not told how capacious it is, it is understood to be using 64-bit SLC NAND chips. When placed in a Xeon-powered server, the unit is able to achieve 150,000 to 160,000 random write IOPS with a bandwidth of 800MB/sec per card. Micron is convinced that it can reach a bandwidth of 1GB/sec and 200,000 IOPS with this technology, though Fusion-io's CTO proclaims that users can achieve "over 6GB per second" when using eight of its ioDrives in conjunction. Of course, the aforementioned ioDrive is actually shipping, whereas this elusive Washington doodad won't see commercial light until at least 2010.

[Via The Register, thanks Vik]

[Kris120890 @ Dec 5th 2008 9:22AM]

I sent this in 2 Weeks ago.

[Testies, Testies, 1, 2... 3? @ Dec 5th 2008 3:52PM]

It seems more like they were going for "extreme geek pr0n"... "8-cooooooooresssss, GIGITY!"

[Fusion Fuzo 05 - Mr Professional @ Dec 5th 2008 9:25AM]

Must be 1970 with that old thing hes holding. time to put a bin over my head.

[Seneca @ Dec 5th 2008 9:35AM]

Please put the bin over your head before your next post. It will improve your posting quality 1000%

[gyffes @ Dec 5th 2008 10:16AM]

How 'bout a bag over your head? A nice plastic one. It'll protect you from those mean comment-repliers, too!

[steven @ Dec 5th 2008 4:45PM]

But we don't Fuzo to die! Oh wait...

[nerdtalker @ Dec 5th 2008 5:05PM]

Mr. Professional,

I can generally figure *most* of your posts out, but... what the hell? I don't follow what you're talking about at all!

[kal326 @ Dec 5th 2008 9:25AM]

I don't know about the IOPS but I'm pretty sure I can get around 660MBs using Intel SSDs on a regular old board with an ICH9R and thats plenty fast for me. I am pretty sure that setup would be cheaper then this.

[Ian Copp @ Dec 5th 2008 10:24AM]

These kind of crazy-fast write/read speeds are probably meant for things like research and medical equipment, where you want to dump tons of data to disk as quick as possible.

[Rob @ Dec 5th 2008 9:26AM]

Maybe I can convince a couple hundred people to turn tricks for me for a decade or so and then maybe, just maybe, we'd be able to collectively purchase one of these.

[k2001 @ Dec 5th 2008 9:35AM]

groovy

[pavlindrom @ Dec 5th 2008 11:12AM]

next to Vista avatar

[schmitty338 @ Dec 5th 2008 9:41AM]

That's quite the haircut....

"Hey Roberts, isn't this new SSD prototype damn fast?"

...."SIR, YES SIR!"

[tbyirus @ Dec 5th 2008 9:45AM]

this vid is very creepy

[Arkenklo @ Dec 5th 2008 10:31AM]

I totally love the fake smile the guy puts on as soon as he sees the camera.

[Fanfoot @ Dec 5th 2008 12:41PM]

Hey Micron,

How about in the future rather than some executive who doesn't know anything about the technology you have somebody who actually works in that lab demo the thing? Sure this guy has memorized a few numbers, but its pretty clear he has no idea what's going on.

Ditto on the PCIe form factor. This is stupid. Yes there are a few applications for something like this, but maybe you could work on a storage system that actually plugs into a SATA 3.5" hard drive bay maybe? You know, like Intel did? If you can get all this parallelism working there that might actually matter to a lot of people.

[Volker @ Dec 5th 2008 9:49AM]

Very interesting!

[Tripper @ Dec 5th 2008 9:53AM]

Bandwidth means nothing if it's just to the bus and for the network if the packet sizes are 64 or 128K with jumbo frames; that's just faking it to make your marketing paper look better.

IOPS is simply Input Output per Second, which gives you a much better idea what this thing can pump. Texas Memory Systems' RAMSan can do 600,000 IOPS per their website, but that will run you close to $250K. But it's Enterprise grade gear.

You want them to run their tests using Spec.org standards so it approximates what will happen in the real world.

[Eric @ Dec 5th 2008 10:29AM]

How about a real benchmark we can understand?

How many FPS with Quake 3?

[Arkenklo @ Dec 5th 2008 10:32AM]

A gazillion. Least.

[Labrador @ Dec 5th 2008 11:06AM]

Am I the only one that thinks storage on huge as PCIe cards is a dead end? It reminds me of the huge extended and expanded memory cards for PC AT. I'm getting old.

[Bill Brasky @ Dec 5th 2008 11:30AM]

Actually, it reminds me a lot more of the old HardCard. Wow! a 40 MEGABYTE hard drive on a card! It's sooo much smaller than the MFM drive I have too!

[bigapples2020 @ Dec 5th 2008 11:22AM]

A tech video shot in the style of reality porn = WIN? Maybe not.

[mike @ Dec 5th 2008 1:03PM]

Why is there no mention of the Fusion ioXtreme on Engadget? It was announced in October. It's an 80GB PCIe SSD Card aimed at the prosumer/enthusiast market. 500-700MB/s.

Supposedly, it will be available in Q1 2009 for < $1000.

A little expensive, but a lot of professionals (and some gamers) would easily pay for that kind of drive performance.

[pmcculfor @ Dec 5th 2008 7:45PM]

This video makes me sick. They get these two complete ignoramuses with phony smiles to do a commercial for their product. Maybe it's an amazing product, but show some people who really know that, not somebody who probably has no clue what a pci slot even is. "Wow. 200,000! That's an incredible number." Duh. It's not the size of the number that matters. I have a 2,000,000,000 byte sd card. Wow!

Companies: Let's let the people who really know something do the talking.

[Wwhat @ Dec 5th 2008 8:42PM]

That guy is so incredible yuck.

[Nihility @ Dec 6th 2008 5:52AM]

They kinda glazed over an important point. 800MB/s read speed?? What about write speed??

[solu @ Dec 7th 2008 12:55AM]

why compare a single drive to eight drives..

"the unit is able to achieve 150,000 to 160,000 random write IOPS with a bandwidth of 800MB/sec per card.. ... though Fusion-io's CTO proclaims that users can achieve "over 6GB per second" when using EIGHT of its ioDrives in conjunction. "

That's like me saying, Engadget writes about 8 articles a day, But 8 competitors put out over 60 total articles a day!!!

[Paul @ Dec 15th 2008 4:57PM]

Is it just me or is the guy in front of the camera a little bit creepy? I am sure he is a fine chap but seems like he is getting a little aroused at some points.....