Super Talent's 2TB PCIe RAIDDrive promises 1.3GBps sequential writes, 1.2GBps reads
By Thomas Ricker 
posted April 1st 2009 5:31AM
posted April 1st 2009 5:31AM
[Via Impress]
posted April 1st 2009 5:31AM
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is this real or just april fools
You do have a point there...
If this is real... *drooooool*
This can't be April Fools...
Just the other day Super Talent announced they will be doing a 1TB PCIe RAIDDrive didn't they? With similar specs...
I dont see a company like Super Talent doing an April Fools joke... Google ya, Gaming/Computer Sites ya, YouTube ya, but Super Talent? naw...
Indeed.
napkins for everybody...
Nice,
Possibly real and certainly very very expensive
Though I want to believe this story, something is making me not...
@ http://www.supertalent.com/home/press_view.php?prid=a0a080f42e6f13b3a2df133f073095dd
"RAIDDrives support up to 2 TB of MLC or SLC Nand Flash memories,"
OR SLC? Last I remember is that MLC and SLC uses the same type of memory modules, but MLC stores 2 bits per cell, versus 1 bit per cell... So, if it supports 2TB w/ SLC, then it *should* support 4TB with MLC, and so forth...
...it's the freakin FUTURE, dude
(and it can't get here fast enough for me)
I LOVE this trend!
Ultra-fast storage for everyone!
Guess what!!:
It only costs $499.99 - I'm definitely getting one as soon as they're released. These transfer speeds are amazing
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Yeah - April fools.
I haven't gotten to play any decent pranks at all today, so i thought I would on engadget.
This thing will probably cost thousands, so keep drooling. I still want one.
1.2GBps is like 10 of Intel X-25E with Raid 0!
Correction: 5 not 10 X-25E ^_^
Did you watch that video where they connected 24 SSDs?
Assuming this isn’t an April fools joke as mrhett was asking then this is clearly pretty stunning and yes I want one, can’t afford it etc. etc.
My real question is has anyone come across a site that gives real world benchmarks of SSD’s vs HDD’s (and arrays) THAT WE CAN UNDERSTAND? I’m afraid that Specmarks, Winmarks, IO/s, mean little to me. I do know that SoHo NAS is rubbish at transferring a 3GB Premiere Pro video file and 5,000 40k PNG files even in raid 1+0. How are we supposed to work out how much better this is than say an eSATA 1+0 raid enclosure?
Any suggestions welcomed.
David, Try this one: http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/493-11-x25-e-fusion-io-iodrive.html
BTW, did you once work at Scopus?
Thomas
What's wrong with SPEC? (http://www.spec.org) At the very least, the tests at SPEC put all the array manufacturers on equal footing by running a benchmarking test which eliminates the effects of client-side caching and sequential operations, thus giving a reasonably accurate picture of the array performance.
No one though does individual benchmarking of any meaning on individual drives. SPEC tests array performance. Any other benchmarking suite either is encumbered by local (client-side) caching, or array caching, or not-really-randomized I/O allowing the array to utilize its prefetching algorithms and again, not truly testing backend throughput.
You may see SPEC numbers soon (if not already) which show arrays running SSD drives. But loopyoyo is absolutely correct; SSD drives just move the bottleneck away from the backend disk and place it back at the mainboard, processor, and I/O queue, which can't conceivably move fast enough to handle the full capability of the drive. So it just allows the other hardware to be maxed out instead of the drive. And since SSD gives us higher MTBF than mechanical disks, we'll be seeing a lot more configurations with storage processors and I/O queues consistently running at 100% of capacity thanks to these drives.
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3531
that is the best written, and most well researched article i've ever seen on SSD's.
it not only compares them to each other and regular hard drives, it also explains WHY some are good, some are bad, and some just plain suck.
huge article but well worth the read.
I agree. As with display cards, I prefer seeing real world tests to gauge performance. Benchmark scores can be misleading, resulting in supposedly superior devices that perform at or even below the levels of their peers. Boot times, application load times, file load times, how well it performs under duress (multiple applications, production software, etc) and so forth.
April Fools, and Engadget i expect more from your photoshopping skills :)
Senor Tom, you are a total jackass. Have you had your head in the sand for the last 4 months? These RAIDed PCIx card storage devices are popping up everywhere. The fact that Super Talent is getting in on the trend is not at all surprising.
Do any of you actually use photoshop? Because you sound like a bunch of tools calling out what is or isn't photoshopped. Get a clue! This is a photo and story of a real device, that just happened to be announced on April 1st.
Do your research:
http://www.engadget.com/tag/pcie%2Cssd
+1.0GB/sec transfer speeds are totally reasonable for a device like this. Most PCIx graphics cards can do 10GB/sec.
@digital noah
What are you talking about? You can totally tell it's a photoshop -- I can tell from some of the pixels and from looking at quite a few photoshops in my time
@mdmadph
Well unless Super Talent is in on it and created a whole page of information about the products on THEIR site, I'm pretty sure its legit. Then again it could be the biggest PCIe storage farce every.....time will tell.
Wow, someone pissed in digital noah's cereal this morning.
The company seems real enough
http://www.supertalent.com/products/images_show.php?category=SSD
You got me! For a minute I thought you hadn't heard of supertalent before. Then I checked my calendar.
Perhaps such equipment is 'capable' of such speeds but IRL they will not reach them.
wrong
wozniak just went to work for io fusion, another company that makes similar devices.
and they've already shown the speed on their first generation devices.
haha..year right..didnt have me for a second on this...1.3gbps? are you insane? the interconects and channels that route info on the motherboard couldnt cruch that kind of number..let alone the processor being able to cope
Most $100 video cards can run about 10GB/sec of bandwidth.
Call me when they post SPEC numbers.
If they're anything close to what they are advertising, then I'd be impressed. Beyond that, I'll just assume that the release date wasn't a coincidence.
they aren't the only ones working on these:
http://www.fusionio.com/PDFs/Fusion_ioDriveDuo_datasheet_v1.pdf
and the numbers arent finalized as the product are still being finalized and not available to benchmark yet.
but the speeds are easily attainable with the bandwidth provided via the PCIe bus in an x8 card.
btw, here's a review of the first gen:
http://www.dvnation.com/Fusion-IO-IODrive-Review-p3.html
and here's their specsheet:
http://www.fusionio.com/PDFs/Fusion%20Specsheet.pdf
seems they were pretty close on that one......
I have a spare x4 slot...
Shame I have no money. :(
Fine.
Someone combine 24 SSDs together to build a RAID.
And Then...
he opened 30+ processes in 30 seconds...and OFFICE 2007 within 1 seconds...
that's the extreme...
Looks like tech is coming back around, like fashion. Always recycling.
Plus Hard Card, anyone?
Annnnnnnnnnnd at a price of $2,000 probably.
Okay, pulling out my stickler card here.
SSD means Solid-State Drive. Saying SSD Drive is redundant. It's like saying ATM Machine. Quit doing it.
-aedile-
You must be great fun at parties.
Well, Aedile may not be, alone, but put the two of you together and it's a riot. ;)
Must be an april fools joke - not a mention on the home page.
OK Nobody has said it yet so I will.
But in this economy...
OCZ is also bring 1 of these out so there will be 3 of these:
OCZ pci-e ssd
Supertalent pci-e ssd
Fusion I/0 pci-e ssd
all will be scarily quick but rather expensive i'm sure!
Why is the Enterprise version "battery backed"? Normal SSD's based on MLC or SLC arent volatile, so perhaps there is a RAM version in the works?
According to the company, the RAIDDrive will come in three flavors: RAIDDrive ES (Enterprise Servers), WS (Workstation), and GS (Gamers). However, the base structure of all three models features a DRAM Cache, and connects to the main rig via a PCIe 2.0 x8 interface. The kicker here is that the RAIDDrives are capable of delivering lightning-fast sequential read speeds of up to 1.2 GB/sec., and sequential Write speeds of up to 1.3 GB/sec. Additionally, consumers can even configure the drives with an internal RAID5 capability, providing an extra level of data protection.
So that is the reason (there is a RAM cache to speed up the flash writes [random access writes are slow on flash]).
I'm definitely interested, but I support Apple. Can this work on a New Mac Pro line with Nahalem. I just check the specs it has two PCI Express 2.0 x4 slots. If compatible what the speed will drop down to? This should be able to run fine instead of using the standard Hard Drive slots meaning just ONLY this card to install and run Mac OS X 10.5 and all the Applications!
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&articleId=9131372&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_top
Looks like those speeds will be IRL, at least for SLC drives. Having a single storage device with enough IOPS to monopolize twelve servers decoding video is rather awesome. Too bad all too many server chassis don't have more than one capable PCIe slot last I checked.
But yeah, on-card RAIDed flash chips, particularly SLC = EPIC PERFORMANCE WIN.