SandForce makes SSDs cheaper, faster, more reliable -- just how IBM likes it
By Tim Stevens 
posted May 3rd 2010 9:56AM
posted May 3rd 2010 9:56AM
We've been covering the progression of SandForce for over a year now, creator of smart SSD processors that extend the life of flash storage by better spreading writes across them, boosting performance and reliability along the way. This, according to the company, makes them reliable enough for enterprise use, and IBM has added its vote of support, configuring a 9189 Power 780 server with 56 177GB SSDs (10.5TB in all) sitting behind SandForce's SF-1500 processor. That combination, when running the TPC-C benchmark, delivered a performance of 150,000 transactions per minute per CPU core. That's 50 percent higher (per-core) than other entries in the TPC-C benchmark -- and considerably cheaper, too. IBM's configuration is set to be available around October of this year, perhaps ushering in a new era of the platter-free enterprise.
I wonder how much one of these servers cost...
@Philipp
I sure their niche market will buy the servers and the regular consumer will benefit the standardization of SSD. I know I've held off because as good as it is to install my OS on a 64GB-SSD. I would much rather just have a 500SSD or 1TBSSD
@Philipp
Assuming a "cheap" $2/GB, the drives alone should run about $20,000. The rest of the components are probably double or triple that.
@Philipp
here you go:
http://www.tpc.org/results/individual_results/IBM/IBM_780_TPCC_20100412_es.pdf
@afrobot
Wow, that price is just wrong. ($825,000)
And, it doesn't even have the SSDs. It has 26 1TB SATA drives listed at $1,199 each.
@Philipp If you have to ask, it's probably not for you.... Which isn't really a big deal since this thing is PowerPC powered so unless you plan on running AIX on it, its mostly just a really big and expensive paper weight. Granted there are 8 quad core xeon boxes in the rack as well, but those are probably running Linux.
@KAL326 Nope, I take that back. The 8 client boxes are running Windows 2008 R2 Web Server Edition.
@Kyzgar Please read the detail disclosure : there's 3 x 3.5TB SSD Package @ page 2 summary of the full disclosure PDF
The total cost for SSD is 294342 USD (FC4367) at page 4 + 50400 USD for maintenance, which works out 98 USD per GB
@Philipp As the saying goes, "if you have to ask ..."
I bet they'll put these (or something similar) in future satellites that need a ton of storage to take pictures and gather info. They said one that they just launched sends back 2tb of data every day, and HDDs don't seem like they'd make the trip to space.
Kind of reminds me of:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/monolith-action-figure.shtml
And 56 177GB SSDs is only... $20,000-ish? (assuming a cheap $2/GB)
For an enterprise environment, that's not too terrible. The performance would be amazing. Of course, that's only the drives. You'd still pay a lot for the other components.
@Kyzgar About $805,000 for the other components, to be exact.
Sandfroce - reliability???
Madness...
If your SSDs fail randomly or after hibernating or standby they are not reliable - besides the fact that the controller compresses data and you have no clue if something gets lost or not...
Sandforce is definitely NOT a name for reliability.
@DetlevCM
Madness? THIS ! IS ! SPAR---
Oh, never mind.
@DetlevCM, are you talking about that pre-production release of the SF1200+ which was used in the Vertex LE? Because I couldn't find any reports of the SF1500 being faulty or causing data loss? Please provide a source?
@SSD
From this is seems the 1500 was in the limited drives ;) http://www.anandtech.com/show/3661/understanding-sandforces-sf1200-sf1500-not-all-drives-are-equal
But the blunt point that a company sold a quarter baked product is reason enough not to trust it.
Besides the compression - and speaking of compression, depending on what files you use that won't even work.
@DetlevCM, The Vertex LE used a SF1200 controller with a special firmware closer to the SF1500. Sandforce sold this pre-production run to OCZ elusively for helping them with their development.
@DetlevCM, if you're interested, here is a web link to an article about the SF-1500 controller. It explains in detail how and why it uses compression. http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/05/03/sandforce-ssds-break-tpc-c-records
@SSD
Thanks for the link - but apart from the "pointer if the same exists in another cell" I didn't find anything on compression....
Personally I still wouldn't touch Sandforce with a pole.
My choice is Intel :)
Yay! But...IBM...
What's wrong with IBM?
@Stevenk
Uff wonder about the same thing as well? :)
Am i completly wrong if i think of IBM as a fine company who are known for there reliability, or is it just me? :)
IBM? The industrial till Company?
Bet that server will be full of porn in no time...yep.
YES!, no more will streaming 20 porn vids at once over many monitors be a up and down affair ! ! ! ! its all up from here on out :)
@ Database ground, IOPS is king but not storage space.
Incidentally the cost pr. GB is lower for the Intel 160GB "Postville" Solid State Disk.
That much solid storage in there makes my butt clench. Just being honest!
Power7 is one hell of a chip too. That kind of processing power combined with all those SSDs is quite impressive.
SSDs? I like this case.
Hmmmmm, so shall I purchase a small island or s server? Decisions, decisions...
I wish IBM got back into the PC business. Given the construction quality and comparable specs in their old PC division (now Lenovo, which is slowly deteroriating the foundation that IBM created), they are only ones who I could see giving Apple a run for their money.
Dell, HP, Asus, MSI, Sony, etc - try as they may, I don't see anyone catching up to the quality and popularity of Apple, that is unless IBM decided to get back into the game.
I wish IBM got back into the PC business. Given the construction quality and comparable specs in their old PC division (now Lenovo, which is slowly deteriorating the foundation that IBM created), they are only ones who I could see giving Apple a run for their money.
Dell, HP, Asus, MSI, Sony, etc - try as they may, I don't see anyone catching up to the quality and popularity of Apple, that is unless IBM decided to get back into the game.
@Coswyn
You're probably right.
I've never used Panasonic laptops (those that aren't completely rugged) but people say they're as good as it get in reliability and quality. m?
@Coswyn
And Toshiba may do it right with their most expensive models (Portege R and such)