2.5-Inch Enterprise SSDs by SMART Modular

SMART Modular Technologies announced its Xcel-10 solid state drive (SSD), the first in a new family of SSDs designed for the enterprise and commercial systems markets. The new Xcel-10 drive is optimized for random, small-block transfers typical of business applications and offers higher performance, higher reliability, and lower power operation, resulting in lower total cost of ownership as compared to hard disk drives (HDDs).

"The enterprise market for SSDs is in its early stages, but is on track for steady growth," says Jeff Janukowicz, Research Manager for Solid State Drives at IDC. "We project that the market will grow from $75 million in 2008 to more than $158 million in 2009, with continued growth in 2010 and beyond. Increasing storage performance and efficiency are key requirements for the enterprise and commercial systems market. Solutions, like SMART’s new Xcel-10 SSD, are in a position to capitalize on the opportunities associated with these market needs.”

Housed in a 2.5" form factor, the new SMART Xcel-10 SSD is available in capacities up to 128GB. Designed for high performance for both sequential and random I/O applications, the Xcel-10 SSD delivers 5,580 IOPS at 100% read or 980 IOPS at 67% read, 33% write, for random I/O using 4K block size. For applications using large block sequential I/O, the Xcel-10 SSD delivers sustained read speeds of up to 115MB/s and sustained write speeds up to 125MB/s.

“Since it supports both high sequential performance (measured in MB/s) or random I/O performance (measured in IOPS), the SMART Xcel-10 SSD is targeted at cost-sensitive enterprise server applications and embedded applications,” explained Wade Campbell, SMART’s Director of SSD Marketing and Product Management. “Most SSDs are optimized for applications using either sequential or random I/O. The Xcel-10 drive is unique because it has the versatility to easily support both types of applications in dedicated solutions and application mixes found in enterprise server environments.”

Manufactured using highly reliable single-level-cell (SLC) flash, the SATA 1.0 compliant SSD demonstrates a mean time between failure (MTBF) of more than one million hours. The new SSD is designed with superior flash management techniques, including error correction code and static wear leveling. Combined, these increased performance and reliability factors contribute to a low cost of ownership when compared with HDDs.

The release of the Xcel-10 SSD marks the beginning of a new family of SMART SSDs for enterprise applications, with future products optimized for network attached storage (NAS) and storage area networks (SANs). The SMART Xcel-10 SSD is available now.