StorExpress, a PCIe-Based SSD System Unveiled by Dolphin

Dolphin ICS, provider of ultra low-latency, high-bandwidth interconnect and storage solutions for application acceleration, announced StorExpress. Dolphin’s StorExpress is a PCI Express (PCIe) based solid state storage system designed to deliver superior response times and storage capacity.

DSE4XM2 1TB StorExpress Storage System

Dolphin has primarily focused on providing high-speed, low-latency interconnect solutions, reducing the overhead of communication within and between servers in an application environment. Dolphin Express has proven to accelerate applications up to 10X over Ethernet-based systems. Building on the same technology, Dolphin now offers high-performance, PCIe-based high-capacity storage solutions. The StorExpress family of products consolidates the storage provided by third-party SSD adapters into a single storage pool and provides further enhancements that include disaggregating storage at long distances and a switch fabric capable of supporting cluster communication. StorExpress can also be customized to provide a hybrid version comprising of fast SSD storage and PCIe IO adapters.

The first products in the StorExpress family, which will be delivered with storage capacity of .5 TB or 1 TB, are capable of connecting to a single server or multiple servers, providing a flexible and scalable storage solution. This setup can be distributed within the enterprise to improve access to latency sensitive data. In a multi-server configuration, StorExpress is also capable of functioning as a clustering switch and can obviate the need for a dedicated clustering fabric for inter-server communication. This flash-based solution significantly lowers annual power usage while delivering outstanding performance. StorExpress leverages PCIe and the latest solid state SLC NAND technology to provide up to 270 000 IOPS, over 30Gb/s bandwidth and less than 50 microsecond access latency, drastically outperforming traditional disk-based systems. Supporting standard CX4 cables, StorExpress can be located up to 10m (copper) or 300m (optical fiber) from the compute node.

"Many of our customers are looking for systems with the highest performance for their applications at a reasonable price. For those with IO bottlenecks Dolphin’s new StorExpress product will be an excellent option," said Gautam Shah, CEO, Colfax International.

"Our business is all about providing the highest possible performance for our customers," said Tim Miller, CEO of Dolphin ICS. "With StorExpress, our customers get the ideal solution for deploying fast solid state cache at a very reasonable price/performance point. When StorExpress is combined and integrated with our Dolphin Express cluster technology, businesses are able to easily build fast distributed compute/storage solutions, optimized to improve the performance of MySQL or other database applications."

Dolphin is accepting orders for StorExpress immediately with shipment of products at the end of March 2009.