Flexstar Tester for SSDs

Flexstar Technology, Inc. announced at the Storage Visions 2010 Conference the availability of its latest storage testing solution – the Green 416B.

A member of Flexstar’s new low-cost, high-performance family of ‘green’ products, including environmental chamber, burn-in racks and ambient test systems, the Green 416B is the only tester on the market that has been developed specifically for the highly specialized needs of the Solid State Drive (SSD) production marketplace. Flexstar’s new product features a thermal upgrade, which helps lower costs by using less power and fewer HVAC resources.

"The next generation of our 416B family is five times faster than the previous model, partly due to the use of Intel Core 2 duo processors and PCIe interfaces," noted Anthony Lavia, Flexstar’s president and CEO. "One of our major SSD customers played a critical role in the design of the Green 416B, enabling Flexstar to design in all of the features that are important to them. The major SSD companies need testers that can handle the extreme speed of their SSD drives, and Flexstar worked with that in mind to create a testing solution that would meet their needs. The resulting solution is faster and more efficient than its predecessor, enabling Flexstar customers to increase production capabilities by testing more drives in less time."

Flexstar’s latest testing innovation delivers accurate, consistent testing – with no programming expertise required, due to a library of SSD test scripts that come standard with every Green 416B. Engineered to provide two environmental options, ambient or heated, the Green 416B combines Flexstar software, a new single board computer (SBC III) and power card options to give customers the bandwidth and flexibility to be able to handle the fastest SSD drives at maximum speed.

According to industry analyst Tom Coughlin of Coughlin Associates, "With the new Green 416B, Flexstar is demonstrating why it is that they have become the de facto testing standard. The product’s low cost, ease-of-use, standardized testing and plug-and-play capabilities make it the perfect testing solution for SSD manufacturers and their customers."

The Green 416B comes standard with 416 test ports, SAS/SATA 6G interfaces with an option for USB.