SoftLayer Selecting Smart Modular SSDs

At SNW 2011, SMART Modular Technologies announced that SoftLayer Technologies has selected SMART’s XceedIOPS SATA 2.5" SSDs in 100GB, 200GB, and 400GB capacities for use in its dedicated hosting centers.

By offering SSD capabilities to its customers, SoftLayer is introducing a new level of storage performance, reliability and endurance capable of handling the toughest application workloads.
 
These SSDs combine enterprise-grade multi-level cell (E-MLC) NAND flash and flash management technologies which makes them a fit for write-intensive applications in SoftLayer’s data centers. As a provider of cloud, dedicated, and managed hosting solutions, SoftLayer will offer the new SSD capabilities in its servers to customers who are interested in optimizing application performance in addition to fast throughput and response times. One of the key selection criteria for SoftLayer was SMART’s reputation for world-class logistics and customer support.
 
"We are once again pushing the envelope by making the latest technology accessible to our customers without having them pay a premium price for it," said George Karidis, Chief Strategy Officer for SoftLayer Technologies. "We partnered with SMART because they provide great worldwide logistical support, customer service, and on-time shipping, which will allow us to rapidly equip and add this option to our data center services around the world."
 
SMART’s XceedIOPS SATA SSD delivers up to 250 MB/s sequential read/write speeds and up to 30,000 random input/output operations per second (IOPS). The XceedIOPS integrates E-MLC technology, which provides more endurance than SSDs based on commercial MLC NAND flash. Endurance is further enhanced in the XceedIOPS SATA SSD by the use of a efficient flash-management algorithm that includes bad-block management wear leveling, and minimal write amplification. A combination of error correction and detection, multi-level data path and code protection, temperature monitoring and throttling and data fail and power fail recovery features ensures reliability throughout the life of the drive.
 
"SMART’s storage design teams continually work to optimize performance, reliability, cost, endurance, and capacity, delivering superior SSDs to data centers," said Mike Lakowicz, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for SMART. "We are very pleased that SoftLayer has chosen to implement our products, and we expect SoftLayer’s customers to gain competitive advantages by using our XceedIOPS SATA SSDs."