EMC Selects Hitachi GST Enterprise SLC SSDs

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies announced that EMC Corporation has qualified and is now shipping Hitachi Ultrastar SSD400S SLC-based (single level cell), 2.5-inch, SAS SSD in its all flash VNX Unified Storage systems for mission-critical Microsoft and Oracle environments.

The Ultrastar SSD400S family is a jointly develop SAS and FC enterprise-class SSDs, combining Hitachi GST’s enterprise HDD strength with Intel’s extensive capabilities developing high-endurance SLC NAND flash memory and SSD technology. All of this powers Hitachi GST’s line SSDs with high endurance, reliability and sustained performance for tier 0, mission-critical server and storage workloads.

Pushing the limits of ultra high I/O performance, Ultrastar SSDs deliver the high sequential throughput, reaching up to (535MB/s) read throughput with its 400GB 6Gb SAS (single port) drive and 390MB/s throughput with 4Gb FC. The Ultrastar SSD400S family also delivers up to 46,000 read and 21,000 sustained write IOPS, speeds 100 times faster than hard drives, resulting in rapid response times for real-time transaction processing access to hot enterprise data for improved productivity and operational efficiency. As fewer SSDs are required to achieve the same HDD ultra-high performance, the Ultrastar SSD400S family offers significant value in terms of IOPS per watt, while reducing TCO through low power consumption, efficient cooling and reduced space requirements.

The EMC VNX family delivers enterprise capabilities for file, block and object storage in a scalable solution. Utilizing Ultrastar SSDs, VNX5500-F system delivers 10X the performance and 80 percent lower cost per transactions per minute compared to an all-HDD VNX system in Oracle OLTP environments. The VNX5500-F is also designed for five-9 availability (available 99.999% of the time), a requirement for mission critical Microsoft and Oracle OLTP workloads. As a member of the VNX series, the VNX5500-F delivers data integrity, multiple RAID options, and proactive global sparing and diagnostics. Software suites also provide local and remote data protection, application protection, security and compliance.

"Hitachi GST is committed to delivering quality solutions for the enterprise, and their Ultrastar SSDs are a perfect match for our flash VNX unified storage solution," said Rich Napolitano, president, Unified Storage Division at EMC. "They understand our stringent design and qualification process, and delivered a solid solution that helps extend the reliability, endurance and sustained ultra high I/O performance that our customers demand. It is a pleasure working with the Hitachi team and we look forward to qualifying additional SSDs in the future."

"Our enterprise-class SSDs continue to gain traction with our Global OEMs as tier-0 enterprise applications are of increasing importance to enterprise IT managers, especially as they redesign their data centers for improved TCO, and to support advances in cloud computing, virtualization and thin provisioning," said Mike Cordano, EVP Sales & Marketing and president, Branded Business, Hitachi GST. "Over the years, Hitachi has developed a strong working relationship with EMC and we’re thrilled to have our SSDs selected in their VNX platform. We look forward to continuing our relationship and working with them to complete additional qualifications in the months and years ahead."

Ultrastar SSD400S SLC SSDs
The Ultrastar SSD400S family combines enterprise SLC NAND flash memory, endurance management firmware and Power-loss Data Management technology to extend reliability, endurance, and sustained performance over the life of the SSD. The Ultrastar SSD family achieves a 0.44% annual failure rate and endures up to 35PB of random writes over the life of the drive – the equivalent of writing 19.2 TB per day for five years. It incorporates the T10 Data Integrity Field standard, ECC, Exclusive-OR parity to protect against flash die failure and parity-checked internal data paths without an external write cache.

Hitachi GST is currently shipping its 400GB, 200GB and 100GB SLC Ultrastar SSD400S drives in volume. The Ultrastar SSD400S family is backed by a five-year limited warranty, or the maximum petabytes written (based on capacity).

The company is also shipping its Ultrastar SSD400M MLC SSD family – utilizing Intel’s 25 nanometer, high endurance enterprise-grade, MLC NAND Flash and delivering performance. Ultrastar SSD400M family is available in a 2.5-inch form factor with a 6Gb SAS interface in capacities of 200GB and 400GB.