Smart Storage Systems Achieves SLC-Like Endurance With MLC

SMART Storage Systems, an enterprise SSD technology provider, has enabled the use of MLC throughout the enterprise environment with the addition of the new Optimus Ultra+ SSD to its current line-up of enterprise SSDs.

With Optimus Ultra+, SMART Storage Systems’ lineup of MLC-based SSDs satisfy critical enterprise storage endurance point within the data center.

Optimus Ultra+ leverages the Guardian Technology Platform to achieve 50 drive writes per day with cost effective consumer-grade MLC flash, eliminating the need for SLC flash in write-intensive storage applications.

Analyst firm IDC predicts that the volume of digital content will grow to approximately 2.7ZB in 2012, up nearly 48% from 2011.

As enterprise organizations deal with this tremendous growth of information and the need for access to data in near real-time, SSDs must be deployed in all tiers of the data center to provide the necessary throughput. Enterprise organizations were forced to deploy SLC flash-based SSDs for many storage applications because MLC flash lacked the required endurance. Due to SLC flash’s high cost, enterprise organizations often settled for lower-performing HDDs creating bottlenecks in the data center, or continually swapped out MLC-based SSDs.

SMART Storage Systems’ Guardian Technology Platform is a proprietary suite of enterprise features and endurance enhancement technologies that enable more cost effective MLC flash to be maximized for mixed-workload and write-intensive applications. The Optimus Ultra+ joins the Optimus (10 drive writes), and Optimus Ultra (25 drive writes), to meet the flash endurance requirements of every tier of storage with MLC flash, lowering the cost of SSD deployment throughout the storage infrastructure.

"Since our inception we have been focused on revolutionizing the way enterprise storage is approached," said John Scaramuzzo, president at SMART Storage Systems. "By optimizing flash endurance at the SSD system level with our Guardian Technology Platform, the Optimus Ultra+ delivers the endurance and performance required for the most write-intensive storage applications at a far lower price point than its SLC counterparts. Enterprise organizations and OEMs can now extend MLC flash to every storage tier, improving storage and application performance without blowing the budget."

Available in capacities from 200GB to 800GB, the Optimus Ultra+ is a SAS SSD that delivers a sustained transfer rate of 500 MB/s in dual port and 1GB/s in wide port operation, and random read/write performance of 100K/60K IOPS. Equipped with Guardian Technology Platform’s FlashGuard, EverGuard and DataGuard technologies, it also comes with an enterprise feature set, ensuring data integrity and drive reliability are never compromised within the five-year warranty period.

The Optimus Ultra+ is sampling with select customers.