44TB of SSD in 1U From Skyera

Skyera Inc. unveiled the Skyhawk series of enterprise solid-state storage systems based on low-cost 19/20 nanometer MLC NAND flash.

The half-depth 1U form factor sports a staggering 44TB of high performance, low latency native capacity for big data, analytics and virtualization applications. And, at a system price of under $3 per gigabyte – before compression and deduplication – the company envisions a sea change in the solid-state playing field.

Extending the life amplification of consumer-grade MLC Flash was a challenge for the engineering team that had already delivered flash controllers. Only a ground-up, system-wide approach to the design, development, and integration of all components in the technology stack – including the flash controller, RAID controller, storage blades, communication bus and network interface – could yield the 100 times life amplification required to exceed enterprise reliability and endurance.

"The ‘norms’ of solid-state storage have seen much change and improvement over the last few years," said Mark Peters, senior analyst at ESG. "But Skyera’s flagship product introduction challenges even the best of those new ‘norms’ and looks set to be a true game changer. Its compact, high capacity form, together with impressive longevity and – most notably and unapologetically – a dramatically-attractive price, promise to change the storage landscape; users who thought they could not afford solid-state are simply going to have to revise their thinking."

Penetration in the mainstream enterprise storage market can be fueled by the latest generation of low cost 19/20nm consumer-grade MLC Flash. However, today’s flash controllers are simply not able to compensate for the limited write cycles of this new technology. Skyera removes the barrier to life amplification without compromising the reliability, durability and performance demands for enterprise storage.

Skyera’s flash controller leverages proprietary algorithms to dynamically tune the partitions during the lifetime of the flash, allowing the controller to adapt to different flash behavior as the media ages. The controller reduces damage that the flash oxide layer typically experiences on writes. With lower write amplification, adaptive ECC, and tight integration with Skyera’s RAID technology, the life of consumer-grade MLC is extended to five years of enterprise usage.  Additionally, the flexibility of the Skyera architecture enables the controller and ECC to adapt to future generations of higher-capacity flash memory that will require different write parameters and more powerful error correction.

Tackling the Network Bottleneck
Higher performing solid-state systems can easily saturate the 10GbE iSCSI channel between the network switch and the storage array. By combining switch with storage via a high-speed proprietary bus, Skyera has eliminated this bottleneck while simplifying data access. With 40 1GbE and 3 10GbE ports, servers can connect via traditional Ethernet switches or directly to the flash storage without the cost and latency of an external switch or the consolidated storage network connection in the data path.  

Skyera will be demonstrating their Skyhawk enterprise solid-state storage system at the upcoming Flash Memory Summit, August 21st to 23rd in Santa Clara, CA.