Stec 2TB SSDs With PCIe and SAS Interfaces

STEC, Inc. introduced a pair of 2TB PCIe and SAS SSD drives – each with select versions supporting unlimited writes

s1120 PCIe Accelerator SSD

Additionally, the company has released an update to its EnhanceIO SSD Cache Software.

The STEC 2TB s840 SAS SSD and 2TB s1120 PCIe Accelerator SSD, along with the updated EnhanceIO software, deliver on STEC’s mission of providing solid-state storage solutions that solve the performance and optimization challenges in the enterprise storage market.

As STEC continues to align with the needs of enterprise customers, the company has chosen to focus more acutely on a specific range of SSD solutions. These advancements in SAS- and PCIe-based SSDs are key to this alignment, as these two interfaces represent the largest segments of the enterprise-storage market opportunity.

The increased capacity, coupled with an array of proprietary STEC features, make the 2TB s840 and s1120 SSDs a differentiated offering. The company has built reliability, performance improvements and enhanced data protection into each drive, while utilizing STEC-developed ASIC designs that provide low power and longevity.

In addition, STEC’s EnhanceIO software substantially improves the performance, manageability and usability of all drives – the software is drive-agnostic – while optimizing virtualization applications across Windows and Linux environments.

"Our storage system requires flexibility to meet the demanding workloads and provide high data throughput across a variety of applications," said Daniel Iniguez, IT manager, NYX Cosmetics. "We required a storage solution that could not only meet our hardware demands, but that also combined several SSD formats with caching software that improved performance and manageability. STEC’s SSD drives have exceeded our expectations and, working in tandem with EnhanceIO, address high storage loads and caching without fail. In an environment that demands quick execution and measurable productivity, we have seen clear results."

"Working together with architects from STEC, DataON Storage evaluated an all-flash storage solution that yielded an unprecedented 16GB/s sustained throughput featuring 48 2TB STEC s840 enterprise SAS SSDs within two DataON DNS-1640 external storage JBODs," said William Huang, VP sales, DataON Storage. "These high-throughput results show the true performance advantage of the STEC s840 drives and are especially valuable for accelerating I/O-intensive applications in industries such as the oil and gas, financial-services and government markets."

"As the solid-state drive market continues to evolve and expand, it’s imperative that businesses find the right combination of performance, capacity, reliability, and endurance," said Jeff Janukowicz, research director for solid-state storage at IDC. "A full breadth of SSD solutions that fit multiple use cases and applications are a strong addition to the market, particularly in combination with caching software that can fully utilize the SSDs high capacity and performance."

The new member of STEC’s s800 Series SAS SSDs, the 2TB s840 drive works with existing enterprise storage infrastructures. The s840 appears to any system or RAID controller as a standard drive that can be managed by existing storage management tools, delivering plug-and-play architecture. The 2TB s840’s proprietary controller allows the product to support 12 to 25% greater capacity than other SAS SSD on the market. The drive’s PowerSafe Technology protects against unscheduled power outages, a critical requirement for growing, data-intensive market segments, including cloud computing, data centers and large scale Internet properties.

The 2TB s1120, which establishes a new level in capacity for the STEC s1100 Series PCIe Accelerators, improves data access without expanding hardware footprints and operational costs, uses low power, and provides performance and endurance. Its low power consumption – less than 25W – is essential to hyper-scale data centers, in which every watt is critical. The s1120 PCIe Accelerator enables multiple SSDs to be deployed on a single server and features data protection functions such as PowerSafe technology that ensure that data is not lost in the event of power failure. The 2TB s1120 card is for accelerating applications such as big data, data analytics, statistical analysis and modeling, and video imaging, editing and sharing.

Both the s840 and s1120 SSDs are available in versions that support unlimited writes, features maximum longevity and reliability in write-intensive applications.

EnhanceIO Cache Software is designed to help users easily create, configure and analyze existing storage environments with cost-effective scalability. The new version has taken a step forward with the addition of non-disruptive, fast, consistent and reliable write-back caching that improves performance while reducing latency with improved data integrity. The software upgrade also includes usability improvements and a GUI that compiles additional statistics and analytics to deliver increased productivity. EnhanceIO is for database, big data and virtualization applications, where the drive-agnostic caching software provides non-intrusive performance enhancement by integrating into existing storage infrastructures and increasing I/O levels.

Availability, Pricing
The STEC 2TB s840 SAS SSD and 2TB s1120 PCIe Accelerator SSD will be available in February with volume pricing starting at $7,995 and $9,425, respectively. EnhanceIO Cache Software is priced at $295 for Linux and $495 for Windows, and is available for download.