3U Module Housing 2.5-Inch SATA SSD Revealed by Curtiss-Wright

Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions, a business group of Curtiss-Wright Controls, has introduced a new lost-cost, flexible solution for embedding rugged, high density SATA SSD drives into deployed compute platforms.

The FSM Carrier (FSM-C) is a 3U VPX (VITA 48.2) module designed to securely house industry standard 2.5″ SATA SSDs. It can be configured with SSD storage capacities ranging from 128GB to 1TB (2TB capacity SSDs are expected to be available in 2014). Because the Vortex FSM-C uses industry-standard direct-attached SATA SSDs it eases technology refresh, reduces the risk of obsolescence, and makes the board essentially plug-and-play.

It also eliminates the need for system integrators to deal with software drivers, OSs or processor types, which speeds and simplifies the deployment of removable industry-standard high-density SATA SSDs into embedded systems for defense and aerospace applications. The FSM-C is for use in systems that require data transport, such as mission computers, sensor processors, mission recorders, instrumentation recorders, and embedded ISR applications.

“The low-cost SATA SSD-based Vortex FSM-C complements our wide array of 3U VPX embedded system modules, including SBCs, switches and graphics display solutions, offering a cost effective approach to integrate data capture and transport,” said Lynn Bamford, SVP and GM, Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions. “The FSM-C meets the demands of the most rugged environments while providing very high density storage.”

Data Security
The Vortex FSM-C is designed for system integrators seeking a cost-effective, rugged solution for adding removable high-density storage to their embedded system. To ensure data security its internal SSD can be provided with Secure Erase or MIL Secure Erase features. When provisioned, these features can be initiated by an ATA command over the SATA lane.

Optional MIL Secure Erase algorithms can also be provided to meet the specific program or application security requirements. For those applications that require removable storage with high level data protection, the company offers Vortex FSM, a rugged 3U VPX FIPS 140-2 certified 1TB memory module with on-module support for AES-256 encryption.