Nimbus Data SSDs Certified for Use With Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers

Nimbus Data, Inc. announced that its ExaDrive SSDs have been certified with Dell EMC PowerEdge servers.

This achievement enables customers to use ExaDrive SSDs, including the 100TB capable ExaDrive DC series and QLC-based ExaDrive NL series, in PowerEdge servers.

“The combination of Dell EMC PowerEdge servers and Nimbus Data ExaDrive SSDs enables 5x greater storage capacity per server than nearline enterprise HDDs and 6x greater flash capacity than the closest competing SSDs,” stated Thomas Isakovich, CEO.

ExaDrive SSDs are now available with PowerEdge servers through select Dell EMC resellers and integration partners, enabling up to 1.2PB of flash in one 2U server.

Certified Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers
ExaDrive SSDs have been certified in the following servers.

Using these servers, the following maximum capacities may be achieved:
PowerEdge R240: Up to 400TB of TLC flash or 256TB of QLC flash
PowerEdge R440: Up to 400TB of TLC flash or 256TB of QLC flash
PowerEdge R540: Up to 1,200TB of TLC flash or 768TB of QLC flash
PowerEdge R740: Up to 1,200TB of TLC flash or 768TB of QLC flash
PowerEdge R7525: Up to 1,200TB of TLC flash or 768TB of QLC flash

Certification of ExaDrive involves detailed compatibility testing with Dell EMC systems to validate features, including hot-plug support, hardware RAID controller compatibility, and thermal performance in dual-socket configurations. Dell PERC (PowerEdge RAID Controller) cards, SAS HBAs, and on-board SATA connectivity were certified.

Using industry standard benchmarking tools, the following throughput performance was achieved:
Dell PERC H730P with 12 ExaDrive SSDs: up to 4,200 Mb/s
Dell PERC H740P with 12 ExaDrive SSDs: up to 4,200 Mb/s
Dell HBA330 with 4 ExaDrive SSDs: up to 1,800Mb/s

As the world’s highest capacity and highest density SSD, ExaDrive offers capacity, energy efficiency, and endurance, thanks to patent-pending architecture. It is available in capacities ranging from 16TB to 100TB, using either SATA or dual-port SAS interfaces, with both TLC and QLC flash models.

These SSDs are now available with Dell EMC servers from select partners.

Comments

It's a big win for Nimbus Data to have a partner (not an OEM) as big as Dell, maybe the biggest win for the old start-up launched in September 2003 to offer AFAs.

The company got only $5 million in total funding, an angel round raised on early 2020, and always refused VC investments to remain independent, but remaining a small start-up.

It first was concentrated on AFAs but remains a tiny actor in this business with plenty of competitors.

Now it is also one of the few and maybe the only AFA firm designing and assembling (in USA) its own SSD or PCIe units as it enters into high-capacity SSDs in 3.5-inch form factor, being on of rare company believing in this large volume rather than common 2.5-inch..

They are 16TB ($2,900) to 64TB ($10,900) for ExaDrive NL recently announced, and monstrous 100TB SAS/SATA SSD launched in 2018, ExaDrive DC, using 3D NAND at a price as high as $40,000, both of them offering up to 500/460MB/s R/W throughput and up to 114.000/105.000 R/W IO/s.

Tom Isakovich, Nimbus CEO and founder, said: "Nimbus is not reselling ExaDrive at this time. But resellers/system integrators can now integrate these SSDs inside these PowerEdge servers knowing that compatibility and performance have been validated."

Could Nimbus finally expanding thanks to SSDs rather than AFAs, getting other partners than Dell and eventually OEMs? And why not IBM and HPE with also huge and healthy customers able to buy high-capacity SSDs at almost any price to accelerate applications?