Pliant breaks the rules

Pliant Technologies introduced on Monday an enterprise-class solid state drive (SSD) that establishes a new level of capability and speed within the hottest sector of the storage market. Unique features include the use of both 2.5- and 3.5-inch formats as well as Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). The 3.5-inch format allows a super bandwidth because more NAND flash devices can be accessed, a unique quality in the SSD field. The resulting IOPS are pre-emptive in the field. Write amplification strategies include the reservation of pre-erased blocks that are managed beneath the SAS layer and remain available at high speed. The SAS protocol allows full advantage of the SSD’s ability to read and write simultaneously. In addition, Pliant uses background processing to address the known issues of wear leveling and endurance associated with NAND flash devices. Pliant drives deliver 300GB in a 3.5-inch format with SAS access. Appliance integrators and systems OEMs should take notice.