DDRDrive has upped the ante on solid state disk with the availability of the DDRDRIVE X1, a PCI Express based adapter for serving transaction intensive environments. Featuring 4GB capacity, the X1 will support 300,000 IOPS for 512 byte random reads, 200,000 IOPS for 512 byte random writes, low power consumption and in excess of 100,000 full backups during the life of the drive.
DDRDrive uses DRAM as the primary memory and single level cell (SLC) NAND Flash as the backup, on a bit-for-bit basis. As a result, exotic wear-leveling processes and speed impeding write amplification is unnecessary to achieve an enterprise-class five-year operational guarantee. The high IOPS performance is achieved by using an FPGA-based solid-state storage accelerator, which can be upgraded in the field.
DDRDRIVE has developed device drivers for Microsoft Windows 2000 Client/Server, Microsoft Windows XP (32/64 bit), Microsoft Windows Vista (32/64 bit), Microsoft Windows 7 Beta (32/64 bit), Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (32/64 bit), Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (32/64 bit) and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta. Linux drivers are under development.
The architecture allows a full 4GB drive to be backed up or restored in 60 seconds. The power consumption is only 9.91 watts at full operation and 4.96 watts at idle, yielding 30,000 IOPS/watt. The drive comes in a PCI Express full-height, half-length form factor, and is compatible with PCI Express v1.0a, v1.1, or v2.0 X1/X4/X8/X16 Slots, double-wide clearance required. Read-write performance is enhanced by direct-bus operation, rather than requiring access through a Serial ATA controller. In addition to the 512 byte random read/write performance, random 4KB reads at 50,000 IOPS and 4KB random writes at 35,000 IOPS are supported, and sustained sequential reads at 215MBps and sustained writes at 155MBps are achieved. Priced at $1,500, the 4GB capacity drives include an AC adapter and a carrying case. Ideal for applications that require high-speed access, such as transaction logs and meta data, the DDRDRIVE X1 is targeted at the knowledgeable enterprise user as well as OEM applications.
