SSD storage systems hit new performance marks

Texas Memory's RamSan-6200 is capable of five million I/O operations per second

Solid state storage vendors have been breaking records with a new generation of solid state drives (SSDs).

Texas Memory Systems has unveiled a new SSD system which the company claims is capable of some five million I/O operations per second.

The company said that the new RamSan-6200 system reaches the performance mark while offering a 100TB storage capacity and a throughput of 60GB/s. The full system runs as a 40u rack-mounted set-up and consumes roughly six kilowatts of power.

Meanwhile, Toshiba has broken capacity records with a new SSD with a storage capacity of 512GB, using a new 43nm MLC Nand Flash process.

SSDs have seen strong growth in popularity for systems such as netbooks and high-performance PCs, but many in the industry have expressed doubts that SSD can unseat traditional plate-based storage for large-scale operations in the foreseeable future owing to their higher cost.

However, Texas Memory plans to target the RamSan-6200 at traditional high-performance computing applications, such as scientific research and geological modelling applications. The company contends that achieving similar performance with 15,000rpm plate-based drives would require a huge array of thousands of units.

"The RamSan-6200 changes the storage equation for large databases, science and research labs, seismic processing, video and federal government installations," said Texas Memory president Woody Hutsell.

"It's the only currently available SSD system offering anything remotely approaching this storage capacity and performance."

Toshiba's capacity breakthrough is also an encouraging sign for the industry. Platter drives are still much cheaper and have more capacity, but breaking the 500GB barrier is a major advance.