3D XPoint Memory at the Storage Developer’s Conference

3D XPoint Report GraphicThis Sunday (Sept. 20, 2015) I will be presenting my company’s findings on the 3D XPoint memory that was introduced by Intel and Micron in July.  I will be speaking at the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Storage Developer Conference (SDC) Pre-Conference Primer.  You can click the name  to be taken to the agenda.

This won’t be the only talk about persistent memory technology at the conference.  Prior to my presentation storage consultants Tom Coughlin and Ed Grochowski will give an overview of advances in nonvolatile memories, and following my presentation will be two Intel talks.

Intel will be covering this new technology a lot during the conference.  Of a total of 120 presentations at the conference and pre-conference primer, Intel will be presenting nine, seven of which directly name persistent memory or nonvolatile memory in the title.  Other firms will also be talking about NVM: AgigA, Calypso, HP, Pure Storage, and SMART Modular.  Even Microsoft alludes to it in a couple of its presentation titles.  Persistent memory is a hot issue.

So, the question for readers of The SSD Guy blog is: “Will this do away with SSDs?”

This is a question that was Continue reading “3D XPoint Memory at the Storage Developer’s Conference”

CEO Change at Fusion-io

Fusion-io SkullOn May 9 Objective Analysis sent an Alert to our clients discussing the prior day’s CEO change at Fusion-io.

In a nutshell, co-founders David Flynn (CEO) and Rick White (Chief Marketing Officer) have left the firm, with Flynn being replaced by board member Shane Robison, HP’s former Chief Strategy Officer, who helped put together HP’s acquisition of Autonomy.

Here are some of the Continue reading “CEO Change at Fusion-io”

PC Caching Software is Not All the Same

NVELO Dataplex Benchmarks Consistently Outperform Intel iSRTThe folks at NVELO recently provided The SSD Guy with some benchmark data comparing their Dataplex software’s performance against the Intel iSRT caching software that is becoming prevalent among Ultrabooks.

For those unaware of these two technologies, they are both caching software that automatically maintains “Hot” data within a low-capacity SSD while leaving “Cold” data on the system HDD. The end result is that the PC performs as if it boasts a large SSD when, in truth, it uses Continue reading “PC Caching Software is Not All the Same”

Violin D-Round Values Company at $800M

A Violin Memory VIMM Memory ModuleViolin Memory has announced a $50 million mezzanine round that indicates that its latest crop of investors values the company at $800 million.  That’s pretty good for a start-up whose product has only been shipping since the end of 2008.

This round includes increases from existing investors Toshiba and Juniper Networks (a Violin user) along with new investors SAP Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, and others now joining the pool.

The company has been recruiting a highly-pedigreed staff from companies like Continue reading “Violin D-Round Values Company at $800M”

Fusion-io’s Billion IOPS Monster

Meter Showing Fusion-io's Billion IOPS PerformanceLast night (1/5/12) at a DEMO Enterprise event in San Francisco Fusion-io unveiled a one billion IOPS (I/Os per second) storage system.  A billion IOPS!

The machine was built using 64 Fusion-io ioDrive2 Duos connected to eight HP ProLiant DL370 servers.

This came sooner than we anticipated.  It was only in July 2008 that the million-IOPS barrier was broken by IBM using 41 Fusion-io devices.

Continue reading “Fusion-io’s Billion IOPS Monster”