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Storage, In A Flash(Information Week Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) IBM aims to turn its research into a solid-state storage system that it says will be several times faster than current disk arrays and available in as soon as 12 months. But rivals already are pushing their own SSD products out in the market. The system is based on research IBM is doing in the design of a controller for an array of flash memory cards, code-named Project Quicksilver. It will use Intel-based IBM System x servers running Linux, which the company also uses with its Fibre Channel disk arrays. The difference is the server will run using software optimized to squeeze higher performance out of flash memory, and the use of flash memory cards from Fusion-io. IBM researchers have assembled a 4-TB prototype that they say runs more than 250% faster than a traditional disk-drive storage system. Heavyweights including EMC, Sun, Hitachi, and Hewlett-Packard also have announced solid-state system plans, as have specialists such as Solid Data and Texas Memory Systems. Market adoption is growing, though slowly. Solid-state memory is more expensive per gigabyte than disk-drive storage, and the performance boost hasn't convinced many companies to ditch spinning disks. In addition, most applications can't yet take advantage of the speed available from solid-state systems. http://informationweek.com/ Copyright 2008 United Business Media LLC. All rights reserved. Copyright ? 2008 CMP Media LLC |