Texas Memory Systems :: RamSan-810

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Speed + Reliability + Affordability = The eMLC RamSan-810

With 10 TB, 320,000 IOPS, and 4 GB/s in a 1U form factor, the RamSan-810 revolutionizes affordable Tier 1 storage.

Overview

For years, Texas Memory Systems has recommended only single-level cell (SLC) technology when implementing Flash storage in the datacenter. While some competitors have introduced multi-level cell (MLC) Flash devices, TMS believes that using consumer-grade MLC will always be too unreliable in enterprise environments.

However, there is now an alternative. Enterprise MLC (eMLC) is a new technology that features high speed and reliability paired with the affordability of MLC. eMLC is perfect for Tier-1 storage situations and applications such as data warehousing, content delivery networks, and other read-intensive environments.

The RamSan-810 packs up to 10 TB of the latest eMLC Flash in a compact 1U enclosure. It delivers up to 320,000 IOPS and 4 GB/s through its 8 Gb Fibre Channel or QDR InfiniBand connections. While SLC is still recommended for write-intensive workloads, eMLC makes the performance and reliability that Texas Memory Systems is famous available at a lower price point.

15k RPM hard disk drive (HDD) arrays are officially obsolete for Tier 1 storage applications. The RamSan-810 blows away HDD in density, cost, and reliability while offering stunning performance and power efficiency. This solid state disk (SSD) leverages generations of backplane, interface, and reliability experience designed into RamSan SSDs.

The RamSan-810 packs a lot of connectivity into its small size. The back panel has two slots for dual port 8 Gb Fibre Channel controllers or dual port QDR InfiniBand controllers. This SSD also features a redundant power supply, providing an added measure of protection against power issues.

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The RamSan-810 provides plenty of shareable, high performance storage for IT organizations that need to respond to the growing storage and performance needs of their users and applications. It is a greener, more efficient alternative to hard disk drive-based systems. The RamSan-810 has extremely low latency and delivers 4 GB/s of sustained performance.

Because of the RamSan-810's nonvolatile eMLC Flash storage media, data is not lost during a power loss. Flash translation tables are held in battery-backed RAM that is written to Flash in the event of power loss, so users don't have to waste time waiting for indexes to rebuild when power is reconnected. The RamSan-810’s raw speed and power mean its data transfer rates are much faster than competing Flash drives and hundreds of times faster than traditional mechanical hard disks.

When you need a simple, economical solution to accelerate applications requiring large, fast buffer areas or to speed up applications that are random access intensive, the RamSan-810 is the clear choice. This SSD can make wait times associated with distributed scale-out databases, index files, metadata, rendering, video editing, modeling, and simulation a distant memory.

Features

The RamSan-810 offers up to 10 TB of usable eMLC Flash in a small, 1U rackmount unit. This SSD has the following key features:

  • The World's Fastest Storage®: Sustained I/O rates up to 320,000 IOPS for reads or writes and sustained, random bandwidth up to 4 GB/second.
  • Fault Tolerant Flash (FTF): The Flash used in the RamSan-810 is enterprise grade eMLC Flash. Each Flash card in the RamSan-810 includes on-board RAID protection to protect against chip failure. In addition, an advanced chip-level ECC provides multiple regions of bit correction per block.
  • Series-7 Flash Controller™: One key to the RamSan-810’s uncompromising performance is the Series-7 Flash Controller. Based on high-performance Xilinx FPGAs and a PowerPC processor, the Series-7 Flash Controller is field-upgradable, ensuring that TMS customers will always have the best performance and latest features.
  • Variable Stripe RAID (VSR)™: VSR is a patented technology only available to TMS customers that drastically reduces wasted planes. If a plane fails, VSR automatically rebuilds and relocates the data from that plane. It then allows data to be rewritten to the area, dynamically altering the size of the stripe to avoid the failed plane. Under traditional RAID schemes, the entire stripe would have been unusable and all its remaining good planes would have been lost.
  • 8 Gbit Fibre Channel: The RamSan-810 comes with new dual ported 8 Gbit Fibre Channel controllers.
  • QDR InfiniBand: The RamSan-810 can be equipped with up to two dual ported QDR InfiniBand controllers.
  • Active Spare: One FTF card can be designated as an active-spare that works hand-in-hand with the chip level RAID. If one of the cards experiences a failure that degrades its RAID protection, the system will immediately migrate the data on that card to the hot-spare to return to a fully redundant state.
  • Wear Leveling: The RamSan-810 includes wear-leveling technology that protects the underlying Flash media by spreading out writes and maximizing the write life of the system.
  • Completely Non-Volatile: Flash memory is inherently non-volatile. Batteries are incorporated into the design anywhere RAM buffers are used with enough power to synchronize the buffers to Flash.
  • Unparalleled Scalability: A single 1U chassis upgrades from 2 to 10 TB of Flash storage and two Fibre Channel ports or two InfiniBand ports. Multiple units can be added to meet any capacity or performance requirement.
  • Low Power: The RamSan-810 typically uses only 250 watts of power.
Details

The RamSan-810 offers scalable performance and affordable high capacity that is both space and power efficient. A single unit provides up to 10 TB of reliable enterprise Multi-Level Cell (eMLC) Flash, with solid performance of up to 4 GB per second.

The RamSan-810 packs a lot of power into a small package, occupying only 1U of rack space. To achieve similar performance, hard disk solutions would require over 1,000 drives, occupy almost 80 disk enclosures requiring six racks, consume over 15,000 Watts, and cost over a million dollars by the time the enclosures and controllers were included.

Each RamSan-810 unit can support two 8 Gb Fibre Channel or two QDR InfiniBand ports. Installation and management are simple, with embedded management capabilities and clear displays. One or more RamSan-810s can easily be integrated into a mixed storage infrastructure and monitored and managed through a common management framework.

eMLC

The RamSan-810 uses eMLC NAND Flash as its storage medium. eMLC is a superior Flash technology for Tier 1 applications since it is faster, more resilient, and easier to manage than consumer-grade MLC Flash and more affordable than SLC Flash. In addition, the RamSan-810’s eMLC Flash memory is completely non-volatile.

Active Spare

At the system level, the RamSan-810 allows you to designate one of the cards inside the system as an Active Spare that works hand-in-hand with the chip level RAID on each of our boards. If one of the cards experiences a chip failure that degrades its RAID protection, the system will immediately migrate the data on that card to the spare to return to a redundant state. At that point, the degraded card will be inactive and can be swapped during the next scheduled maintenance downtime. Having the active-spare means that a faulty card can be swapped in a matter of minutes without the need to migrate all 10 TB of data off and back on to the RamSan®.

Manageability

Logical Storage Units (LUNs) can be designated in multiple configurations, including the option of assigning a separate LUN to each of the RamSan-810’s Flash cards. This flexibility allows you to mirror LUNs for increased data protection.

Automatic Error Checking

Data integrity is provided through two different methods. Each Flash chip incorporates an ECC data field within the chip for initial checking. Additionally, each Flash controller in the RamSan-810 is responsible for 10 Flash chips using TMS' patented Variable Stripe RAID (VSR), eliminating any single chip or plane failure from corrupting data storage. The Flash wear-leveling algorithm runs on the embedded PowerPC processor, providing real-time quality assurance independent of the host computer.

Fault Resilient

The RamSan-810 was designed from the chip up with the enterprise in mind. With its onboard processor design, two levels of error protection, Variable Stripe RAID functionality for the Flash, use of eMLC Flash, and a sophisticated wear leveling algorithm, the RamSan-810 is a truly enterprise ready, resilient SSD.

Wear Leveling

The RamSan-810 includes Texas Memory System’s proprietary wear-leveling technology. This system protects the SSD's Flash media by spreading out writes and maximizing the write life of the system.

Specifications

Storage

  • Capacity (Raw): 13,742 GB
  • Capacity (Usable): 2 - 10 TB
  • LUNs: 1,024 LUNs
  • Storage Medium: eMLC Flash

Performance

  • Maximum Bandwidth: 4 GB/s
  • Read IOPS: 320 K IOPS
  • Write IOPS: 320 K IOPS

Interfaces

  • Expansion Slots: 2 slots
  • Fibre Channel Ports per Card: 2 ports/card
  • Fibre Channel Speed per Port: 8 Gb/s
  • InfiniBand Channel Width: 4 links
  • InfiniBand Channels per Card: 2 channels/card
  • InfiniBand Data Rate Standard: QDR
  • InfiniBand Speed per Channel: 40 Gb/s

Management

  • Supports Browser Management
  • Supports SNMP Management
  • Supports SSH Management
  • Supports Telnet Management

Power

  • Typical Power Consumption: 250 W

Mechanical

  • Form Factor: 1U
  • Weight: 25 lbs