SR-71mach5 SpeedServer

ION recently launched it’s flagship SR-71mach5 SpeedServer™ which continues to deliver on the SR-71 legacy of all-SSD storage for “disk-impossible performance”.  This new server incorporates new technology throughout yielding more processor cores, more and faster memory and much more random I/O performance. Standard processors in the “mach5” are two 12-core 2.6GHz Intel® Xeon® E5-2690 V3, but the full Xeon E5-2600V3 processor lineup is available.  Continue reading SR-71mach5 SpeedServer

SSD RAID

There are many opinions on the benefits and liabilities of SSD RAID floating around the Internet; ION’s experience with SSD RAID differs dramatically from some of it.  ION’s SR-71mach4 SpeedServer™ is a server and storage platform optimized for and with SSD RAID.  This article shares some observations on the performance and endurance of SSDs in RAID usage, and examines and compares performance in different Continue reading SSD RAID

SSD Performance has System-wide Effects

The impact of SSDs on I/O related performance in a server is dramatic. Unleashed from the mechanical limitations of spinning disks, a single server can perform 10s or 100s of thousands of I/O Operations per second, IOPS, instead of just a few thousand.  Without long I/O waits, processor, RAM and RAID controllers can all get much busier, but the impact on humbler pieces of Continue reading SSD Performance has System-wide Effects

Storage Sizing for Capacity and Performance

Or, How Many Eggs in One Basket? Huge storage systems are available today supporting large numbers of disks, allowing the creation of massive storage resources.  Storage Servers and storage enclosures suporting up to (60) 3.5″ disk drives are now common.  Filling those bays with 6TB disks yields a system with 360TB raw capacity – one third of a petabyte!  That is now an easy Continue reading Storage Sizing for Capacity and Performance

Spinning Rust is (almost) Dead, Part 4, SSD Power and Reliability

“But wait,” you say, “price and performance aren’t everything!” Really? You are correct. Reliability counts when your data is sitting on the drive. To start with, think about microscopic magnetic heads flying back and forth over platters spinning at 7,200 rpm to 15,000 rpm. Need I say more? We can compare manufacturer’s MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) numbers, but nobody really knows how they Continue reading Spinning Rust is (almost) Dead, Part 4, SSD Power and Reliability