Press Release
Hitachi Accelerated Flash Storage Features New Rack-Optimized Form Factor With Increased Environmental Advantages and Lowest Cost per Bit
When Compared to 400GB MLC SSDs, Hitachi Accelerated Flash Storage Achieves:
• 4 Times Better Performance.
• 46 Percent Lower Cost per Bit.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — November 7, 2012 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (HDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., (TSE: 6501),today unveiled Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage. This new flash module is built specifically for the most demanding enterprise-class workloads. Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage features a custom-designed, rack-optimized form factor and innovative flash memory controller technology from Hitachi, Ltd. These features let the module achieve higher performance, lower cost per bit and greater capacity compared to conventional solid-state drives (SSDs) on the market today. Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage is available now for the industry’s leading enterprise solution, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP). Now customers can realize a superior return on their flash investment with lower operating expenses. Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage is the first product to incorporate the recently introduced flash memory controller from Hitachi, Ltd., and today’s announcement marks the next phase of the Hitachi Data Systems flash strategy and roadmap first announced in August.
“Today’s announcement is a milestone achievement in how flash technology will be used in the enterprise data center moving forward,” said Roberto Basilio, vice president, Infrastructure Platforms Product Management, Hitachi Data Systems. “Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage is the first flash device that is optimized for the performance and reliability required for mission-critical applications. These applications include OLTP databases, ERP, financial data management, metadata and indexing. Because of the innovative multi-core flash controller technology from Hitachi, we are able to use multi-level cell (MLC) flash in enterprise applications by extending MLC endurance and exceeding the performance of single-level cell (SLC) flash. The result is the lowest cost per bit of any enterprise MLC flash solution on the market today.”
Flash technology has become more pervasive in the data center over the past few years. However, its widespread adoption as a mainstream storage option has been hampered by high costs, limited endurance and sub-optimal write performance. IT organizations have been forced to make tradeoffs in performance and capacity to reach the cost points that their shrinking budgets can accommodate. Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage fundamentally changes this model by eliminating these tradeoffs and answering customer demands for high capacity and performance at the lowest cost per bit. It changes the model by leveraging advanced Hitachi controller technology to increase the performance of MLC flash to levels that exceed those of more costly SLC flash. It also extends MLC flash endurance to enterprise levels. Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage delivers the performance, cost points, capacity and environmental characteristics that customers desire and that alternative solid-state storage options cannot match.
Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage introduces several unique capabilities including inline write compression that speeds writes on flash and improves MLC flash memory endurance. When compared to 400GB MLC SSDs, Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage features 4 times better performance, improved environmental characteristics (power and space), and up to 46 percent lower cost per bit. To provide customers with even more capacity cost savings, Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage is fully compatible with all Hitachi VSP features, including Hitachi Dynamic Tiering (HDT). This capability lets the system automatically optimize data placement by putting the most active data on Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage when the highest performance is required, and placing less-active data on cost-optimized, lower performance disk.
Hitachi Accelerated Flash storage fits into a new 8U flash chassis. Each enclosure can scale from 6.4TB up to 76.8TB of flash storage, giving it 2 times greater density than the largest MLC SSD available today. Up to 4 flash enclosures can be housed in Hitachi VSP, enabling more than 300TB of flash per system. This deployment gives existing Hitachi VSP customers the flexibility to architect cost-effective, tiered storage environments with HDT that address the most demanding performance workloads. Customers can do this while maintaining the same storage management environment, external storage virtualization support, superior uptime and advanced functionality they are accustomed to from Hitachi VSP.
The Hitachi Data Systems flash roadmap spans across servers, storage and appliances to enable compute acceleration, caching and high-performance storage media use cases. Hitachi Data Systems will continue to expand its roadmap with additional flash-optimized solutions that are highly efficient, available and resilient. These new solutions will improve customers’ return on flash investments and lower operating expenses compared to alternative or single-purpose flash products..
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About Hitachi Data Systems
Hitachi Data Systems provides best-in-class information technologies, services and solutions that deliver compelling customer ROI, unmatched return on assets (ROA) and demonstrable business impact. With a vision that IT must be virtualized, automated, cloud-ready and sustainable, Hitachi Data Systems offers solutions that improve IT costs and agility. With approximately 5,900 employees worldwide, Hitachi Data Systems does business in more than 100 countries and regions. Hitachi Data Systems products, services and solutions are trusted by the world's leading enterprises, including more than 70 percent of the Fortune 100 and more than 80 percent of the Fortune Global 100. Hitachi Data Systems believes that data drives our world - and information is the new currency. To learn more, visit: http://www.hds.com.
About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 320,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2011 (ended March 31, 2012) consolidated revenues totaled 9,665 billion yen ($117.8 billion). Hitachi is focusing more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes information and telecommunication systems, power systems, industrial, transportation and urban development systems, as well as the sophisticated materials and key devices that support them. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.
© Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2012. All Rights Reserved. Hitachi is a registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries. Hitachi Data Systems is a registered trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. in the United States and other countries.
Press Contacts:
Hitachi Data Systems
Ricky Gradwohl
(408) 970-7097
ricky.gradwohl@hds.com
Lois Paul & Partners
Brandi Ellerbee
(512) 638-5327
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