HDS Unveils Controller Built Using Flash Memory

There’s obviously a race on to incorporate as much Flash memory as possible into storage systems. But the folks at Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) say adding Flash memory to existing storage platforms doesn’t nearly go far enough. The company today announced that it has built the controller technology it uses to manage the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) out of Flash memory.

According to Roberto Basilio, vice president, Infrastructure Platforms Product Management, Hitachi Data Systems., this development provides a three-fold increase in VSP performance, which Hitachi says is now capable of achieving more than 1 million read IOPs.

In addition, Basilio says this new controller will allow HDS to bring to market a new generation of Flash memory product later this year that will outperform rival offerings because the entire system will be based on Flash memory.

Basilio says rival vendors have simply added Flash memory as a caching mechanism to modestly boost performance. In contrast, HDS is taking advantage of what clearly represents a fundamental shift in storage technologies to reinvent the way storage is managed, says Basilio.

While disk drive will continue to be relied on as a mechanism for storing persistent data over longer periods of time, it’s clear that Flash memory is going to be the primary driver of enterprise application performance for the foreseeable future. Obviously, just about every storage vendor has seen that writing on the wall, which is creating something of a frenzy of storage announcements that in one way or another are about how to exploit Flash memory. The question each individual IT organization will need to resolve is where to best apply that Flash memory both today and tomorrow.