SanDisk today introduced the Lightning line of PCI Express (PCIe) Solid State Accelerator (SSA) cards. Lightning cards can be installed into any four lane (x4) or greater PCIe slot to provide more rapid access to frequently used data and to manage I/O-heavy workloads. With compatibility in mind across multiple platforms, the SanDisk Lighting PCIe SSA uses a LSI SAS2008 PCIe to SAS bridge to communicate with the computer. This chipset has widespread support in Windows, Linux, Solaris, VMware, and FreeBSD, and is also used by other PCIe solutions such as the LSI WarpDrive SLP-300 and the new Intel SSD 910.
SanDisk today introduced the Lightning line of PCI Express (PCIe) Solid State Accelerator (SSA) cards. Lightning cards can be installed into any four lane (x4) or greater PCIe slot to provide more rapid access to frequently used data and to manage I/O-heavy workloads. With compatibility in mind across multiple platforms, the SanDisk Lighting PCIe SSA uses a LSI SAS2008 PCIe to SAS bridge to communicate with the computer. This chipset has widespread support in Windows, Linux, Solaris, VMware, and FreeBSD, and is also used by other PCIe solutions such as the LSI WarpDrive SLP-300 and the new Intel SSD 910.
Lighting PCIe SSA Specifications
- Performance
- Data Throughput (Read) – 425MB/s
- Total IOPS (512b Read) – 110,000 IOPS, 50μs
- Random Read/Write 4K (70/30) – 23,000 IOPS, < 245μs
- Random Read/Write 8K (70/30) – 17,000 IOPS, < 30ms
- Write Endurance: 10 full drive writes per day
- Unrecoverable Bit Error Rates (UBER): <1 sector in 1017 bits read
- Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): 2 million hours
- Capacitor Backed Cache (CBC) for unexpected power interruptions
- Background Patrol Read (automatic)
- Power-On Hours: 8,760 hours per year
- Warranty: 5 years or maximum endurance used
- 245 microsecond average latency and sub-30 millisecond maximum response times
- Latency as low as 50 microsecond for sustained read and write operations
- Standard drivers integrated for use with major Windows, Linux and VMWare ESX environments
- Requires 15 watts of power and operates without requiring supplementary cooling
- Bootable OS Drive Option supports multiple Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs)
SanDisk FlashSoft data caching software is available for Windows operating systems and can be purchased separately. Data centers can also use FlashSoft technology to support large server workloads in combination with Lightning PCIe SSA.
Availability
Lightning products will be available in June from retailers in the US and Japan, including Avnet, CDW, newegg.com, and tigerdirect.com. MSRP for Lightning solutions are $1350 for 200GB and $2350 for 400GB. Up to five cards may be installed into a single system to provide up to two terabytes (TB) of capacity.
