Analysis
LSI PCIe Solid-State Storage Solution Achieves 1 Million I/Os per Second in High-Density, Low-Power Performance Demonstration
LSI Corporation announced it has achieved 1 million random read input/output operations per second (IOPS) using a 4K block size in a PCI Express (PCIe)-based solid-state storage (SSS) performance demonstration running in a single server. The demo showcases the improved price-to-performance ratio, lower power consumption and increased storage density offered by new LSI PCIe SSS cards compared to storage solutions utilizing hard disk drives (HDDs).
OffeThe demonstration of 1 million random IOPS with a low-profile, low-power PCIe-based solution is a significant performance milestone for solid-state storage technologies, said Jeff Janukowicz, research manager, Hard Disk Drive Components and Solid State Drives at IDC. Achieving this level of performance in a single server will enable new and compelling system and application acceleration usage models for end users in environments where performance is the top priority.
One million IOPS was achieved using six LSISSS6200 PCIe SSS cards in a single white box server running two Intel Xeon 5590 processors. Each LSI small form factor card plugs into a single PCIe 2.0 slot with no additional power required. To achieve equal performance on an IOPS basis utilizing HDDs would require 2,500 drives, three racks of storage and consume nearly 320 times the power. In addition to significantly lower ongoing operational expenses, the reduced infrastructure requirements of the PCIe SSS-based example can translate to a 10X acquisition cost savings compared to the HDD-based example. SSS and HDD solutions are complementary, with each applicable to specific use cases.
Card-based solid-state storage solutions enable very high performance for system and application acceleration, said Robin Wagner, senior director of outbound marketing, Storage Components Division, LSI. By building the new LSISSS6200 cards upon the industry’s most widely deployed SAS software stack, LSI will be able to offer OEM customers an enterprise-ready, plug-and-play storage solution for market segments requiring extreme performance.
LSI brings decades of experience in the design, manufacture and support of enterprise-level storage products for critical applications. Bringing the proven engineering capabilities and global scale of LSI to the development of PCIe SSS solutions will help pave the way to market segment maturity and broad enterprise adoption.
LSI will offer 1 million IOPS performance demonstrations utilizing PCIe SSS cards to press and industry analysts in a hosted suite at Storage Networking World Spring 2010 this week in Orlando, Fla.
LSI, along with experts from HP, IBM, NetApp and Seagate, will also participate in a solid-state storage panel discussion today at Storage Networking World. The panel will be moderated by industry analyst Jeff Janukowicz of IDC and examine solid-state deployment models and how the technology will fundamentally change enterprise IT architectures.