Solid State for Small Biz

It may cost a small fortune, but could solid-state disk (SSD) be the answer to customers' data performance worries? Vendor Texas Memory Systems thinks so, today taking the wraps off an SSD offering aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. (See Texas Memory Intros RamSan.)

Specifically, Texas Memory is touting the RamSan-300 as a way for users to speed up database applications and metadata from large file systems. The device is a good fit for transactional databases such as Oracle and SQL Server that need to be accessed extremely quickly, according to Woody Hutsell, executive vice president for firm's SSD division.

The idea behind solid state is that it can speed up the transfer of data for I/O-intensive processes, enabling applications to run faster. But the cost associated with SSD makes it a bad fit for large chunks of unstructured data, not all of which is typically valuable to a business.

"I can't think of a customer that is using us for unstructured data," admits Hutsell.

SSD products use random access memory (RAM), as opposed to traditional magnetic or optical media, to store and access data. As a result, access speeds are typically much higher than traditional disk: 5 milliseconds for magnetic versus as little as 20 microseconds for solid state. Backers of this approach also promote it as a way to minimize or eliminate server I/O bottlenecks.Texas Memory's 300 device is basically a scaled-down version of its 400 box, which the vendor hopes will open the door to the SMB market. Whereas the 400 offers between 32 and 128 Gbytes of RAM and a total of eight 4-Gbit/s Fibre Channel ports, the 300 comes with between 16 and 32 Gbytes of RAM and half the port count.

The vendor, however, was unable to offer up any early adopters today, although Hutsell says that the first four customers are about to take delivery of the 300. These, he added, are in the online gaming, financial, education, and telecom industries.

At least one analyst thinks that users should still consider SSD technology. "The platform is really good for certain applications," explains Tony Lock, research director at Sageza. As well as billing systems that need fast database response times, the technology could also find a home in the ILM space, he says. (See Users Mull ILM Muddle, ILM = Invest Lots More, and Invest Lots More!.)

"Any companies looking at ILM might see this, if they need the high performance, as useful for their top-tier storage," he explains. That said, SSD technology is not on the radar of many users. After attracting a lot of interest four of five years ago, the SSD buzz "sort of fizzled away," adds Lock.

Price has undoubtedly played a part in this. The cost per gigabyte of traditional disk, for example, is typically less than $20, compared to $1,750 per gigabyte for the base-level configuration of Texas Memory's 300 device."I would consider [solid state] if it was cheap enough, but I think it has a way to go," says Brian Clouthier, LAN systems engineer at Chelsea, Mass.-based dairy products distributor Hood. Clouthier told Byte and Switch that he looked at SSD last year but was put off by the price tag. "It was brutally expensive," he explains, adding that the technology is at least a year away from being commercially viable.

Despite the cost issue, there have been signs that the solid state market is on the rise. (See Solid State Seeks Solid Ground.) SAN vendor Xiotech, for example, recently joined the fray with its own RAM drive, and BitMicro Networks and M-Systems are pushing products built on flash technology. (See Xiotech Sets Sights on Solid State, Xiotech Supports Drives, and BitMicro Debuts Military-Grade Disk.)

Whereas flash drives are perceived in some quarters as offering more robustness, other users feel that RAM drives have an edge in terms of performance. But Lock thinks that all vendors face the same issue. "The biggest challenge for them is to promote the technology and get a better awareness of it," he says.

For Texas Memory, which is now going after the SMB market, this promises to be a major challenge. "SMBs are extremely price sensitive," explains Lock, adding that the vendor will need to work extremely hard to sell the benefits of the technology.

Texas Memory's 300 appliance is available now, priced starting at $28,000.James Rogers, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch