Accelerate OLTP, batch processing, and other intense applications with the RamSan solid state disk from Texas Memory Systems—the only solid state disk available with the performance, software, and features that critical enterprise applications demand. It is 2x-10x faster than the cache included in popular RAID storage systems, yet it also contains the most high-availability features in the solid state disk industry and fits the most GB of RAM storage per rack unit. The RamSan is the only solid state disk that allows users two distinct modes of data retention, customizable for each LUN on the unit. Placing hot data on a RamSan allows maximum return on existing critical applications and hardware.
Performance is key to a quality solid state disk. The RamSan-400 is the World's Fastest Storage®. The system delivers up to 3 GB/sec of sustained, random bandwidth and over 400,000 random I/Os per second. The RamSan delivers its massive bandwidth to hosts through up to eight 4-Gb Fibre Channel interface ports or four 4x InfiniBand ports. Its high bandwidth enables administrators to share the RamSan-400 across multiple hosts without affecting performance. Also, some applications require high bandwidth, including video on-demand and non-linear editing of HDTV. Competing solid state disks that have less bandwidth than the RamSan-400 cannot support all of the applications that the RamSan supports and cannot be shared with as many hosts without compromising performance. An important note as you compare solid state disk to RAID: our solid state disks can sustain their bandwidth numbers with random data streams. Conversely, RAID systems can only sustain high bandwidth numbers with sequential data streams.
The RamSan-400 can deliver 400,000 random I/Os Per Second (IOPS) to your applications. A single port on the RamSan-400 can provide 100,000 random IOPS. We stress "random IOPS" because RAID manufacturers occasionally cite their IOPS performance, but discerning buyers should be aware that these quoted numbers are almost always sequential IOPS performance. The problem with sequential IOPS is that almost no "real world" applications actually result in sequential small block disk access.
So why do you need IOPS? IOPS are needed to process database transactions. Database transactions have two main characteristics: they are small (averaging around 8K), and they are random. Small random file accesses thrash hard disk drives. In fact, a really good disk drive can provide around 300 random IOPS. A fast RAID can handle 5,000 random IOPS. The fastest cache built in to expensive storage systems can handle at most 150,000 IOPS. This brings us back to the original statement: it is important to support a high number of IOPS because your servers can produce a high number of IOPS.
When your processor is faster than your storage, then your processor literally waits on storage for data needed to perform calculations – this is called I/O wait time. If your processor is waiting, then your users are waiting, too. In addition, you are wasting a significant investment in the latest processors. By supplying incredibly high random IOPS, the RamSan-400 eliminates I/O wait time for all of its stored files. Because of its random IOPS capabilities, a single RamSan-400 can provide I/O acceleration for multiple host servers.
When you consider our combined bandwidth and random IOPS performance, it becomes clear why we call the RamSan "The World's Fastest Storage®."
The RamSan-400 is TMS’ flagship RamSan model and the most advanced SSD on the market today. Its fast DDR RAM storage is ideal for storing performance-demanding data and accelerating application performance. In fact, the RamSan-400 is The World's Fastest Storage®. No RAID, no cache, no other solid state disk is capable of the raw performance offered by the RamSan-400.
TMS' numerous customers have seen real-world performance increases from 2x to 25x simply by installing a single RamSan. It plugs into servers or fabrics through basic Fibre Channel or InfiniBand connections and appears simply as a very, very fast drive to the network, able to act as any disk or storage system might. The RamSan-400 can accelerate numerous applications across industries. It is best known for producing dramatic performance gains in OLTP, batch processing, and other transaction-intensive operations.
There is no tradeoff in reliability for all this performance. The RamSan-400 includes hot swappable redundancies wherever physical wear is a factor, such as power supplies and backup hard disks. It also includes three independent internal UPS systems to ensure that no power loss or power supply failure will stop the RamSan from performing its internal backup procedures. Redundant cooling fans and redundant failover data ports (optional) are also part of the sophisticated design.
The RamSan-400 is designed to look like a disk to the network. Therefore, it is highly interoperable and works in virtually any enterprise environment. It is installed in numerous environments, including Apple OS X, AIX, Solaris, Linux, and Windows. Hardware from Fibre Channel and InfiniBand vendors including Cisco, Emulex, Brocade, McData, Mellanox, QLogic, LSI Logic, and Vixel easily interoperates with the RamSan.
Active Backup® and Chipkill Technology: The Newest Innovations in SSD
Exclusive to the RamSan is Active Backup® software. Other SSDs and cache systems can only "destage" data from RAM to backup disks once power is already lost. This means that data is never backed up during normal operation and the time-to-complete-backup after power loss is unacceptably long. A RamSan-400 with Active Backup can continuously back up data on RAM to the internal backup hard disks without impacting performance. This means in an emergency situation data is anywhere from 60-100% on the backup hard drives already.
RamSan-400 takes reliability even farther by implementing IBM Chipkill technology. Standard error correcting code (ECC) implementations correct single-bit data errors in memory chips but cannot correct the multi-bit errors that can result in data integrity issues. Chipkill technology allows a memory system to correct a multi-bit failure up to and including a total chip failure.
All solid state disks can correct a single bit error before sending data to the server as a part of their ECC protection. The RamSan-400, however, goes a step further by scrubbing – re-writing the corrected data to memory and then verifying the re-write to determine if a memory chip has a failure (a hard error) or if radiation transients caused the single bit error (a soft error). Systems that do not scrub single bit memory errors will either a) report errors to a system log that will eventually encourage replacement of a memory board or b) hide these errors, thus leaving a potentially unsafe memory board in the system. Research on this topic suggests that 90% of single bit errors are soft errors. In these cases, the RamSan-400 will correct the error through the scrubbing process and prevent unnecessary downtime to replace memory boards.
| 400,000 |
| |
| 32-128 GB |
| |
| 3 GB per second |
| |
| Less than 15 microseconds |
| |
- 4-Gigabit Fibre Channel (2-Gigabit capable)
- 2 ports standard; up to 8 ports available
- Supports point-to-point, arbitrated loop, and switched fabric topologies
- Interoperable with Fibre Channel Host Bus Adaptors, switches, and operating systems
|
| |
- 4x InfiniBand (10-Gigabit)
- 1 port standard; up to 4 ports available
- Supports SRP upper level protocol
- Interoperable with InfiniBand Host Channel Adaptors, switches, and operating systems
|
| |
- Browser-enabled system monitoring, management, and configuration
- SNMP supported
- Telnet management capability
- Front panel displays system status and provides basic management functionality
|
| |
- 1 to 1024 LUNs with variable capacity per LUN
- Flexible assignment of LUNs to ports
- Hardware LUN masking
|
| |
- Non-volatile solid state disk
- Redundant internal batteries power the system for 25 minutes after power loss
- Automatically backs up data to disk at 190 MB/sec
|
| |
- Chipkill technology protects data against memory errors up to and including
loss of an entire memory chip
- Internal redundancies
- Power supplies and fans
- Backup battery power (n+1)
- Backup hard disk drives (RAID3)
- Hot-swappable components
- Four backup hard drives (front access)
- Power supplies
- Soft Error Scrubbing
- When a single bit error occurs on a read, the RamSan will automatically
re-write the data to memory thus scrubbing soft errors. Following
the re-write the system re-reads to verify the data is
corrected.
|
| |
Supports two backup modes that are configurable per system or per LUN: |
- Data Sync mode - synchronizes data to redundant internal disk drives
before shutdown or with power loss
- Active Backup® mode (optional) - backs up data constantly to
internal redundant disks without impacting system performance.
|
| |
| 5.25" (3U) X 25" |
| |
| 350 Watts |
| |
| 80 lbs |
|
