The RamSan-500’s cached Flash design delivers unprecedented high read performance and large capacity storage at a price point that makes solid state disks more affordable than ever before. Compared to a similar capacity high-end hard disk-based RAID system, the RamSan-500 can deliver in excess of sixteen times the performance while using 50% less power.
The RamSan-500’s cached Flash design utilizes the fastest RAM memory to create a large, performance-boosting cache for the high capacity, lower cost Flash-based storage. Available in one or two terabyte capacities in a 4U rack mount chassis, the RamSan-500 delivers 100,000 I/Os per second (IOPS) and two gigabytes per second of sustained random read or write bandwidth and yet only consumes 250 Watts of power. The system can be SAN or NAS-attached with up to eight 4-gigabits per second Fibre Channel ports. Multiple RamSan-500s can be combined to deliver additional high-performance capacity.
Increasing performance and I/O requirements in markets such as OLTP, data warehousing, and video editing/streaming are driving a need for solid state storage solutions like the RamSan-500. These SSDs are deployed to accelerate software applications and network file systems. With solid state disks, applications can accommodate more concurrent users and simultaneous transactions, while being more economical than adding monolithic RAID, servers, RAM, or constant application tuning.
The RamSan-500, TMS' 12th generation solid state disk, is the most important advance in SSD technology in the last 20 years. The system is designed for high IO data warehousing, high bandwidth data acquisition, and rich media environments. The RamSan-500 is a hybrid of DDR RAM and Flash memory (NAND-SLC). The judicious use of RAM cache and advanced Flash architecture extends the usability of this hybrid device into applications with large block sequential or random writes, small block synchronous sequential writes, and any read-intensive application.
The RAM cache (16-64GB) provides sub-20 microsecond cache hit times and shelters the Flash storage from small random data accesses. The data in RAM is protected with ECC and Chipkill. The RAM cache is battery-backed up with redundant batteries.
The Flash storage (1-2TB usable capacity) is arrayed in nine RAID-3 protected hot swappable modules. The reliability of each module is further enhanced with ECC memory layouts, wear-leveling, and bad-block retirement. The RamSan-500 uses NAND-SLC Flash chips, the highest quality of Flash available on the market. The RamSan-500 is designed from the ground-up to protect data from the problems inherent to traditional Flash storage.
The RamSan-500 is the perfect combination of performance, price, and capacity. With up to 2TB of capacity, the system provides ample space for storing entire databases or frequently accessed files. Through its 4Gbit Fibre Channel or 4x InfiniBand ports the system is capable of over 100,000 random IOPS or 2 GB/second of sustained bandwidth (even with cache misses).
The RamSan-500 appears simply as a very fast drive to the network, able to act as any disk or storage system might. The RamSan-500 can accelerate numerous applications across industries. It is best known for producing dramatic performance gains in read intensive environments such as read-intensive OLTP environments, data warehousing, video on demand, and rendering.
Customers looking for high speed small block random write performance are encouraged to consider the RamSan-440.
There is no tradeoff in reliability for this performance. The RamSan-500 includes hot swappable components or redundancies wherever physical wear is a factor, such as power supplies and Flash storage. It also includes two independent internal UPS systems to ensure that no power loss or power supply failure will stop the RamSan from flushing data from the RAM to the Flash RAID. Redundant cooling fans and redundant failover data ports (optional) are also part of the sophisticated design.
The RamSan-500 is designed to look like a disk to the network or operating system. Therefore, it is highly interoperable and works in virtually any enterprise environment. It can be installed in numerous environments, including Apple OS X, AIX, Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, OpenVMS and Windows. Hardware from Fibre Channel and InfiniBand vendors including Cisco, Emulex, Brocade, McData, Mellanox, QLogic, and LSI Logic easily interoperates with the RamSan.
The RamSan-500 includes the most management features of any solid state disk. Administrators can manage the RamSan over the network or by directly connecting to the unit. The RamSan can be fully configured and monitored from either a Telnet or a browser. The front panel displays system status and allows basic management functionality as well.
The Turbo feature allows segregation of write and read data between RAM and Flash to accelerate transactional databases and mixed load applications. It can also reduce wear on the Flash memory to boost the operating life of the system. Turbo delivers microsecond response times. Turbo works by allowing administrators to lock a storage Logical Unit (LUN) entirely in high speed RAM cache, thus dedicating a portion of the cache to a specific dataset such as write-intensive metadata, redo logs, temporary space, or table spaces. The RamSan's high availability features such as redundant battery and RAID-protected Flash ensure that the data in the locked LUN is persistent, even in the event of an external power loss.
Email Alert is an optional feature of the RamSan that will send an email in the event of a change in system status. This feature allows a system administrator to proactively resolve potential hardware or software problems before they escalate.
DataStat-Archive for the RamSan provides performance information that allows users to identify the I/O, bandwidth, and latency metrics for any given period of time for the past year. Using this optional feature makes it easier for customers to plan and organize their use of resources.
For customers who have multiple units, we offer Terawatch, an optional software feature that allows management of multiple RamSans from a single management console. Terawatch is a part of the same management software program used to manage the RamSans individually; therefore no additional training is required to run Terawatch.
