Smart Modular: XceedStor 500S 2.5-Inch MLC SSD

SMART Modular Technologies, Inc. announced the XceedStor 500S 2.5" SATA SSD, an SSD designed for the server market offering the performance and reliability of an enterprise-class drive.

Combining advanced controller technology, tier-one OEM-enterprise firmware, proven power fail technology, and the latest generation of MLC NAND flash, the XceedStor 500S delivers an enterprise-class SSD.

"The enterprise market is ripe for SSD implementations in server applications that offer the low cost of MLC flash with the reliability and performance previously only achievable with single-level cell flash," said Joseph Unsworth, Research Director, NAND Flash and SSD, Gartner. Gartner forecasts that the total number of SSDs sold for enterprise server applications in 2012 will exceed 3.8 million, with total revenue of more than $1.4 billion. The compound annual growth rate for revenue from 2010-2015 is projected at 34.2%.

The XceedStor 500S SSD was designed to address the growing need for solid-state storage in the server and cloud computing markets. Featuring capacities of 60GB to 480GB and supporting a 6Gb/s SATA interface, the XceedStor 500S SSD provides 500MB/s sequential read/write and 60K/20K IOPS random read/write performance.

"The XceedStor 500S SSD expands SMART’s SSD portfolio to address the needs of cost-sensitive enterprise datacenters without sacrificing the high level of reliability and performance required by these applications," said John Scaramuzzo, SMART’s Senior Vice President and General Manager, Storage Business Unit. "With the XceedStor 500S SSD, we set out to optimize reliability, performance, and cost, resulting in an enterprise-worthy SATA SSD that enables broad adoption in the enterprise server market."

Leveraging the same firmware in SMART’s existing enterprise class SSDs, the XceedStor also incorporates backup-power circuitry to ensure the highest level of data integrity. The XceedStor 500S SSD benefits from the features of the SandForce enterprise class controller, allowing it to achieve an MTBF of 2 million hours and data reliability of less than 1 in 1018 bits read.

"SandForce is very excited to continue our great relationship and technological collaboration with SMART and accelerate the adoption of solid-state storage in volume enterprise applications," notes Thad Omura, VP of Marketing for SandForce. "The XceedStor 500S uses the latest SandForce enterprise SSD processor which is equipped with our enterprise tested firmware and feature set, resulting in industry-leading reliability, performance and energy efficiency for the mass server market."

The XceedStor 500S SSD will be available for sampling in October.