NASA Implemented FlashDisk SA-4500 From Winchester Systems

Winchester Systems Inc. announced that NASA’s
Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) established in 1991 as a division
of the NASA Langley Research Center has utilized 1.5 petabytes of data
storage to capture and store stunning earth images. In 2007 alone, NASA
distributed 275 terabytes of data to 34,000 of its customers worldwide.

NASA evaluated traditional EMC and SGI products and settled on FlashDisk
data storage arrays from Winchester Systems. According to David Cordner,
Systems Engineer, at NASA Langley, “Winchester
Systems price performance tipped the scale in its favor. We were looking
for Fibre Channel Disk Arrays that offered reliable, dense, and high
speed performance at an economical price, and that’s
what Winchester Systems delivered.”

NASA implemented FlashDisk
SA-4500 systems with SATA disks and Fibre Channel connections to
their Linux servers with ultra reliable RAID 6 dual-parity data
protection powered by a unique ASIC for high-speed parity calculations.

The company’s chief technology officer, Mr.
Jerry Namery explained, “As an original NASA
engineer at their Electronics Research Center during the initial Apollo
moon landings, I am exceptionally proud that NASA uses our products to
collect and distribute their spectacular earth images. We are pleased
that NASA chose our products from amongst all the competitive offering
and that our products meet their high standards of excellence.”

According to the company, RAID 6 dual parity offers 500 to
30,000 times longer MTDL (Mean Time To Data Loss) than RAID 5. 

“NASA was deliberate in their choice of
high-speed RAID 6 data protection. After all, it is not that easy to go
back into space to re-shoot pictures of earth. The value of the data to
NASA is literally between astronomical and priceless,”
added Mr. Joel Leider, the company’s chief
executive officer

NASA’s
Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC)

Winchester Systems Inc.