SandForce Intros SSD Processor Optimized for Cloud

Next month SandForce plans to ship an SSD processor that's optimized for the cloud.

On Monday, SandForce announced the upcoming launch of its first SSD processor (or controller chip) optimized for cloud computing environments, the SF-2481. The company said the new chip increases the endurance of SSDs built with standard MLC flash by incorporating nearly twice the normal error correction strength. It also has improved Predictive Failure Analysis capability and Media Health Tests for reliability.

"As the SSD market matures, architectures are being developed to satisfy the specific needs of various market segments," said Jim Handy, SSD analyst for Objective Analysis. "SandForce is wisely targeting one of the most important SSD markets by tuning a variant of its high-performance SSD Processor to the needs of the Internet data center. This should be a good deal both for SandForce and for the company's cloud computing customers."

As with the current second generation SandForce SATA 6 Gb/s SSD Processors, the new processor provides balanced sequential read and write speeds of up to 500 MB/s, and balanced random read and write speeds of up to 60,000 I/Os per second. There's also automatic double AES encryption equal to 300-bit protection with Secure Crypto-Erase control, enterprise-level SMART attributes, and over-provisioning that can be customized by the user.

"Storage needs in Cloud computing is exploding worldwide, and to optimize the total cost of ownership, the cloud environment needs solid-state storage that performs at the highest levels with the greatest longevity and reliability on standard MLC flash," said Jeremy Werner, Director of Marketing for SandForce. "The SF-2481 SSD Processor was specifically designed to deliver the perfect combination of performance, endurance, and intelligence required in cloud computing data centers."

SandForce is currently sampling the SF-2481 SSD controller to OEMS, but there are plans to ship in mass production in January 2012 -- just before SandForce is incorporated into the new parent company, LSI Corporation, in Q1 2012.