Smart Storage goes DIMM with memory channel storage

Smart Storage Systems this week released a server-side memory channel storage card using technology from Diablo Technologies Inc.

Smart's ULLtraDIMM flash storage boards sit in the motherboard's dual in-line memory module (DIMM) slots and use memory channel lanes for system connections. The vendor claims its cards have much lower and more consistent latency than traditional PCI Express (PCIe) flash cards or SATA and SAS solid-state drive (SSD) connections.

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Scale-out network-attached storage: Options in today’s market

In storage, scale-out systems are becoming a popular option to deal with rapid data growth. File data is growing the fastest, making network-attached storage (NAS) the most popular type of scale-out storage. Clustered NAS systems that fit the “scale-out” tag are targeted at processing heavy applications such as “big data” analytics and large file environments.

Storage vendors differ over the best way to architect a scale-out network-attached storage system, but the largest vendors and many smaller ones have pushed into the market. Most scale-out NAS systems use individual device nodes, which can be commodity servers or proprietary devices. As interest in scale-out systems has increased, well-known storage vendors such as Dell Corp., EMC Corp., Hewlett Packard (HP) Co., Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) and NetApp Inc. have acquired technology to offer their own scale-out NAS products. IBM OEMs NetApp’s technology while it develops its own.

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