14 DAY TRIAL // Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has become part of Western Digital under the name of HGST, but there doesn't seem to have been any relevant disruption to its operations yet, meaning that product releases are still happening.
This once, we get to look at the first ever SAS solid state drive to exhibit a transfer speed of 12 Gigabits per second.
That's right, enterprise servers can do a victory dance now that they have something twice as good as what they normally have to use.
That isn't to say that the 6 Gbps SAS interface is going anywhere, because it isn't, and 12 Gbps SAS is even backwards-compatible with it.
Nevertheless, HGST's new invention leads to a bandwidth of 4.8 GB/s per drive, dramatically cutting latencies on data centers compared to the current standard.
As if that wasn't enough, the 12 Gbps SAS drive is compatible with LSI's and PCM-Sierra's 12 Gb/s SAS HBAs and expanders. Without this sort of support, the industry wouldn't adopt the new standard so eagerly, regardless of how capable.
"We have successfully achieved interoperability between our 12 Gb/s SAS drive and 12 Gb/s SAS HBAs and expanders from both LSI and PMC-Sierra," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing, HGST.
HGST is going to demonstrate the technology at the SCSI Trade Association Technology Showcase on May 9, 2012, at the Hyatt Hotel in Santa Clara, California. We expect cloud servers and data centers to quickly warm up to 12 Gbps SAS after that. There is no guarantee that we will experience any effects this year but, then again, nothing is ever truly certain.
"Meeting these interoperability milestones is critical when preparing the industry for the adoption of a new interface standard. We will continue to promote broad industry support for 12 Gb/s SAS, including our sponsorship and participation in the SCSI Trade Association Technology Showcase on May 9," Collins stated.