Hitachi Makes Its Own Storage Offer, 25nm SSDs

Eager to offer something for the enterprise market, Hitachi Global Storage Technology has issued a press release in which it describes a newly completed line of SAS 6.0 Gbps enterprise SSDs.

The SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) interface is one that has been used by enterprise applications for years.

As such, it is not all that surprising to see it (the 6.0 Gbps iteration to be more specific) being used by the newest SSDs to leave Hitachi's labs.

The latest 2.5-inch solid state drives that Hitachi Global Storage Technology created utilize MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory chips based on the 25nm process from Intel.

“The Ultrastar SSD400M uses Intel NAND memory and SSD technology and is the result of our continuing strong relationship and joint development with Hitachi,” said Tom Rampone, Intel vice president and general manager of the Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group.

“Combining the Enterprise storage expertise of Hitachi with Intel’s leading NAND and SSD solutions allow the two companies to deliver unique high-quality and reliable MLC- and SLC-based SSD products to serve a broad range of tiered Enterprise server and storage customers.”

Prices for the 200 GB and 400 GB Ultrastar SSD400M (as they are called) were not disclosed, but the statement was made that they would be affordable compared to equivalent SLC solutions.

The MTBF is of 2 million hours, while the sequential read and write speeds are of 495 MB/s and 385 MB/s, respectively (read and write IOPS are 50,000 and 24,000).

"Our MLC SSD product family was developed as a direct answer to our customers’ needs for a reliable price/performance storage solution for high I/O Enterprise applications," said Mike Cordano, executive vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Hitachi GST.

"With this new MLC SSD offering, Hitachi now offers a full line of HDD and SLC- and MLC-based SSD storage solutions that support the entire Enterprise ecosystem."