14 DAY TRIAL // IBM has recently announced that it is going to provide solid-state drives as an added option to the company's line of Power System servers, as part of a plan to push SSDs as a solution for its series of server lines. In addition to the announcement about the new SSD option for its Power System line of servers, IBM also announced the availability of a new software application, dubbed Data Balancer and designed to enable system administrators to move frequently accessed data on SSDs for improved performance.
IBM has been promoting the use of SSDs for some time now, as a performance alternative for its line of computer servers. With the announcement made on Thursday, the system vendor is now offering an SSD alternative for its line of Power6 systems. According to IBM, customers will be able to equip their Power System servers with 69GB SSDs that will be available in both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch form factors and boast a SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) controller, for increased performance. The price tag of the new option for Power SSDs is rated at about US$145 per gigabyte.
However, IBM doesn't believe that SSDs will make up for more than 5 percent of a company's average total storage capacity, which is why they are rated as a performance option rather than as a solution for increased capacity. This is one of the reasons why IBM is also offering its new i:ASP Data Balancer, which will allow a system administrator to put the most frequently accessed data (or 'hot' data) on an SSD, while the less used data (or 'cold' data) can be stored on traditional HDDs.
With the announcement, IBM also unveiled new solid state drives for System X servers, as well as the availability of 3.5-inch SSDs for its System Storage DS8000 platform. For System X servers customers will be able to choose a 2.5-inch 50GB SATA drive, which operates at only 2.1 watts of power. An additional 50GB drive is designed for higher I/O and is available in either 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch form factors.