14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like NAND Flash-based storage devices really are using a bunch of different form factors, as evidenced by the very non-ordinary line that Viking Modular Solutions has put together.
On the solid state drive market, the most common storage devices of this type are those that share the same form factors as hard disk drives.
Most of them are 2.5-inch models but, besides them, there are also such things as PCI Express drives, which are built in the shape of AIBs (add-in-boards).
Due to the high bandwidth of the PCI Express interface, those particular devices work at very high speeds, of even 1,500 MB/s or more.
Viking Modular Solutions was not that ambitious, but it did build upon a very uncommon idea, that of a SSD shaped like a RAM module.
Specifically, the company built the new SATADIMM solid state drives, which have the same form factor as DDR3 modules.
Thy are compatible with the 6 Gbps SATA and SAS interfaces and measure 25mm or 18.75mm in height (VLP, meaning very low profile).
"At Viking Modular we seek to address the real world challenges of system designers and IT departments who need increasing levels of flexibility, power and performance in their server or storage infrastructure," said Adrian Proctor, Vice President of Marketing for Viking Modular Solutions.
"Our SATADIMM products were designed with this in mind, allowing increased performance and capacity within the existing footprint. SATADIMM has the potential to change the way enterprise OEMs design their servers and will greatly influence the overall server market."
The main asset of the newcomers is their data transfer speed of 520 MB/s. They should prove useful in such things as 1U rackmount servers, AdvancedTCA blades (ATCA) and storage bridge bays (SBB).
Finally, they have sustained performance of up to 60,000 IOPS (for random reads and writes) and are built out of 25nm chips.