EMC's DMX

This week's subject is EMC's recent set of DMX announcements. Hidden in a list of routine upgrades was something that will change the technology and performance of storage -- the inclusion of a solid-state disk (SSD) option, specifically the STEC NAND-based devices, in EMC's DMX-4 array. These are more expensive than traditional disk, but they provide a huge leap in performance, essentially creating a Tier 0, the near-equivalent of holding the data in memory. They also have no moving parts, and in fact SSD has mainly been used in industrial situations where the environments are too harsh for disk use, and in smart phones, PDAs, and other tiny consumer devices too small to accommodate disk drives. But the flash devices EMC is using are not the same as those used in consumer applications. Because they have been modified for enterprise applications, and have no moving parts, they may prove more dependable than spinning disks. EMC and STEC are estimating an average five-year life-span for the NAND devices based on accelerated aging tests. And we believe that the vendors' estimates may be conservative.

Today because of its price the flash option is intended mainly for customers with very high performance I/O needs. The common practice today is to spread storage for these devices across large numbers of disks, with 20% or lower utilization, to accelerate performance. The solid state option provides a solution that can support that high I/O rate with high utilization, which can make it much more cost attractive relative to disk in these intense environments.

However, the price of flash-based NAND is dropping steadily, driven in part by economies of scale realized through increasing demand in consumer applications. Flash disks are beginning to appear in high-end portable computers, and inevitably as prices fall this technology will replace disks in an increasing number of applications.

Based on the Peer Incite research meetings, we've tried to make this newsletter about your business. We summarize the community's input from the meeting and document specific advice for users (IT), organizational considerations, technology integration issues, and vendor actions. We also address the all-important 'getting rid of stuff' (GRS).