The Solid State Drive market is without a doubt the hottest storage technology of today and even though us mortals are still wanting higher storage capacity, it’s just a matter of cost. SSD devices can be made with really high storage capacity and if nothing else you can always connect multiple drives to create a truly massive configuration. This is exactly what IBM has done and with Project Quicksilver it has combined its own storage virtualization technology with Solid State Drives.
The result is a rack solution with a storage capacity of 4.1 Terabyte and even better performance as it humiliates similar harddrive-based systems. IBM achieved groundbreaking data transfers at a sustained rate of over one million I/O per second, with a response time of less than a millisecond. Quicksilver is 250% faster, takes up one fifth of the floor space, and only requires 55% of the power and cooling consumed by an equivalent harddrive-based system.
“The ultimate benefits of solid state will require software, management and systems capabilities — with IBM being uniquely positioned, with its deep research and development capabilities and broad product and services experience, to unlock that potential,” said Andy Monshaw, general manager, system storage, IBM.
The project is of course an enterprise venture and has a lot of advantages over current solutions, and IBM claims that the system will be available on the market within 12 months. The price is unknown and to be honest, we don’t want to know.
