SanDisk packs 400GB into microSD

SanDisk announced the highest capacity microSD card to date: 400GB. This would be sufficient for 40 hours of full HD video. Transfer speed is rated at up to 100 MB/s.

The 400GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card comes just two years after a 200GB version was announced. MSRP is $250.

“We continue to push technology boundaries and transform the way consumers use their mobile devices,” said Sven Rathjen, vice president, product marketing, Western Digital.

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SanDisk Intros 256GB Ultra microSD Card

Western Digital's SanDisk division introduced the first microSD card that meets the Application Performance Class 1 (A1) requirements from the latest SD Association’s SD 5.1 specifications. The 256GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card can hold up to 24 hours of Full HD video and with premium transfer speeds of up to 95MB/s.

The A1 spec allows the new card to manage random read input-output access per second (IOPS) of 1,500 and write IOPS of 500, so it can quickly open apps and process accompanying tasks, such as audio, graphics, saved profiles and in-app permissions. With this in mind, the new SanDisk Ultra microSD card with A1 is designed to provide consumers a faster, more powerful app experience using cards.

“SD technology is trusted by consumers around the world for its reliable, backwards compatible and highly interoperable storage, making it the world’s leading memory format with billions of SD memory cards and devices in the market,” said Brian Kumagai, SDA president. “The A1 specification will help consumers identify the appropriate card to ensure an optimal experience when running and launching apps on their smartphone. We are pleased that SanDisk will release an A1 card, and continues to contribute to breakthrough technologies enabled by the microSD format.”

MSRP is $199.99.

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SoftBank Adopts SanDisk's Multi-petabyte Flash Platform

SoftBank has adopted the SanDisk InfiniFlash all-flash storage platform for its software-defined storage solution.

Specifically, SoftBank has built a new software-defined, multi-petabyte in-house system using the SanDisk InfiniFlash platform as its core storage engine for real-time data transaction applications, enabling the installation of software in general-purpose servers. Previously, SoftBank was running an in-house traditional storage system combining hard disk drives (HDD) and solid state drives (SSD) for some of its applications.

SanDisk said its InfiniFlash platform offers up to 512TB of recording density in one 3-rack-unit (3U) platform.

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Toshiba and WD Inaugurate Flash Memory Fab in Japan

Toshiba and Western Digital celebrated the opening of the New Fab 2 semiconductor fabrication facility located in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture, Japan.

The new facility will support the conversion of the companies’ 2D NAND capacity to 3D flash memory, allowing realization of solutions offering higher densities and better device performance. Construction began in September 2014.

Satoshi Tsunakawa, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation, said, “Advanced technologies underline our commitment to respond to continued demand as an innovator in flash memory. We are enhancing manufacturing efficiency and the quality of our world-class facility. Building on that, we also plan investments of as much as 860 billion yen by FY2018, in line with the market situation. Our commitment is firm, and we are confident that our joint venture with Western Digital will produce cost competitive next generation memories at Yokkaichi.”

http://www.toshiba.com

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SanDisk Pops 256GB MicroSD Cards

SanDisk introduced two 256 gigabyte (GB) microSD cards -- a high-performance 256GB SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I card – the fastest microSD card in its class, and the 256GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, Premium Edition, for mainstream consumers.

“Our microSD cards are now at the center of many consumer devices, and we’re excited to not only raise the bar with the launch of the world’s fastest microSD card, but to also offer a family of 256GB microSD cards that give consumers the flexibility they need to capture life at its fullest,” said Dinesh Bahal, vice president of SanDisk product marketing, Western Digital. “As a leading global storage provider with one of the most trusted flash brands, we take pride in transforming the way consumers capture, store and share their content.”

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SanDisk Brings 12 Gbps to InfiniFlash for Data Centers

SanDisk introduced its InfiniFlash IF150 system featuring upgraded 12Gbps SAS connectivity and the same massive capacity for big data and hyperscale workloads.

The IF150 system delivers up to two million raw IOPS and consistently low latency, the IF150 system supports demanding workloads by addressing scalability and availability challenges. It offers up to half a petabyte (512 terabytes) of flash storage in one 3-rack-unit (3U) system and can directly connect up to eight off-the-shelf-servers.

SanDisk cites a $1 per GB price point for raw flash.  Compression and de-dupe capability in storage software (available from SanDisk InfiniFlash ecosystem partners) can further reduce the effective price per GB.

“Since its launch, the game-changing performance and economic benefits of the InfiniFlash System have been recognized by customers—from data centers in research institutions doing big data analytics to web providers, hyperscalers and video streaming companies who manage data on a massive scale, and more,” said Ravi Swaminathan, vice president and general manager of systems and software solutions at SanDisk. “With our new IF150 system, we have pushed the performance even further, while at the same time delivering massive-scale storage at a price point that makes business sense.”

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Video: Infinite Storage Bandwidth

We're facing a really big problem in shared storage because CPU bandwidth is not keeping up with network bandwidth or SSD bandwidth, says Fritz Kruger, Engineering Fellow and Chief Hardware Architectu for SanDisk System and Software Solutions.

This video looks at the widening performance gap between network, storage and DRAM bandwidth.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/JHcIVhq199Q

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SanDisk and IBM Team on Software-Defined All-Flash Storage

SanDisk and IBM announced a collaboration focused on next-generation, software-defined, all-flash storage solutions for the data center.

The partnership brings together SanDisk’s InfiniFlash System—a high-capacity and extreme-performance flash-based software defined storage system with IBM Spectrum Scale filesystem, which a software-defined, distributed, parallel filesystem, for high performance, large scale workloads on-premises or in the cloud. Featuring the ability to automatically tier data based on application needs, the Spectrum Scale software-defined storage solution provides file, object, and integrated data analytics for:

• Compute clusters (technical computing)
• Big data and analytics
• Cognitive computing
• Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS)
• Private cloud
• Content repositories

“Our initiative with IBM brings the best of both worlds to data centers: breakthrough economics compared to traditional all-flash array deployments, and dramatically higher performance, improved reliability and lower power consumption compared to hard disk drive-based arrays,” said Ravi Swaminathan, vice president and general manager, System and Software Solutions, SanDisk. “These offerings enable customers to economically deploy flash at petabyte-scale, which drive business growth through new services and offerings for their end-customers.”

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SanDisk Software Delivers Flash Performance Boost for Virtualized Apps

SanDisk released a new version of its FlashSoft server-side, solid state caching software that delivers significant application performance acceleration gains, up to three to five times, especially in transactional and virtualized environments which often experience high I/O latency.

This newest version of its FlashSoft server-side is updated for Microsoft Windows Server, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Linux operating systems. It ensures that the most frequently accessed data (hot data) is serviced by server-side flash rather than slower back-end storage. This alleviates storage performance bottlenecks and accelerates applications by reducing response time, without mandating a large investment in hardware. Organizations running large database-driven applications on shared storage infrastructures typically experience high I/O latency as the primary constraint on application performance. FlashSoft software helps address the pain points of these enterprises by dramatically improving availability of hot data.

“This new offering exemplifies our dedication to transforming the data center through flash technology,” said Ravi Swaminathan, vice president and general manager, Systems and Software Solutions, SanDisk. “We recognize that efficient access to data for key applications is an essential requirement for our enterprise customers. The new version of FlashSoft software now offers customers even better application acceleration, regardless of the environment or scale.”

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SanDisk and HP Target Breakthrough Memristor Memories

SanDisk and HP announced a long-term partnership to collaborate on a new technology within the Storage Class Memory (SCM) category. The partnership will leverage HP’s Memristor technology and expertise and SanDisk’s non-volatile ReRAM memory technology and manufacturing and design expertise.

The companies said Memristor technology could be up to 1,000 times faster than flash storage and offer up to 1,000 times more endurance than flash storage. It also is expected to offer significant cost, power, density and persistence improvements over DRAM technologies. The SCM technology and its characteristics are intended to allow systems to employ tens of terabytes (TB) of SCM per server node for applications such as in-memory databases, real-time data analytics, transactional and high-performance computing.

The two companies also will partner in enhancing data center solutions with Solid State Drives (SSDs).

“We are very excited to deepen our relationship with HP and enhance its leadership offerings by using our complete portfolio of enterprise SAS, SATA and PCIe products, and leading-edge enterprise system solutions,” said Siva Sivaram, Executive Vice President, Memory Technology, SanDisk. “Our partnership to collaborate on new SCM technology solutions is expected to revolutionize computing in the years ahead.”

http://www.hp.com
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SanDisk and Nexenta Build Open Software-defined Storage (OpenSDS) Flash Array

Nexenta's flagship software-only storage platform has been integrated with SanDisk’s all-flash InfiniFlash IF100 system.

Capable of scaling from 64 Terabyte (TB) to two Petabyte (PB) configurations, this unique software and hardware solution supports a broad range of deployment scenarios and workloads including, virtualization, Big Data analytics, data warehousing, and dynamic modeling. Built on ZFS, this resilient scale-up, unified block (FC and iSCSI) and file (NFS and SMB) storage solution provides enterprise customers with peace of mind and the assurance needed around functionality and performance. Key differentiators of this joint solution include NexentaStor's inline data reduction and high performance dual parity raid capabilities as well as the InfiniFlash IF100’s extra low space, power and cooling requirements, resulting in industry leading TCO.

“The coupling of our NexentaStor software and SanDisk’s InfiniFlash systems delivers the industry lowest cost solutions for high performance (ultra low, consistent, sub-millisecond response times and more than 8 Million flash IOPS in a rack) mature unified block and file services to cloud service providers and enterprise customers,” said Tarkan Maner, CEO of Nexenta. “These solutions literally break new ground and make all flash storage economically practical for a wide range of use cases, from high performance databases, to virtualized environments, big data lakes and extra dense active archive repositories.”

The integrated system monitoring and event management capabilities of the new solution, eases system management which ensures a better customer experience. NexentaStor’s ability to support block and file services allows customers to address use cases such as: VMware vCloud Air, OpenStack and CloudStack backend storage, generic NAS file services and Home Directory storage, etc.

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http://www.nexenta.com

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SanDisk and Toshiba Announce 256 Gigabit 3D NAND Chip

SanDisk and Toshiba have begun samplingt a 256 Gigabit (Gb) 3-bit-per-cell (X3) 48-layer 3D NAND chip at a fab in Yokkaichi, Japan.

SanDisk’s 256 Gb X3 BiCS chip is designed for wide applicability in consumer, client, mobile and enterprise products, and is expected to begin shipping in SanDisk’s products in 2016.

“We are pleased to announce our first 3D NAND chip targeted for production,” said Dr. Siva Sivaram, executive vice president, memory technology, SanDisk. “This is the world’s first 256 Gb X3 chip, developed using our industry-leading 48-layer BiCS technology1 and demonstrating SanDisk’s continued leadership in X3 technology. We will use this chip to deliver compelling storage solutions for our customers.”

BiCS is a nonvolatile memory architecture designed to bring new levels of density, scalability and performance to flash-based devices. BiCS NAND memory will also provide enhanced write/erase endurance, write speeds and energy efficiency relative to conventional 2D NAND.

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SanDisk's New Fusion ioMemory PCIe Bring 61% Price Cut

SanDisk unveiled a new generation of its Fusion ioMemory PCIe application accelerators — comprised of SanDisk NAND flash, and Virtual Storage Layer (VSL) data access acceleration software that bring up to a 4x price performance improvement, with up to a 61 percent list price reduction over the previous generation Fusion ioDrive product.

The Fusion ioMemory portfolio offers an array of form factors ranging from PCIe cards to mezzanine storage for HP and Cisco blade servers. Each card is optimized for mixed-use or read-intensive workloads and can also be paired with SanDisk’s recently announced next generation FlashSoft caching software, which reduces I/O latency in VMware vSphere, Windows Server and Linux environments, helping customers further accelerate enterprise applications.

“Fusion-io’s technology fundamentally transformed expectations about data center performance when it debuted eight years ago and it remains the standard by which all other PCIe products are judged,” said John Scaramuzzo, senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise Storage Solutions, SanDisk. “Combining the power of Fusion ioMemory technology with SanDisk’s vertically integrated NAND flash, our engineering talent and portfolio of SATA and SAS SSDs, provides customers with an unparalleled combination of flexibility, performance, scalability, quality and value to help solve their data center challenges.”

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SanDisk Show All-Flash VMware Virtual SAN

SanDisk is showcasing an all-flash VMware Virtual SAN 6 architecture that can perform more than two million transactions per minute (TPM) for database transaction processing and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) applications.

The new Virtual SAN 6, which can be deployed at entry-level as a 4-node cluster that can scale up to a total of 64 nodes, leverages SanDisk Lightning Gen. II 12Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) SSDs and CloudSpeed SATA SSDs to provide the cache and persistent storage tiers.

“This new all-flash VMware Virtual SAN design from SanDisk provides our mutual customers with increased levels of virtual machine (VM) performance density with scalability and the necessary price/performance SSD attributes,” said Charles Fan, senior vice president and general manager, Storage and Availability Business Unit, VMware.

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SanDisk Intros Automotive Grade Flash Storage

SanDisk introduced a suite of robust, automotive grade NAND flash solutions optimized for connected cars and automotive infotainment systems.

SanDisk anticipates a the need for high-performance storage in a range of in-vehicle applications, including 3D mapping and advanced augmented reality in navigation systems, entertainment systems, intuitive driver assist technology, data event recorders, etc.

The SanDisk Automotive portfolio of storage solutions includes an automotive grade SanDisk SD card and iNAND embedded flash drive (EFD), which are available to automotive manufacturers in capacities up to 64GB. The devices are designed to perform in temperatures from -40 degrees C to 85oC.

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Huawei Picks SanDisk ULLtraDIMM SSD with 5 Microsecond Latency

Huawei Technologies will use SanDisk's new ULLtraDIMM SSD in its high-performance RH8100 V3 servers. Testing by Huawei demonstrated the ULLtraDIMM SSD achieved the industry’s lowest write latency at less than five microseconds and offered bandwidth that topped that of any other SSD solution. Adding flash-based storage to the DDR memory bus with direct connection to the processor allows Huawei to deliver a more powerful solution. Huawei will combine the ULLtraDIMM with its self-developed caching software in order to accelerate application performance with the lowest possible latency, while offering the scalability to handle bandwidth-intensive database and virtualization applications.

“The ULLtraDIMM SSD was designed to expand the reach of ultra-low latency flash storage throughout the data center and scale to meet the requirements of any enterprise application, no matter how bandwidth or capacity intensive,” said John Scaramuzzo, senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise Storage Solutions at SanDisk. “We are very excited to partner with Huawei to offer this innovative, ultra-low latency storage solution, which will accelerate the performance of its customers’ cloud, virtualization, OLTP, HPC and other applications, and help them experience the benefits of a flash-transformed data center.”

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SanDisk to Acquire Fusion-io for Flash PCIe Arrays

SanDisk agreed to acquire Fusion-io (NYSE: FIO), a leading developer of flash-based PCIe hardware and software solutions, for approximately $1.1 billion, net of cash assumed.

Fusion-io, which is based in Salt Lake City, generated sales of $432 million in 2013 for its NAND Flash-based storage arrays for data centers.  The Fusion-io software creates a virtual storage layer that enables file systems, volume managers, and applications to access flash through a common block interface. The company was founded in 2005 and has about 875 employees.

SanDisk, which is based in Milpitas, California, has been a storage leader for over 25 years.

“Fusion-io will accelerate our efforts to enable the flash-transformed data center, helping companies better manage increasingly heavy data workloads at a lower total cost of ownership,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, SanDisk president and CEO. “Customers will benefit from the addition of Fusion-io’s leading PCIe solutions to SanDisk’s vertically integrated business model. We look forward to working with the world-class engineering and go-to-market teams from Fusion-io to provide high-value solutions to customers around the world.”

“This transaction represents a compelling opportunity for Fusion-io’s employees, customers and shareholders,” said Shane Robison, chairman and CEO of Fusion-io. “Fusion-io’s innovative hardware and software solutions will be augmented by SanDisk’s worldwide scale and vertical integration, enabling a combined company that can offer an even more compelling value proposition for customers and partners.”

http://www.sandisk.com
http://www.fusionio.com

• In April, SanDisk introduced the industry’s first 4TB1 SAS SSD, surpassing all maximum capacity SAS SSDs and SAS HDDs on the market.  The Optimus MAX SSD utilizes the latest 19nm eMLC NAND flash technology.

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SanDisk Readies Lightning Gen. II 12Gb/s SAS SSDs

SanDisk has begun sampling its Lightning Gen. II family of enterprise-class 12Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) solid state drives (SSDs) for mixed-use, read- and write-intensive application workloads common in data centers.

The new Lightning Gen. II SSD product family doubles interface speeds over previously available 6Gb/s SSDs, providing the highest performance possible for mission-critical and virtualized data center application workloads. SanDisk also highlighted error correction and detection technology, full data path protection, instant secure erase, thermal monitoring, and die fail recovery capabilities of the new drives.

“Business data needs are becoming so performance-intensive that even applications that are already using SSDs need an additional boost,” said John Scaramuzzo, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Storage Solutions at SanDisk. “The Lightning Gen. II SAS SSDs deliver double the throughput to each slot, empowering organizations to quickly and easily scale their performance infrastructure to meet this growing need.”

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SanDisk Introduces Fastest Memory Card -- Write Speed of 350 MB/s

SanDisk introduced what it calls "the world's fastest memory card" -- the Extreme Pro CFastTM 2.0 , designed for professional broadcast, cinematography and next-generation professional photography.

The 120GB SanDisk Extreme Pro CFast 2.0 memory card boasts read speeds of up to 450MB/s (3000X) for maximum workflow efficiency and write speeds up to 350MB/s (2333X) for faster recording performance. This is up to double the shot speed of today’s fastest cards.

SanDisk said the new memory can move large files faster than ever. For example, a 100GB file takes nearly 20 minutes to transfer from CompactFlash at 90MB/s. With the SanDisk Extreme Pro CFast 2.0 memory card, it takes only four minutes to transfer at 450MB/s.

“With the SanDisk Extreme Pro CFast 2.0 card, we are enabling a next generation card format to meet the needs of high-end professional cinematographers,” said Dinesh Bahal, vice president, product marketing, SanDisk. “These cards will enable new digital solutions for professional filmmakers looking to embrace technologies such as high-quality 4K video, and are another example of SanDisk's innovation and leadership in flash memory storage.”

The SanDisk Extreme Pro CFast card is the first to utilize the CFast 2.0 specification. This specification was a collaboration of leading CompactFlash Association members to meet the demanding requirements of professional video and photography applications. Early adopters and endorsers include SanDisk, Canon, ARRI and Codex. The result of this alliance is the CFast 2.0 specification, delivering a new level of performance for next generation professional video and photography cameras.

Leading motion picture equipment manufacturer ARRI, will be the first to implement CFast 2.0 as recording media in a camera. The new documentary-style ARRI AMIRA will record to in-camera CFast 2.0 cards, and ALEXA XT camera users will be able to use a new CFast 2.0 adapter, allowing ALEXA XT cameras, as well as ALEXA Classic cameras upgraded with the XR Module, to do the same. Stephan Schenk, general manager of ARRI’s camera and DI systems business unit said, “SanDisk’s new SanDisk Extreme Pro CFast 2.0 cards deliver tremendous performance, allowing professionals to record ProRes 4444 up to 200Fps with AMIRA, and up to 120Fps with ALEXA XT/XR cameras, on cost-effective recording media.”

Canon is also a supporter of the CFast 2.0 standard. Masaya Maeda, managing director and chief executive of image communication product operations at Canon said, “With extremely fast performance, CFast 2.0 memory cards will enable us to develop next-generation cameras with more powerful features, enabling future 4K Ultra HD video recording capability.”

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SanDisk Optimized SSD for Data Center Applications

SanDisk introduced enhanced versions of its solid state drive (SSD) line-up for businesses that prioritize fast, consistent access to data, such as search engine and cloud storage providers and streaming media companies.

The SanDisk X210 SSD provides up to 512GB of storage and offers up to 505 MB/sec sequential read and up to 470 MB/sec sequential write speeds.  It features automated power management and is built on SanDisk’s advanced 19 nanometer (nm) manufacturing process technology.

"Since launching SanDisk’s commercial SSD channel earlier this year, we have received a tremendous response from businesses that have seen significant advantages from incorporating SanDisk solid-state technology into their data center and workplace PCs and notebooks," said Tarun Loomba, vice president of Storage Solutions marketing at SanDisk.

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