StorExpress adds capacity up to 4TB of direct attached storage (DAS) delivering over 270,000 IOPS performance: Dolphin today unveiled new higher capacity members of its StorExpress storage product line. With leading-edge PCI Express flash memory technology (PCIe SSD), StorExpress breaks new ground for capacity and performance for data-intensive financial, eCommerce, defense, and entertainment applications.

The new products, supporting up to 4TB of PCIe SSD in a single rack mount enclosure, complement the existing low-profile StorExpress products available in capacities of .5TB, 1TB and 2TB. StorExpress can deliver over 270,000 read and write IOPs (512 bytes to 4KB blocks) and up to 2,800 MB/sec of sustained bandwidth. StorExpress products are directly attached to host servers through external extension of PCI Express with x8 cables. The direct PCI Express connectivity eliminates need for intermediate protocols resulting in up to 10X better write transaction performance than SATA-based SSDs.

With major advances in reliability, write performance and cost, PCI Express-based flash storage solutions are deploying rapidly as internal server storage. StorExpress adds the advantages of external DAS storage to this technology (e-PCIe SSD). This is particularly useful for low profile rack or blade servers that are PCI Express slot constrained. Additionally, the StorExpress enclosure can be up to 300m away from the host server using fiber, often useful when security or noise isolation is critical.

StorExpress supports virtualization for multi-core servers ensuring efficient use of shared storage across virtual machines. Additional high availability functionality is supported, including RAID 0/1, 5 and replication.

Beyond classic remote storage benefits, StorExpress seamlessly integrates with Dolphin's PCI Express server connectivity products to provide combined clustering and storage solutions. Multiple StorExpress enclosures can be attached to a single server or shared across multiple servers. Ideal configurations can be created for high-performance database or low-latency financial applications, as well as many I/O bound industrial and HPC applications.

"Externally attached PCIe SSD solutions represent a new category of high-performance storage (e-PCIe SSD DAS). StorExpress, as a first entrant in this category, delivers the breakthrough benefits of PCIe SSD but with support for flexible datacenter configurations," said Tim Miller, CEO, Dolphin. "Externally attached PCIe SSD coupled with Dolphin's PCIe interconnect capabilities promises to deliver the best of all worlds: the simplicity of DAS, the flexibility of SAN and the breakout performance of SSD."

The StorExpress products are available for order immediately. Prices start at under $20K.