SCIENCE

SMART Modular Technologies has announced that its XceedIOPS SAS 2.5" solid state drive (SSD) will be used in the planned IBM POWER7 high-performance supercomputer.

The IBM supercomputer will use these drives to provide substantially higher levels of performance (compared to HDDs), sufficient to meet the critical data management requirements of this system.

Supercomputing requires storage solutions that can deliver long lifetimes with high reliability and data integrity under the most demanding operating environments. Due to its use of the latest 34nm Enterprise-grade Multi-Level-Cell (E-MLC) NAND flash technology, SMART's XceedIOPS SAS SSD provides superior endurance and a five-year minimum operational life even in workload-intensive environments.

SMART's XceedIOPS SAS SSD also offers extensive error-correction and detection features, multi-level data-path and code protection, data-loss recovery, and active thermal management designed to improve reliability and data integrity.

"Products like the IBM POWER7 supercomputer are defining leading-edge computing and serve as an excellent example of how the combination of performance, price, reliability, and endurance in the XceedIOPS SAS SSD enables the development of an entirely new class of application platforms," stated John Scaramuzzo, SMART's senior vice president and general manager, storage business unit. "The selection criteria for SSDs has moved beyond HDD replacement, as innovative designers such as those at IBM use the qualities of enterprise-grade SSDs to significantly enhance their products' performance, data integrity, and reliability."

The IBM POWER7 supercomputer, showcasing SMART's XceedIOPS SAS SSDs, debuted at the SC10 show in New Orleans, La., earlier this week.