ST Mar-Apr 2021

TECHNOLOGY: ALL-FLASH NAS
"To satisfy extremely high IOPS and throughput requirements, Infortrend has
developed this brand-new model, the all-flash NVMe storage system CS 4014N. We
upgraded software to extend SSD lifespan and notify users about timely SSD
replacement. To prevent systems from data loss and ensure high availability on node
and disk levels, CS offers various data protection mechanisms, such as RAID, Erasure
Code, and Replica. CS comes with intuitive EonOne management software for
centralised management of multiple systems, monitoring of performance and capacity
usage, and completion of all related system configurations."
Factor of SSD. Because each SSD cell can
only tolerate a finite number of
program/erase cycles before becoming
unreliable, the higher the Write
Amplification Factor, the closer SSD is to
end-of-life.
To reduce the Write Amplification Factor of
SSD and extend SSD wear life, CS 4014N
supports over-provisioning function which
provides additional capacity specifically for
data to be erased from an SSD, without
interrupting system performance. For the
same purpose of improving wear-levelling
and sustaining long-term SSD endurance
and performance, CS 4014N supports the
UNMAP/TRIM command to reclaim unused
free space from the storage by cleaning
invalid data blocks. Moreover, CS 4014
reduces the amount of write operations on
SSD by using 'write-back' cache method with
cache backup module and supercapacitor:
frequently modified data will be stored in the
memory and only final results will be written
to SSD.
DON'T WORRY ABOUT DATA LOSS
Thanks to the fact that CS 4014N supports
RAID 5/6, parity blocks are arranged in
such way that some SSDs will withstand
more writes; this prevents multiple SSDs
from being damaged at the same time so
that you can be sure in integrity of your
valuable data. Also, users can see at a
glance the condition of their storage: SSD
lifespan monitoring function displays the
real-time status of the SSDs and predicts the
remaining days of the SSD life based on the
workload. Moreover, it proactively sends
notification alerts to users when SSD lifespan
is about to end to allow timely SSD
replacement.
For achieving high performance and more
cost-saving solution, enterprises can utilise
hybrid mode by expanding the all-flash CS
4014N with HDD expansion enclosures and
set up the auto-tiering function to
automatically allocate frequently accessed
hot data in the SSD pool for faster access
and cold data onto HDDs.
POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS
The CS 4014N all-flash NVMe model is
applicable to a wide range of performance
and capacity demanding applications, e.g.
Media and Entertainment, High Performance
Computing (HPC), Artificial Intelligence (AI),
Electronic Design Automation, file sharing,
medical care (PACS), and others.
In M&E industry, CS 4014N is able to
stably play back a large number of
4K/8K high-resolution video on the
stage of collaborative media postproduction.
For HPC, thanks to low latency and
high performance, CS all-flash NVMe
model allows many servers to
simultaneously access storage system
for extracting data for computing and
stores analysing results.
As an example of AI application, CS
4014N accelerates the process of
Deep Learning training by quickly
processing I/O requests from users
collecting large amounts of data.
In IC design, which uses EDA tools
assisting in the development process,
more than 500 TB of many small files
with intricate directory access are
generated. The CS all-flash NVMe
model can provide fast access to all
these files and metadata,
considerably enhancing chip
development efficiency.
Other applications, like file sharing,
medical care (PACS), can also enjoy
the benefits of low latency and fast
data access from CS 4014N.
More info: www.infortrend.com
www.storagemagazine.co.uk
@STMagAndAwards Mar/Apr 2021
STORAGE
MAGAZINE
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