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back to article DRAM whammed, thank you ma'am: Kaminario K2 flash bests sib at SPC-1

Kaminario has submitted an SPC-1 benchmark run on its K2 flash array, and it's reached the top. It's booted the DRAM version of its K2 array off the top spot with a fourth-generation product, the K2 v4. The K2 DRAM scored 1,219,973.91 IOPS from its 1.2TB of RAM in July last year. The K2 v4 system used 28 K-Nodes, each with …

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  1. btrower

    Is this the future?

    I am not convinced that Flash in its current form will be here a decade hence. However, I am pretty sure that tape and hdd devices are on their way out. Beyond various other fundamental limitations, they do not properly lend themselves to random access. Their ability to transfer data is becoming bottle-necked to the point where it cannot be effectively transferred in and out.

    Big shops have had requirements to store backups in a safe way so they can be accessed many years hence. The volumes soon to be available in online storage will allow data storage to move there instead. I expect data storage that is not at worst a second or two away will be a thing of the past in twenty years, maybe less.

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    1. Nate Amsden
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      Re: Is this the future?

      Disk isn't going anywhere, not until the cost of flash goes below that of disk. How many exabytes of disk are shipped each year? Just think of the explosion in "big data", the bulk of that is not highly active so will remain on spinning rust for some time to come.

      Flash may certainly put rust out to pasture for highly transactional workloads, as long as the cost continues to drop.

      BTW I'd guesstimate 3PAR 7450 SPC-1 at ~410,000

      HP built the 7450 as an "optimized SSD" platform -- they don't consider the VSP to be optimized (nor do they consider their own V800 to be optimized for the same reasons) - it's too big. Just look it takes 2 cabinets for the SPC-1 config(not only that they are "short stroking" their SSDs, storage utilization is terrible on the VSP SPC-1).

      The 7450 takes 4U. For that same reason HP doesn't support spinning rust on the 7450, even though technically there is nothing stopping spinning rust from working, it's the same hardware and software as a 7400 just beefed up CPU and memory.

      HP claims that even with the 7450 they are still CPU limited for more IOPS. The form factor limits the number and wattage of CPUs that they can use.

      I suspect they won't rev their V-class platform with the newer CPUs and more ram, they will probably stick with the 7450 and if you need more than that single box can provide then just get more of em. There can't be too many single workloads out there that really need to drive 400k SPC-1, so the strategy makes sense to me.

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    2. Dave Hilling
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      Re: Is this the future?

      Tape is not on the way out either. I can still store TB after TB on tape that I dont have disk for. LTO 8 is planned for 12.8 TB a tape uncompressed. 2.5x compressed. Also remember many people cannot nor will not save their data in someone elses DC which could one day randomly shutdown.

      People have been calling tape dead for 10 years and it just keeps goin.

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      1. Charles 9
        Reply Icon

        Re: Is this the future?

        Tape may not be dead, bit it's been niched. It's now pretty much an enterprise device.

        Personally, I wouldn't mind a consumer-grade version of this stuff. Given all the stuff the average user starts accumulating like a magpie, having the ability to take a cassette holding a few TB and putting it elsewhere for a rainy day. The tapes themselves aren't so bad price-wise, but the DRIVES...(shudders).

        Yes, I know there are external hard drives, but I always worry about the controller hardware in them, not to mention I've had a few (mostly Seagates) show signs of giving out. But from what I can tell, the demand just isn't there and external drives fit a "good enough" niche.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good luck

    Getting EMC to run an SPC-1 test.....

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Attention to detail

    It's not an all-flash IBM Storwize V7000 in fifth place, it's 16 of them strapped behind a 8 node IBM SVC cluster (40 controllers total) no SSD's in sight, instead it's all short stroked spinning rust. The single system single all flash IBM V7000 system wasn't anywhere near that number coming in at number 21 on your chart.

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