SGI SSD Options

The current product portfolio breaks down as follows:

Client
Client level SSDs should be considered for boot drive or for other workloads without a lot of writing. However, many of the SGI Client SSDs have some enterprise features and can be considered for appropriate workloads. SGI cannot guarantee the longevity of an SSD without write throttling; therefore wear out due to flash exhaustion will not be covered by the warranty on drives without write throttle. Using the "smartctl" command and/or "smartd", users can monitor the life of their drive, to manage the drive and keep track of flash life remaining.

• 80GB MLC 2.5" - Redundant Flash; Power Loss Protection; 10TB endurance
• 120GB MLC 2.5"- Redundant Flash; Power Loss Protection; 15TB endurance
• 160GB MLC 2.5" - Redundant Flash; Power Loss Protection; 15TB endurance
• 300GB MLC 2.5" - Redundant Flash; Power Loss Protection; 30TB endurance
• 600GB MLC 2.5" - Redundant Flash; Power Loss Protection; 60TB endurance

Enterprise
An SSD potentially has four features that can qualify it as "enterprise" level. The enterprise SSDs in SGI's current portfolio feature these four features which will guarantee data protection and performance of the drive over its entire lifecycle. The features are:

• Write throttling
  SSDs with write throttle allow a warranty guarantee, even with MLC flash. The write throttle will only be invoked if the drive detects that the rate of writes would cause flash to wear out prematurely. SLC models will not have to use a write throttle, even when it is available. An important factor to remember is that write throttling will limit performance significantly if an MLC drive is used for an extended period in a heavy write workload.

• Redundancy of flash to minimize chance of uncorrectable errors.
  SSDs with this feature use XOR algorithms similar to RAID5 to enable recovery of user data even when suffering an uncorrectable ECC error while reading flash. This helps to enable long life of the SSD and high reliability.

• Protection from data loss in case of power failure
  SSDs with this feature use some sort of capacitance to flush data in internal RAM buffers to flash in case of a power failure. Another alternative is not to use a write cache, but that generally impacts performance negatively.

• 27+% Over-provisioning
  This feature reduces available space and somewhat increases cost per Gigabyte of useable capacity. However, it greatly improves the ability of the SSD to manage flash, making performance more stable and increasing life.

SGI Enterprise SSDs:

• 200GB MLC 6Gb SATA 2.5" with 600TB endurance
• 400GB MLC 6Gb SATA 2.5" with 1200TB endurance
• 100GB SLC 6Gb SAS 2.5" with 8200TB endurance
• 200GB SLC 6Gb SAS 2.5" with 16000TB endurance
• 400GB SLC 6Gb SAS 2.5" with 32000TB endurance