COMPUTEX, TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 5,
2012-SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader
in flash memory storage solutions, today introduced
Lightning® PCI Express (PCIe) Solid State Accelerator
(SSA) cards designed to boost the performance of workstations and
servers used in data centers, server farms and cloud computing
environments.
The new SanDisk® Lightning PCIe SSA
products can be added to workstations and servers to provide
balanced, predictable performance for enterprise applications,
delivering the ideal combination of speed, reliability and
cost-savings. The cards provide rapid access to the most frequently
used data and applications in order to more effectively manage
heavy workloads. They are part of SanDisk's growing portfolio of
solid state drive (SSD) solutions for the enterprise.
The new PCIe products from SanDisk
address a wide variety of uses - from financial institutions
analyzing and processing massive amounts of information around the
clock; to social media and website providers whose customers demand
a nearly instant response with every click of a mouse; to media
content creators editing high-definition videos.
"SanDisk PCIe SSAs deliver balanced
performance, speeding access to critical data in a simple and
cost-effective way," said Greg Goelz, vice president and general
manager, Enterprise Storage Solutions, SanDisk. "Enterprise
businesses can now leverage a PCIe acceleration solution that
combines SanDisk's leading NAND flash memory technology and its
innovative controller design to offer the enterprise-grade
reliability and scalability that our customers depend on."
Lightning PCIe SSAs offer SanDisk's
proven enterprise SSD technology and feature an advanced controller
using a parallel processing architecture to manage essential data
protection and input/output (I/O) functions. This results in
balanced performance as data is accessed, with little impact on
central processor (CPU) loading and no need for additional, costly
DRAM memory.
In addition to their
enterprise-class reliability, the Lightning PCIe SSAs feature low
power requirements and include an industry-standard driver that
requires no additional software or system modification. The cards
can easily be added to almost any computing system to deliver a
simple, quick solution for performance acceleration. Several
innovative companies have already sampled SanDisk's PCIe cards and
experienced the benefits they can deliver. "The new Lightning
Enterprise PCIe solid state accelerators from SanDisk provide us
with the application acceleration we need to create more efficient
workflows for a fraction of the cost of previously deployed
solutions," said Ramy Katrib, Founder and CEO of DigitalFilm Tree.
DigitalFilm Tree is an industry leader in defining and applying
emerging "data centric" technologies to creative workflows.
A caching option is available for
Windows operating systems by using SanDisk FlashSoft™
data caching software, which can be purchased separately. Data
centers can support large server workloads by combining the
Lightning PCIe SSA as an additional storage tier in conjunction
with SanDisk FlashSoft data caching software.
Based on the next-generation PCIe
2.0 interface, Lightning PCIe SSAs are easily installed into any
four lane (x4) or greater PCIe slot, delivering enterprise-class
performance and reliability for demanding data center and cloud
computing applications that are needed around-the-clock.
Incorporating an advanced SanDisk controller, they offer low power
requirements, a two million hour MTBF (mean time between failures)
rate and an industry-leading five year warranty.
SanDisk Lightning PCIe SSAs are
available in 200 gigabyte (GB)1 and 400GB capacities. Up
to five cards may be installed into a single system to provide up
to two terabytes (TB)1 of capacity.
Additional Detail and
Features
- Fast Response Times: Lightning PCIe products
offer 245 microsecond average response times and sub-30 millisecond
maximum response times reflecting dramatic performance gains in
real-world applications running heavy workloads.
- Low Latency: The new PCIe cards from SanDisk
deliver as low as 50 microsecond sustained read and write
latency.
- Industry Standard Driver: Industry-standard
drivers are integrated for use with major Microsoft
Windows®, Linux and VMWare® ESX environments.
No additional system reconfiguration or software is needed.
- Low Power: The SanDisk PCIe SSAs require just
15 watts of power, eliminating special cooling requirements and
resulting in additional savings.
- Bootable OS Drive Option: Lightning Enterprise
PCIe SSAs are bootable devices which support multiple Logical Unit
Numbers (LUNs).
- Enterprise-Grade Reliability Features:
Lightning PCIe SSAs include "background patrol read" to check
blocks of data on storage devices, capacitor backed cache (CBC) to
protect against data loss without battery back-up or
supercapacitors, and an industry leading five-year limited
warranty.
Pricing and
Availability:
SanDisk Lightning PCIe Enterprise SSAs will be available for
purchase in 200GB (LP 206M) and 400GB (LP406M) capacities for
$1,350 and $2,350 MSRP (USD) respectively at select authorized
retailers in North America, including Avnet, CDW, Newegg.com and
TigerDirect.com. For more information, please visit www.sandisk.com/enterprise-storage-solutions.
SanDisk Solid State
Drives
SanDisk offers a full portfolio of products for the retail, OEM
and enterprise channels. In the retail channel, SanDisk offers the
SanDisk
Extreme® SSD, which features industry-leading
performance for gamers and other heavy computer users.
OEM products include the SanDisk U100 SSD for
cost-effective performance and customizable form factors, the
SanDisk X100
SSD featuring the utmost in performance and storage capacity for
desktop and notebook PC manufacturers, and the SanDisk iSSD™ integrated
storage device for an embedded micro SSD SATA form factor. All
models are available as standalone SSDs or dual drive caching
solutions.
For the enterprise channel, in
addition to PCIe products announced today, Lightning®
SAS-based SSDs provide the industry's widest array of flexible
cloud and data center system design solutions. The drives deliver
dramatic I/O performance, predictable performance and superior
reliability over competing SSD technology.
About
SanDisk
SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) is a global leader in flash memory
storage solutions, from research and development, product design
and manufacturing to branding and distribution for OEM and retail
channels. Since 1988, SanDisk's innovations in flash memory and
storage system technologies have provided customers with new and
transformational digital experiences. SanDisk's diverse product
portfolio includes flash memory cards and embedded solutions used
in smart phones, tablets, digital cameras, camcorders, digital
media players and other consumer electronic devices, as well as USB
flash drives and solid-state drives (SSD) for the computing market.
SanDisk's products are used by consumers and enterprise customers
around the world.
SanDisk is a Silicon Valley-based
S&P 500 and Fortune 500 company, with more than half its sales
outside the United States. For more information, visit www.sandisk.com.
1gigabyte = 1 billion
bytes. 1 terabyte = 1 trillion bytes. Some capacity not available
for data storage. To purchase FlashSoft™ software, visit www.sandisk.com.
© 2012 SanDisk Corporation. All
rights reserved. SanDisk, SanDisk Extreme and Lightning are
trademarks of SanDisk Corporation and/or its subsidiaries,
registered in the United States and other countries, SanDisk iSSD
and FlashSoft are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation and/or its
subsidiaries. Other brand names mentioned herein are for
identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their
respective holder(s).
This press release contains certain
forward-looking statements, including expectations for new
products, applications, features and markets that are based on our
current expectations and involve numerous risks and uncertainties
that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate.
Risks that may cause these forward-looking statements to be
inaccurate include among others: the market demand for our products
may grow more slowly than our expectations or our products may not
be available in the regions, capacities, technologies or form
factors or at the prices that we anticipate, or our products may
not perform as expected, and the other risks detailed from
time-to-time in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and
reports, including, but not limited to, our most recent quarterly
report on Form 10-Q and our annual report on Form 10-K. We do not
intend to update the information contained in this news
release.