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89 Fifth Avenue, 7th Floor

New York, NY 10003

www.TheEdison.com

212.367.7400

White Paper

IBM System x eX5

High-Performance Data Storage

in x86 Environments

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright 2011 Edison Group, Inc. New York. Edison Group offers no warranty either

expressed or implied on the information contained herein and shall be held harmless for errors

resulting from its use.

All products are trademarks of their respective owners.

First Publication: September 2011

Produced by: Craig Norris, Sr Analyst; Barry Cohen, Editor-in-Chief; Manny Frishberg, Editor

Table of Contents

Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................... 1

Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 2

Audience .................................................................................................................................. 2

Contents of this Report .......................................................................................................... 2

Data Storage Trends and Issues in x86 Environments .......................................................... 3

Trends in Providing Solutions for High-Performance Storage ........................................ 3

IOPS Performance Challenges for HDDs ..................................................................... 4

Cost Challenges for High-Performance Storage .......................................................... 4

Flash SSD Solutions ......................................................................................................... 4

Developments and Innovations for the x86 Platform ....................................................... 5

IBM’s Solutions for Memory-Intensive Environments ........................................................ 6

IBM High-Performance Data Solutions ............................................................................... 6

IBM High IOPS SSD PCIe Adapter ............................................................................... 6

IBM eXFlash ...................................................................................................................... 7

Unmatched Flexibility in High-Performance Storage Options ................................. 7

Use Case Scenarios .................................................................................................................... 10

Scenario: Online Retail ......................................................................................................... 10

Scenario: Law Enforcement Operations ............................................................................ 10

Additional Scenarios ............................................................................................................ 11

Conclusions ................................................................................................................................. 12

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 1

Executive Summary

New and different data-intensive computer applications are pushing demand for

innovation in data storage. The rising popularity of social networking, demand for high

resolution in medical imaging, and the need for speed in computerized stock trading

and credit card processing all require faster access to stored data. Increased reliance on

large databases and data warehouses, as well as high-speed caches or greatly increased

data-intensive workloads, all add to the pressure to access stored information more

efficiently. Rising demand and costs for data center power and space also create a need

for more efficiency. Traditional hard disk drive (HDD) systems remain the core of

enterprise storage, but they can become an energy- and space-intensive bottleneck for

transaction-heavy database applications, such as those used in banking and financial

services, scientific research, and high-volume retail, or when organizations must

conduct very fast searches.

Processing capabilities have improved exponentially, so organizations using HDD

systems find the mechanical disk drives’ limited input/output per second (IOPS) rate

creates a choke point in their high performance operations. Traditional Storage Area

Networks (SANs) can require 10 times the amount of storage space needed to

adequately increase the IOPS for these data-intensive scenarios. This is wasteful and

inefficient; it takes up a great deal of floor and rack space, while driving up power

consumption and cooling costs.

Flash memory-based solid-state drives (SSD) were once too costly to consider for

business IT operations. Voracious consumer demand, driven by popular tablets, smart

phones, and digital cameras, have pushed prices down considerably. Using a single

server to provide adequate IOPS now can be more cost-effective than a SAN costing tens

of millions of dollars. In addition, SSDs contain no moving parts and consume a fraction

of the power required to operate and cool HDDs, while taking up a fraction of the space.

The IBM eX5 portfolio of rack servers offers two solutions for very high-

performance/high-IOPS data-driven applications and scenarios. Both IBM eXFlash and

IBM High IOPS SSD PCIe Adapters are built on flash memory-based SSD technology.

The eX5 rack servers are the only x86 platforms offering complete solutions where data-

driven operations demand high-performance storage. The High IOPS Adapter delivers

throughput of up to 300,000 IOPS — 230 times better IOPS than with HDD disk drives.

IBM’s exclusive eXFlash provides flash memory SSD storage that can deliver up to 4.8

TB of storage with 720,000 IOPS using hot-swap drives with optional RAID data

protection. This paper compares these two approaches as well as their advantages over

traditional HDD storage.

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 2

Introduction

The objective of this white paper is to compare the technical differences between SSD

form factors and to inform the reader about the uses and advantages of high-

performance, flash memory-based solid-state storage in enterprise database and other

environments. It also explains how IBM provides superior SSD-based solutions with

IBM eXFlash and the IBM High IOPS SSD PCIe Adapter, and compares these two

approaches.

Audience

Any IT manager, CIO, systems architect, or similar professional considering an x86-

based Windows or Linux infrastructure to run enterprise-scale, highly data-intensive

solutions will benefit from reading this study to help them understand SSD technologies

and how these can help with their IT and business problems. Anyone currently

experiencing less than acceptable IOPS capacity, inefficient use of disk space, or high

Total Cost of Ownership will also find here information pointing to an effective solution.

Contents of this Report

This white paper contains the following major sections:

Data Storage Trends and Issues in x86 Environments — This section identifies

increasing problems with using traditional HDD-based systems for extremely

demanding or highly transactional data operations, and describes why and how

flash memory-based SSD technology is being harnessed as a solution.

IBM’s Solutions for High-Performance Data Storage — This section describes

IBM’s SSD offerings for the eX5 systems and explains how each can be used to

overcome the limitations of mechanical HDD drive technology. It compares the

different approaches used in the offerings and describes where each can be used.

Scenarios — This section provides scenarios to illustrate the use of IBM’s high-

performance storage offerings as solutions to specific business problems.

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 3

Data Storage Trends and Issues in x86

Environments

The demands placed on data storage technology in Enterprise IT are increasing, driven

by new types of work and technological advances. Organizations are merging their

information resources and sharing data among platforms, applications, data centers,

departments, and nations. Companies are using new business solutions to save money

by consolidating resources. They are analyzing and automating operations in real time,

using business analysis and business intelligence to best their competition.

These developments have spurred a tremendous rise in data storage, helping to make

this the fastest-growing aspect of data center infrastructure. Having to support this

growth has also helped make data storage technology one of the fastest-growing items

on the IT budget. Enterprise data has been predicted to continue expanding by 40

percent or more each year.1 According to industry analysts, revenue from high-

performance, data-driven business analytics software of all types (including business

intelligence, workforce analytics, supply chain production, customer relationship

management analytics, etc.) will have climbed at a compound annual growth rate of

between six to eleven percent over the five-year period from 2008 to 2012. 2

However, capacity and scalability are not the only areas of storage technology under

pressure today. Greater performance in data operations is increasingly demanded by

many data-driven applications. Real-time event tracking and automation, ATM kiosks,

and business analytics all require near-zero latency in data operations. Higher

performance requirements, along with the need to constrain costs (for the technology

itself as well as for related power expenses), continue to drive innovation in storage

technologies.

Trends in Providing Solutions for High-Performance Storage

The fundamental technology at the heart of enterprise storage continues to be hard disk

drives (HDDs) with magnetic recording. These mechanical “spinning disks” have

traditionally been used to drive data in day-to-day IT operations. HDDs provide fast

random-access performance, while much slower, linear magnetic tape technologies have

1Predicts 2011: Storage, a Thicket of Digital Life in Evolving Internet and Entwining Storage Landscapes,

Nov. 2010, Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates 2 Worldwide Business Analytics Software 2008-2012 Forecast and 2007 Vendor Shares, IDC, 2008.

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 4

traditionally been used for long-term enterprise data backup. SSDs provide a new,

higher tier in the storage hierarchy.

IOPS Performance Challenges for HDDs

Computer processors have followed Moore’s Law, rapidly improving potential

performance with the number of transistors on a single integrated circuit doubling every

18–24 months. Improvements in mechanical disks proceed linearly. Mechanical HDDs,

limited by things like spindle speeds and actuator movement, have not been able to keep

up, resulting in a growing performance gap between the HDD’s ability to access data

and the processor’s ability to process it. The advent of multicore CPUs has further

widened this gap, along with other advances in related areas of technology. This gap has

become problematic where high-performance data service is required.

High-speed SANs are commonly used for large-scale databases with heavy IOPS.

However, each disk in a SAN provides just a few hundred IOPS. Faced with ever-

increasing demands requiring thousands of IOPS, data centers need to add more disks

to the SAN. This approach is expensive and inefficient, because only a small portion of

the HDD’s platters are used for actual data storage; the additional disks are used to

expedite storage and retrieval operations, while much of the storage capacity is unused.

The price for HDD storage, in terms of dollars per gigabyte, has declined at a rate of 50

percent or more per year over the past 10 years. However, the IOPS rate has improved

by five percent or less per year.

Cost Challenges for High-Performance Storage

Cost has been a limiting factor in finding alternate means of providing for these IOPS-

intensive applications and scenarios. For at least three decades, extremely fast Solid State

Disk (SSD) technology was built with volatile DRAM memory with a battery backup for

protection. At 1,000 times the cost of an HDD of equivalent capacity, it was cost-

prohibitive for all but the most specialized niches. Nonvolatile flash memory has

changed all that.

Flash SSD Solutions

Flash memory, based on the NAND (the logical “Not And” operation), costs a fraction of

the equivalent DRAM-based storage. Initially, flash memory was used in portable

devices because of its high performance and shock-resistance compared with HDDs. As

smart phones, tablets, digital cameras and the like become ubiquitous, consumer

demand continues to push prices down rapidly. Innovators have adapted the more

affordable flash technology to enterprise storage. The value proposition is also improved

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 5

because power and cooling requirements for SSDs are a fraction of that required for

traditional HDD storage.

Flash memory-based SSD is still significantly more expensive than HDD storage. But the

SSDs on x86 systems can operate at up to 80 or 90 percent storage capacity with little to

no effect on performance. Conventional HDD storage capacity compares at 40 percent or

less. SSDs also yield I/O response rates up to 100 times greater. A data center requiring

high-performance storage no longer must deploy 10 times more storage capacity than is

needed for the data being stored in order to ensure a sufficient IOPS rate. Higher cost is

offset, as well, by lowering data center power consumption and cooling requirements. In

addition, there are fewer disks to maintain, reducing TCO.

Flash memory-based SSD storage inserted into a commonplace web server that costs

tens of thousands of dollars can result in server performance that mimics a high-end

SAN costing tens of millions of dollars. For example, with flash memory-based SSD, a 3-

D rendering from medical research can be processed in minutes, compared to hours

with traditional HDD-based storage.

Developments and Innovations for the x86 Platform

Improvements in x86 systems continue to make them a robust IT platform for all kinds

of large, business-critical operations. It is essential for data centers to ensure that these

breakthroughs do not simply move performance bottlenecks from one component to

another. At the forefront of ongoing advancements in x86-based technology, IBM offers

x86-based systems that have removed performance bottlenecks from the processor,

memory, and I/O, delivering total optimized solutions for high-performance computing.

The next section describes how the IBM System x eX5 portfolio of x86-based servers

offers total solutions, and specifically examines its features for data-intensive

applications and scenarios.

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 6

IBM’s Solutions for High-Performance

Environments

IBM eX5 — the fifth generation of IBM Enterprise X-Architecture® — represents the

leading edge of x86-based computing, ideal for the most demanding high-performance

requirements. The latest eX5 systems feature Intel® Xeon® processor E7 compute

power, larger and more efficient memory options, and high IOPS storage using flash

memory-based SSD technology. Designed with mainframe-inspired reliability features,

eX5 systems have demonstrated record-breaking performance and scalability in mission-

critical, enterprise-class workload environments.

With unprecedented memory capacity, eX5 systems are the only x86 platforms offering a

complete solution for data-driven operations that demand high-performance. Options —

including the pioneering IBM MAX5 memory expansion, IBM eXFlash, and IBM High

IOPS SSD PCIe Adapter for high-performance data operations — help eX5 systems

reduce the number of servers necessary to meet memory requirements or the number of

disks necessary to meet I/O performance requirements.

IBM High-Performance Data Solutions

IBM offers two storage options for very high-performance, high-IOPS data-driven

applications and scenarios — IBM eXFlash and the IBM High IOPS SSD PCIe Adapter —

both based on flash memory-based SSD technology. These two options have different

form factors which can be deployed separately in optimal scenarios or can be deployed

together in complementary configurations.

IBM eXFlash

IBM eXFlash delivers flash memory-based SSD capabilities in a hot-swap disk-drive

form factor, similar to that employed in HDD-based solutions. Each eXFlash comprises a

backplane, up to eight 1.8” SSDs, SSD hot-swap carriers, and indicator lights. The

eXFlash backplane pops into the drive bays of the x3690, x3850, and x3950 servers. Two

can fit into an x3850 or x3950 system, and three can fit into an x3690 system. Standard

IBM ServeRAID M5015 (with the Performance Accelerator Key) or B5015 disk

controllers provide optional RAID data protection capabilities to eXFlash. Alternatively,

a host bus adapter (HBA) can be used for higher performance without RAID data

protection.

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 7

Just one eXFlash SSD pack can conceivably give customers the same performance as that

achieved using as many as 800 spinning disks, which would make the eXFlash 97

percent less expensive and would require only one percent of the power costs.

The SSDs used in eXFlash are available in 50 GB or 200 GB capacities. Each eXFlash SSD

pack can have up to eight disks, each of which can deliver up to 30,000 IOPS. Since the

x3690 supports up to three eXFlash packs, it can deliver up to an astonishing 4.8 TB of

storage with 720,000 IOPS. Even in terms of disk-to-disk performance, eXFlash has been

shown to achieve 2,100 percent more IOPS and nine times faster response times than

traditional hard drives. 3

IBM High IOPS SSD PCIe Adapter

These PCIe adapters represent a new generation of extremely high-performance storage

for System x and BladeCenter. Available in several sizes from 160 GB to 1.2 TB, these

adapters deliver throughput of up to 300,000 IOPS — 230 times better IOPS than with

hard disk drives. For example, one can deliver 97,014 IOPS at 4K block random reads as

compared to 420 IOPS for a traditional 15K RPM 146 GB HDD, with only 1 percent of

the latency experienced with the disk drive.

High IOPS adapters deliver cost-related benefits of lower power consumption and

cooling requirements, as well as a smaller storage footprint than HDDs. Because high

IOPS adapters are deployed directly in the server, no external storage is required in

some cases. They are optimized for System x rack servers and can be deployed in blade

solutions via PCIe expansion units.

Unmatched Flexibility in High-Performance Storage Options

With System x eX5 rack-mount servers, IBM offers both the IBM eXFlash and the IBM

High IOPS SSD PCIe flash memory SSD Adapter options in the same server, something

no other vendor can offer. This allows for an unmatched degree of flexibility in tailoring

high-performance flash memory-based SSD storage to individual business scenarios.

For the highest eXFlash performance (without RAID protection), the IBM 6 GB SSD Host

Bus Adapter (HBA) is used. Where redundancy and serviceability are not highly critical

considerations, the high IOPS PCIe adapters are ideal for customers looking for the

3 Results of tests conducted by IBM comparing Microsoft Exchange operations run on an IBM x3850 using

both four mechanical HDDs and again using eXFlash with four SSDs. The tests revealed that over 94

traditional HDDs – plus enclosures, rack space, power outlets, and cables – would be required to equal the

performance output of one eXFlash with four SSDs. https://www-

304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/ibmx86/tags/exflash?lang=en_us

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 8

greatest possible monolithic, raw performance in a small, unobtrusive form factor. In

scenarios such as High Frequency Trading, for example, the emphasis is on extremely

high-speed I/O and computations, where no data can be lost if an adapter fails.

Typically, a system offering a high-performance storage option using high IOPS PCIe

adapters will be configured with RAID 1 using OS mirroring. Thus, 50 percent of

potential storage capacity is dedicated to redundancy.

Customers for the IBM eXFlash solution typically seek very high-performance storage

where full RAID data protection, versatility, and serviceability are critical factors. It is

ideal for mission-critical or High Availability scenarios. An example is a medical center,

where high performance, data protection, and high availability are vital. Scenarios

deploying eXFlash also typically include very large databases and data warehouses,

enterprise-wide business analytics, and business intelligence for automation or decision

support.

The eXFlash option uses the disk form factor rather than the PCIe card form factor, with

SSDs packaged very much like HDDs. It uses the same type of bays as HDDs, with up to

eight 1.8” disks in the same space occupied by four traditional mechanical drives. It

allows for easy and rapid serviceability from the front of the unit, with hot-swappable

disks that allow for the replacement of failed disks and the addition of expanded disk

capacity without any system downtime.

IBM eXFlash is the more advantageous option for organizations seeking a JBOD

configuration with RAID data protection. Using RAID 5 or 6 allows eXFlash to provide

more usable storage capacity compared to mirroring techniques used with systems

offering solely PCIe-based SSD storage. Systems having the eXFlash option available can

be configured using one drive for RAID parity and can devote, for example, seven

drives to storage capacity. That way it can devote just 12.5 percent of the high-

performance solution to parity, as opposed to 50 percent with the RAID 1 mirroring

used to provide redundancy with the high IOPS PCIe adapters. This is a significant

consideration when an organization is paying a premium for flash memory-based SSD

storage.

eXFlash is also the more flexible option in that it facilitates more granularity in scaling

than does the high IOPS SSD PCIe adapter. Organizations can purchase storage capacity

in smaller increments, making for a lower cost of entry, and expand capacity as needed

on an ongoing basis.

The table on the following page provides a side-by-side look at different flash memory-

based options, cost factors, and capabilities available for the IBM System x eX5 rack-

mounted systems alongside those for 2.5” 50 GB solid-state SATA disk drives.

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 9

Disk Drive High IOPS PCIe Adapters eXFlash

Positioning Boot Ultra High Performance

Ultra High

Performance, RAID

5/6

Size 50GB SATA

2.5” SSDs 160 SLC 320 MLC 320 SLC 640 MLC

1.8” 50GB

SLC

1.8”

200GB

eMLC

Capacity 50GB per

2.5” bay 160GB 320GB 320GB 640GB 400GB 1.6TB

Max IOPS 5K IOPS 128K R 128K R 300K R 236K R 48K R 240K R

List Price

(USD)

$1745

$0.35/IOPS

$35/GB

$7699

$0.06/IOP

$48/GB

$8299

$0.06/IOP

$26/GB

$16,799

$0.05/IOP

$52/GB

$12,499

$0.06/IOP

$20/GB

$10,000

$0.21/IOP

$25/GB

$26,000

$0.08/IOP

$17/GB

RAID

IOPS* 64K R 64K R 150K R 118K R 48K R 240K R

$/IOP

RAID $0.12/IOP $0.12/IOP $0.10/IOP $0.12/IOP $0.21/IOP $0.08/IOP

Availability Available Avail Avail Avail Avail Avail Avail

Systems

supported

X3550, 3650

M2

X3850 M2

HS12, HS22

LS22/42

x3650 M2, M3. x3850 M2, x3950 M2.

HS22 (BPE3)

DX360 M2, M3

All eX5 systems

eX5 only

x3690 X5

x3850 X5

eX5 only

x3690 X5

x3850 X5

Apps

Boot/paging

Data

Logging

Small/Med

DBs

Medium/Large databases

Cache

Video

Database, Data

Warehousing

Business Intelligence

and Analytics

Decision Support

One advantage of having two different flash memory-based high-performance storage

options in the same system is the synergy achieved by combining the two options to best

leverage the strengths of each. For example, because the high IOPS SSD adapters share a

common bus, data centers implementing additional adapters can begin to encounter a

diminishing return in terms of IOPS scalability. With eX5 rack servers, high IOPS SSDs

can be added to the point where IOPS rates begin to decline. After that the eXFlash

option can be relied on for adding further capacity with no degradation of IOPS. This

approach can be used to provision an eX5 system with additional high-performance

storage capacity, while delivering the same performance as would be achieved by

maxing out the high IOPS SSD capacity.

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 10

Use Case Scenarios

This section describes typical use-case scenarios of business challenges solved by a high-

performance data solution in an eX5 server environment.

Scenario: Online Retail

An online and catalog-based gifts retailer experiences rapid growth in consumer

popularity. As orders increase during the holiday season, the company’s order

fulfillment system becomes overwhelmed, resulting in untold lost sales due to

customers’ inability to access the system in a timely fashion.

The company’s existing system is able to process 700 simultaneous IOPS. In order to

boost performance to 1,800 IOPs, the data center team is advised to implement an

upgrade to a NetApp SAN at a cost of $100,000. Considering the rate of business growth

the company has been experiencing, this solution would likely require another costly

SAN upgrade after only two years — unless they replace the entire system, ending the

lifecycle of the upgrade investment prematurely.

Instead, the company invests in an IBM x3850 X5 server with the High IOPS SSD PCIe

adaptor option. The system’s two high IOPS adapters deliver as much as 600,000 IOPS

— more than enough for some time to come. In addition, by replacing their existing

SAN, the company’s data center benefits from a considerable drop in power costs for

running and cooling all the disk drives in the SAN. The great number of mechanical

disks that would have been required with a SAN upgrade would also have involved

additional administration and maintenance efforts on the part of the data center’s staff.

For this investment, the company realizes considerable savings in TCO, as well as

deferring well into the foreseeable future the need for the otherwise expected order

fulfillment system upgrade.

Scenario: Law Enforcement Operations

A large state law-enforcement central operations unit is faced with having to replace its

data center equipment. Serious latency and periods when data is unavailable has caused

more and more patrol officers to miss running checks on vehicle tags or drivers licenses

during traffic stops. At the same time, the operations unit is participating in a multi-

organizational IT initiative to share and cross-reference data between criminal units and

agencies involved in firearms control and immigration. A new system will have to allow

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 11

district court judges to immediately review a defendant’s current legal status and past

record. The system would have to be exceedingly reliable and include RAID data

protection for mission-critical operations. This initiative potentially could increase the

demand for IOPS by a factor of hundreds.

An adequate system using a traditional HDD-based data warehouse would require an

estimated 800 spinning disks, each providing 300 IOPS, and would cost approximately

$1,153, 000 for equipment alone over a three-year span. The current data center facility is

too small to contain all the racks involved, so the data center would have to be moved to

a larger and more expensive facility. The projected expense of running and cooling that

many mechanical disks also poses a problem.

Instead, the data center team opts for the IBM x3690 X5 workload-optimized system for

database with ServeRAID and two eXFlash options with 16 x 200 GB SSDs. Because the

x3690 X5 system can accommodate up to three 8-disk eXFlash packs, the operations unit

can quickly ramp up to provision the equivalent 240,000 IOPS per eXFlash. Compared

with a traditional HDD solution, this solution is conceivably 97 percent less expensive

and can potentially use 99 percent less power. In addition, because the floor space

required is considerably reduced, the operations unit can remain in the same facility

with room to spare.

Additional Scenarios

A number of additional scenarios can take advantage of IBM eX5 high-performance

storage options.

Data mining and business intelligence applications can be deployed in more

situations, leveraging the high speed and compact form factor of eX5 servers with

high-performance storage.

Database applications require performance from moderate to high IOPs. Hot,

frequently accessed areas of the database can reside on high-performance storage,

while the remaining areas of the database can reside on HDD storage, all on the

same eX5 server.

Multimedia streaming and video-on-demand require fast access to newer content,

while tolerating slower access to older content. Tiered storage can provide older

content on HDDs and newer content on SSD storage. Or the high-performance

storage can be scaled to multiple terabytes with a combination of eXFlash and High

IOPS PCIe adapters, with no loss in performance.

Video rendering and complex CAD work use special effects that can take time to

load, with each complex frame requiring rendering, processing, and saving. High

performance eX5 storage and processing capabilities can handle these workloads.

IBM – Increasing Performance for Memory-Intensive Workloads White Paper Page 12

Conclusions

Applications requiring high-performance storage can leverage IBM’s unique eX5

platform. The traditional SAN using racks of HDDs is an inefficient and expensive

solution for the kinds of high-performance scenarios often encountered in today’s data

centers. For data-intensive challenges demanding high performance, IBM’s cutting-edge

flash memory-based SSD options can facilitate high-IOPS capabilities in a compact, cost-

effective platform. This can deliver unprecedented storage capacity and IOPS at a

fraction of the cost of new or upgraded SAN storage. It also takes a fraction of the

energy required for operational power and cooling required by racks and racks of HDDs

in a fraction of the space. They may even supplant a traditional HDD-based data

operation entirely.

As the only vendor offering total solutions to x86 data center operations, IBM offers both

eXFlash and PCIe adapter options for providing high-performance SSD storage. Both

options use flash memory-based SSD and have much in common, while each provides

unique attributes, making one more suitable than the other in some situations. They can

also be used together to provide synergistic advantages, leveraging the strengths of

each, while allowing for flexibility in scaling.