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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.