Overview - IBM 200 GB and 400 GB 1.8-inch MLC Enterprise SSDs for System x

Content

At a Glance

The IBM 200 GB and 400 GB 1.8-inch MLC Enterprise solid-state drives for System x provide high-performance, reliable solutions for high-capacity enterprise applications with a moderate read/write mix by employing a 6 GBps SATA interface and MLC NAND technology. These solid-state drives present an opportunity to simplify your local storage infrastructure to help maintain overall maintenance and cooling cost, while considering remote storage solutions for end-to-end data availability.

Benefits include:

• 1.8-inch form factor that fits into a conventional hard drive bay, as well an eXFlash backplane
• 200 GB and 400 GB capacities to accommodate loading applications along with operating system booting
• Cost-effective eMLC NAND technology with high read and write performance
• Energy saving with as little as 2.8-4.6 W power consumption per drive
• Enterprise data protection to ensure NAND integrity
• Rigorous testing through the ServerProven program to help ensure your storage subsystem's compatibility and reliability.
• One-year limited warranty, or system warranty

The new IBM 200 GB and 400 GB 1.8-inch MLC Enterprise solid-state drives for System x employ enterprise MLC NAND technology to bring an affordable, but performance-driven solution for applications requiring enterprise workloads with a read-write mix. The new SSD drives are available in 1.8-inch options.

These SSDs use a single-chip controller with a SATA interface on the system side and n-channels of NAND Flash internally. Packaged in an HDD replacement enclosure, these SSDs are designed to integrate easily in existing storage infrastructures. They are targeted at databases that require high I/O performance in random read and random write operations including applications caching and tiering. These SSDs can also be configured into the IBM eXFlash solution for maximum capacity and performance.

Providing additional peace of mind, the 200 GB and 400 GB 1.8-inch MLC SSDs are covered under IBM warranty. These drives carry a 1-year limited warranty; or when installed in a System x server, these drives assume your system's base warranty. Solid-state devices do have finite write or program-erase cycles (P/E cycles) and are listed as Total Bytes Written (TBW). Please refer to Limitations section and the device specifications for details.

Features and functions:

• 200 GB and 400 GB 1.8-inch MLC SATA SSDs for IBM System x
• 1.8-inch industry standard form factors
• Utilizes industry leading 24nm MLC Cost-effective eMLC NAND technology
• MLC SATA drive with high read and write performance to fulfill client needs in the enterprise space
• High endurance to withstand applications with moderate read-write workloads
• Enterprise data path protection
• Energy saving with as little as 2.8-4.6 W power consumption per drive
• Absence of moving parts to reduce potential failure points in the server

IBM System x or BladeCenter system with SATA capability.

• One year limited warranty

IBM 200 GB and 400 GB SATA 1.8-inch MLC Enterprise SSDs

• Approximate Height: 5.2 mm (0.21-inch)
• Approximate Width: 54.0 mm (2.13-inch)
• Approximate Depth: 78.5 mm (3.10-inch)
• Approximate Weight: 39 g (0.09 lb)

Shipping dimensions

IBM 200 GB and 400 GB SATA 1.8-inch MLC SSDs

• Approximate Height: 32.0 mm (1.26-inch)
• Approximate Width: 226.0 mm (8.90-inch)
• Approximate Depth: 150.0 mm (5.90-inch)
• Approximate Weight: 399 g (0.88 lb)

Approvals and Safety

• UL
• CSA
• TUV
• FCC
• EMC
• CE Mark
• C-Tick Mark
• Taiwan (BSMI Certification)
• Korea EMI

Operating Environment:

• Temperature: 0 to 70 degrees C (32 to 158 F)  
  
• Relative humidity: 8% to 85% (noncondensing)  
  
• Maximum altitude: 3050 m (10000 ft)

These SSDs must be installed in selected System x or BladeCenter servers with SATA capability.

The new IBM SATA SSDs work with most operating systems.

For latest compatibility information, visit

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/info/x86servers/serverproven/compat/us/

Note: Some configurations may not be compatible.

Solid State Memory cells have an intrinsic, finite number of write cycles that each cell can incur. As a result each solid state drive has a maximum amount of writes it can be subjected to, documented as TBW (Total Bytes Written). IBM is not responsible for replacement of hardware that has reached the maximum guaranteed number of write cycles. This limit may be revealed as the SSD drive failing to communicate to system generated commands or become incapable of being written to. In general, it is important to distinguish Enterprise Value drives from Enterprise drives.

Enterprise drives have much higher write endurance and as a result can withstand a greater number of writes over the lifetime of the device compared to enterprise value level drives. SSD write endurance is an important factor to consider because unlike spinning disk media, NAND flash has a finite number of program/erase cycles it will accept. SSD write endurance is typically measured by the number of program/erase cycles, or P/E cycles each cell incurs over it's lifetime and per drive is listed as Total Bytes Written (TBW) in the drive specification. This statistic can be used to give an estimate of the drive's remaining life left based on the workload the drive will be subjected to. The TBW value assigned to a solid state drive is the total bytes of written data (based on number of P/E cycles) a drive can be guaranteed to complete. Reaching this limit does not cause the drive to immediately fail; it simply denotes the maximum number of writes that can be guaranteed.

A solid state drive will not fail upon reaching the specified TBW. At some point based on manufacturing variance margin, after surpassing the TBW value, the drive will reach the end of life point, at which the drive will go into a "read only" mode.

As a result of the technology limitations, care must be taken to use SSDs in environments that will not exceed the TBW of the drive prior to the required life expectancy of the application.

For example, lets assume an access pattern of 50% random data and 50% sequential data with block size mixes of 5% of the data is 4k block size, 5% of the data is 8k block size, 10% of the data is 16k block size 35% of the data is 64k block size and 35% of the data is 128k block size. A drive capable of 72 TB of lifetime writes, assuming an approximation of the workload stated above as being worse case, the drive workload must be limited to no more than 40 GB of writes per day to last 5 years and stay inside the 72 TBW limit. For the device to last 3 years, the drive write workload must be limited to no more then 65 GB of writes per day.

Additional information is available at: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/options/storage/solidstate/index.html