Storage Caching

Storage systems have used caching to extend the IOPS limits of the hard drives. The size of caches needs to be a function of the amount of active data. The cache size requirements have grown significantly as data sets have grown richer. However, the cache sizes are limited by the DRAM technology used by the RAID controllers.

Violin enables a dramatic increase in the size of the caches that can be supported cost-effectively. Rather than 64GBytes of cache in a rack, the same rack can support multiple TBytes of cache within Violin memory appliances.

Violin caches can support the low latency and high IOPS required of caches and enable active datasets of many TBytes.

Storage system architects have a new tool for large scale and high performance systems.  Instead of using power inefficient and costly 15K drives, much better price and performance can be achieved with Violin caching and high capacity SATA (7200 rpm) drives.
 

Interested in getting more IOPS and Capacity for your dollar?

Storage systems have provided more IOPS through small and expensive caching boards and through 15K drives which have 75% less capacity for twice the cost and power. A more cost effective architecture for storage is:

High Capacity Memory Appliances:  Tens of TBytes of capacity and millions of IOPS can be supported in half a rack as either cache or primary storage.

High capacity SAS/SATA drives:  Hundreds of TBytes of capacity and thousands of IOPS can supported in a rack with very good power and space efficiency. By using lower speeds (rpms), power efficiency, density and reliability of the drives can all be improved.